Love in 2019

FREE EVERY WEDNESDAY | METRO OKC’S INDEPENDENT WEEKLY | FEBRUARY 13, 2019

Love in 2019

A modern look at Valentine's Day

By Jeremy Martin and Jacob Threadgill, P.32

OKC’S NUMBER

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INSIDE

An Original Music Docuseries

COVER P. 32 Valentine’s Day is changing as

society becomes more welcoming to all kinds of love. Oklahoma Gazette takes a look at the different ways in which people celebrate — or don’t celebrate — Valentine’s Day in 2019.

By Jeremy Martin and Jacob Threadgill Cover by Tiffany McKnight Photo by Alexa Ace

NEWS 4 CITY Scissortail Park update

6 CITY 39th Street District

NOW STREAMING

PLAYITLOUDSHOW.COM

Association hosts Pride

A CONCERT BENEFITING

7 STATE Anita Hill speaks at USAO

8 COMMENTARY ethics of advertorial

content

10 CHICKEN-FRIED NEWS

THE HIGH CULTURE

FEATURING

12 MARIJUANA rejected Super Bowl ad

FEB

13 MARIJUANA The Toke Board 14 GREEN GLOSSARY

15 MARIJUANA market watch

EAT & DRINK 19 REVIEW Paseo Grill

20 VALENTINE’S DAY Nosh

21 VALENTINE’S DAY La Baguette and

Black Walnut

$10

GRAND EVENT CENTER

23

7PM

KALO TRAVIS LINVILLE MIKE HOST Y THE ALLIE LAUREN PROJECT

22 VALENTINE’S DAY aphrodisiacs

ARTS & CULTURE 24 ART The Art of Collection: A

Collaborative Exhibition at Artspace at Untitled

26 THEATER Almost, Maine at

Pollard Theatre

Goodman at Armstrong Auditorium

Weitzenhoffer Theatre

7th Annual Valentine’s Affair at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center

27 THEATER A Tribute to Benny

STARTING AT $35

28 THEATER Rodelinda at 29 VALENTINE’S DAY Adèle Wolf’s

30

Valentine Gift Guide

Valentine’s

Awards at Tower Theatre

relationships

updates

APRIL 6

32 VALENTINE’S DAY modern 33 COMMUNITY ULI Oklahoma Impact 34 VALENTINE’S DAY #MeToo and 36 SPORTS Oklahoma City Dodgers 37 CALENDAR

MUSIC 39 VALENTINE’S DAY Wayne Coyne

and Katy Weaver’s wedding

COMING SOON

rick springfield APRIL 20

PURPLE REIGN june 14

trace adkins

40 EVENT Lettuce at Tower Theatre 41 LIVE MUSIC

FUN 38 PUZZLES sudoku | crossword 39 ASTROLOGY OKG CLASSIFIEDS 43 CORRECTION

In a Jan. 30 theater story (Arts & Culture, Theater, “Sound machine,” Ian Jayne, Oklahoma Gazette) the actor playing Emilio Estefan was incorrectlyidentified as Ektor Rivera. The actual actor is Eddie Noel. We apologize for the error.

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NEWS

CIT Y

Maureen Heffernan, Scissortail Park Foundation director, gave an update on the progress of the park Jan. 31. | Photo Miguel Rios

Park place

With an opening date set for later this year, the upper park of Scissortail Park is getting its finishing touches. By Miguel Rios

MAPS 3-funded Scissortail Park is nearing completion, with the upper park set to open with a four-day celebration in late September if construction goes smoothly. The lower park will not open until late next year or 2022.

Maureen Heffernan, Scissortail Park Foundation director, gave an update on the park at the end of January. Scissortail Park is composed of a 40-acre upper park and a 30-acre lower park connected by the Skydance Bridge over Interstate 40.

It will be the largest park in the city once fully completed.

Taking flight

The corner at Oklahoma City Boulevard and Robinson Avenue is the “billiondollar corner,” Heffernan said. Omni Oklahoma City Hotel, the MAPS 3 convention center, Chesapeake Energy Arena and a streetcar stop will surround the corner. There will also be an art piece in that corner of the park.

“There is 1 percent for art in the budget for the park, and we’re working with a young couple in Brooklyn, New York, to make this really large-scale piece that’s called ‘Taking Flight,’” she said. “It’s a huge, round orb, and it looks like it’s about to be propelled into space.

It just shows the momentum and the energy taking flight in what the city is doing and has been doing now for a while and will continue to do. … You’ll see the 4

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size of this is actually one of the tallest features in the park.”

The park’s cafe will be located along the new Oklahoma City Boulevard and have outdoor and indoor seating.

Heffernan said they are working to expand the cafe so it can be open yearround once completed. The Social Order Dining Collective, which manages local restaurants like Fuzzy’s Taco Shop and The Jones Assembly, will operate the park’s cafe.

“They’re really excited. They love to go into underdeveloped areas and be a pioneer for restaurants, so we’re really excited with what they’re going to do here,” Heffernan said.

The Social Order Dining Collective representatives unveiled the name and logo for the park cafe during the update.

“We wanted to pick a name that had that nostalgia feel and mix the familiar with the modern, so we’d like to introduce ‘Spark,’” said Courtney Mankin, president of The Social Order. “We decided on that name because we felt like it had multiple meanings. It evokes energy, it can mean a connection between two people or things and it ignites excitement. Just like Scissortail Park is a park for everyone, we wanted to make sure we came up with a brand, a menu and a restaurant for everyone.”

The cafe will feature a menu built around burgers and milkshakes but will

also offer healthy options. The logo incorporates the architecture of the building.

Garden park

An area along Hudson Avenue will be home to lens gardens. Heffernan said one of the gardens is dedicated to mayor David Holt’s family.

“They’re these circular mounted gardens, some you can go into, some you just walk around and it adds some height and vertical interest in that part,” Heffernan said. “Just last year, mayor Holt actually made a donation to the foundation with which we started the endowment. One of the gardens is dedicated to his parents, so that’s going to be really beautiful when these all get planted.”

The two major features of the upper park are the great lawn and the lake.

More than a third of the 900 trees have already been planted on the lawn, which will hold about 15,000 people. Heffernan said the lawn was designed for performances and events of all scopes, including major concerts.

“We can have small events, medium events — medium meaning up to 10,000 people. That’s how big it is,” Heffernan said. “If the arts festival or some other major festival wants to move here, they’ve thought about that and have built in some things there so it wouldn’t take too many extra things to make something like that happen.”

The amphitheater stage will have a green room and be equipped with audio/ visual equipment, which will allow organizers to bring in various types of bands at a lower cost. Heffernan said they want many music events to be free but some will require the purchase of a ticket.

“We plan to do really quality programming there, and not just music, but we can do dance and theater,” she said.

“We can bring in local people to use it — high school bands, local talent. It’s really the community’s stage that we see for the city.”

The lake will be filled by the end of the month, with a 240-foot pedestrian bridge looming above. There will be paddleboards, canoes and kayaks for rental. A biofiltration system will help keep the water clean.

“This bridge will take you toward the boathouse, so just crossing it is kind of an adventure,” Heffernan said. “The boathouse here is just gorgeous. There’s a covered porch, and you’re looking south to Union Station through all the landscaping. The Social Order is also going to run that, so you can get a glass of wine here or you can get something to eat as well.”

The promenade along the Robinson Avenue side of the park will be a curved pathway lined with trees and lights on both sides. It will be almost 20 feet wide.

A block-long interactive fountain will be sandwiched between the curved promenade and the street.

“It will be absolutely beautiful in the evening to walk and enjoy, especially in the summer when it’s cooler in the evening. I think people will just enjoy promenading down the promenade,” Heffernan said. “About halfway through Robinson, there’s a fountain area. This whole fountain feature is actually the most expensive part of the upper park. ... Metal poles will come up from the ground, and water shoots out. It kind of looks like a field of grass swinging in the wind. Children are going to love to run around in that.”

The area was designed so food trucks could line up along Robinson Avenue and people can eat under various shade structures just north of the fountain.

Inspired by Myriad Botanical Gardens, the upper park will also feature a roller-skating rink and a dog park, which will be twice the size of the dog park in Myriad Botanical Gardens.

It will also have a large playground.

“Those are some of the main features of the upper park, and again, all of these areas will be very lush with lots of trees, lots of perennials, grasses — it will very much feel like a garden park,” Heffernan said.

Union Station stands at the end of the upper park and is set to be renovated.

Heffernan hopes to use that building as an event space once it is renovated.

The lower park will not open until late-2021 or 2022. It will be home to basketball, futsal and pickleball courts as well as soccer fields. Heffernan said it will be more quiet and naturalistic, like a nature preserve.

Scissortail Park Foundation will host another community update from 6-9 p.m. Feb. 27 at Capitol Hill Library.

Visit scissortailpark.org.

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NEWS 39th Street District Association hosts the annual Pride parade and festival June 21-23. | Photo Miguel Rios

CIT Y

Take Pride

39th Street District Association hosts this year’s Pride parade and festival as OKC Pride Inc. continues dealing with the aftermath of embezzlement charges. By Miguel Rios

For the first time in decades, OKC Pride Inc. will not host the annual Pride festivities. Instead, 39th Street District Association will take lead on the parade and festival that celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.

Former OKC Pride president Lori Honeycutt was charged with embezzling about $5,000 from the organization last September, which left the group scrambling to continue operations. While the organization worked through restructuring, Lauren Zuniga, director of the district, said 39th Street District members felt the need to take a leadership role to make sure Pride events would still happen this year.

“We care a lot about the Pride festival; it’s the biggest event of the year for the district,” she said. “So it’s important that it happens, especially this year because this is the 50th anniversary of [the Stonewall riots]. So we want to make sure that we go big and that we really can show out for our community.”

OKC Pride is currently operating with interim president Brandon Odom.

The organization did not respond to Oklahoma Gazette’s requests for comment but did release a statement through The Gayly. The statement begins by thanking the community for their patience while they revitalize the organization and affirms they cut ties with people who committed misdeeds.

“The 39th Street District will be hosting and organizing a Pride parade and festival in 2019. OKC Pride, Inc. 6

F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

wishes to make it clear, however, that this is being done without our consent,” the statement reads. “It is not and has never been the intent of OKC Pride, Inc. to have our annual marquee event appropriated by the for-profit business owners who comprise the 39th Street District.”

I think we would hope in the future that there would be more collaboration between the district and the organization.

Lauren Zuniga Zuniga said the district is a nonprofit organization that exists for the interest of the district as a whole. The board is made up of the district’s business owners, which she said makes sense.

“It is made up of business owners, and those business owners have profited from Pride. Several are gay business owners, and they have created gay establishments — gay-friendly and accepting and celebratory establishments,” she said. “Generally, in every city that I’m aware of, those venues should profit from Pride and have in the past, but that piece isn’t any different than any other year.”

OKC Pride’s statement also mentions multiple meetings between the district and the organization that took place regarding a potential collaboration for

the Pride events. Though the organization claims those conversations devolved into discussions of community leaders pressuring the district to host the events completely.

Zuniga said the district wanted to collaborate with the organization for Pride’s sake.

“That is what we definitely were trying to offer because we knew they were in a tricky situation; fundraising might be hard. We were just kind of worried about it. We also offered to do fundraisers to pay off any debts that maybe there are outstanding, but we don’t know what they are because they’ve been kind of quiet about all that,” Zuniga said. “I guess I understand that; it’s just that as a member of the community myself, what happened [last year] was kind of a breach of trust. A lot of feelings were hurt because you feel a little betrayed when an organization that you trust to take care of your community and put on this important event mishandles things.”

OKC Pride claims that the district’s decision to host the events were not the result of the organization’s recent setback.

“These issues have been addressed, changes have been made, and OKC Pride, Inc. stands in a strong position.

We are ready to move forward,” the statement reads. “Unfortunately, inaccurate and misleading statements made regarding OKC Pride, Inc. by certain of those affiliated with the 39th Street District, have been disheartening.”

OKC Pride wrote that they could counter every allegation about their organization but would “refrain from doing so in the interest of uniting our community.” The group also said in the statement that it is planning events and fundraisers to support future endeavors, including the Pride events in 2020.

Zuniga said the district would not be opposed to that.

“If OKC Pride is a viable organization, on their feet and thriving by next year and ready to step back in the ring and do the whole thing, gladly,” Zuniga said. “I think we would hope in the future that there would be more collaboration between the district and the organization. … That was just something that this year the interim president didn’t have any interest in. He didn’t want to work with us in any capacity.”

The district just wants to move on and make sure the event happens, Zuniga said.

“We have about six months, so we don’t really have time to argue and discuss how the last six months has gone,” Zuniga said. “I have children, and Pride is one of our very favorite events of the entire year. It’s like Christmas, especially for my daughter. She’s 16, and she identifies as queer. I would not be able to live with myself if there was something I could have done to make sure the festival happens.”

Pride full

Despite some contention between the district and Pride OKC, Zuniga said they’ve received mostly positive feedback from the community and even mayor David Holt. Zuniga said a team of community members with experience in fundraising, marketing and event planning has been formed and is meeting often to continue planning the events.

“We’re all really committed to making Pride a good experience for ourselves and for young people; especially because we’re talking about this anniversary of Stonewall, it’s like how far we’ve come,” she said. “I feel like one of the things that was really inspiring about mayor Holt sharing his support was the fact that he feels we’re the biggest city in the state so we should have the biggest pride event; we should show off how diverse and thriving the LGBTQ community is here.”

The theme will be revealed on Valentine’s Day and will be related to the Stonewall riots, which sparked the gay rights movements and is considered the dawn of Pride.

“We realized that a lot of people don’t know what Stonewall is and they don’t know how important it is,” Zuniga said.

“So another piece that we’ve discussed a lot is bringing an educational component this year and making sure there are those kind of events.”

A lot of the team members organizing Pride typically participate in the parade, but this will be their first time on the planning side of things.

“We all talk about when you come over the hill in the parade and you see tens of thousands of people screaming and rainbow flags,” Zuniga said. “I mean, there’s just nothing like that.”

Parade registration is open, and vendor registration will open Saturday.

There is also an opportunity to join the Unicorn Squad volunteer group, which people can sign up for on oklahomacitypride.org. Pride is June 21-23.

Lauren Zuniga, director of 39th Street District Association, said Pride is one of the most important events in the city. | Photo Alexa Ace

S TAT E

Finding justice

Anita Hill keynotes a fundraising gala for an Oklahoma university’s new social justice center.

By Miguel Rios

Former University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill entered the national spotlight in 1991, testifying against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, whom she accused of sexual harassment. Though Thomas went on to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, Hill’s legacy transcends those Senate hearings and lives on in modern movements like #MeToo. Now an advocate of racial and gender justice and a professor of social policy, law and women’s studies at Brandeis University, Hill continues to be a catalyst for change toward equality. In fact, Hill currently chairs Hollywood Commission on Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, a commission created by some of the biggest entertainment institutions to combat sexual misconduct in the industry.

Oklahomans will have a chance to hear Hill speak at a University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (USAO) fundraising gala. The gala will raise money for USAO’s newest project, Dr. Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher Center for Social Justice and Racial Healing.

I’m just excited to pay tribute to a woman who has paved the way for so many, including myself.

Anita Hill “Bringing in Anita Hill is the perfect way to demonstrate the sensitive, often painful, but very necessary work that we will do at the Center for Social Justice and Racial Healing,” wrote Dr. Tonnia L. Anderson, director of the center, in a press release. “Through the various facets of the center’s curriculum, we hope to instill the value of empathy, demonstrate the power of participatory political education to create social change, and the necessity of civic engagement to amplify the power of communities and strengthen our democratic institutions.”

In an interview with Oklahoma Gazette, Hill said she wants to emphasize the important work the center can do for society.

“I really want to talk about how important this center is for everyone, especially for the university, but for really everyone in the community as well,” Hill said. “I think what we have to do for the center to flourish is that we have to believe that social justice, however we come to define it, is something that

we can all agree is a goal for our communities. That everyone feels they are socially equal, that they are socially welcome and that their contributions are being valued.”

Fisher graduated high school as valedictorian and went on to graduate from Langston University with honors. In 1946, she challenged the segregation of University of Oklahoma (OU) College of Law. Going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Fisher convinced the judges to unanimously rule that Oklahoma must give African-American students equal quality education.

Though she had to keep fighting, Fisher was finally admitted to the law school in 1949.

“Dr. Fisher was always the one who herself believed in full participation, civic participation, being engaged,” Hill said. “It’s one of the things that she exhibited way back in the 1940s when she was a very young woman, going across the state of Oklahoma, telling people about why it was so important to have integrated higher education systems. …

To have a center that’s focusing in part on political participation named after Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher is just perfect because it shows one of the aspects of her existence and her experience.”

Hill, who taught at OU College of Law, knew Fisher while she served on OU’s Board of Regents. Hill said she feels humbled and proud to get to speak at a gala that honors Fisher. She tells Fisher’s story often as a model of lifelong commitment and determination to justice.

“The idea that she could go from suing the University of Oklahoma in 1946 to being on the board that she sued in the late ’80s, I think it’s just an astounding story,” Hill said. “She rejected this idea that there should be a separate, segregated law school for her. She turned it down and said, ‘No I’m going to stay in here, and I’m going to fight for this.’”

Like Fisher, Hill was born in Oklahoma. She said she is excited to return, especially to honor someone who means and signifies so much to her.

“I’m excited that I get to come back to Oklahoma to see my family, but I’m really excited to be able to be a part of this new center,” Hill said. “On a personal level, I’m excited to pay tribute to a woman who has paved the way for so many, including myself. I stand on her shoulders, as do many, many other women and men.”

Making progress

When Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of

sexual harassment last year, many felt like the country was reliving a chapter of the past. As in 1991, despite hearing testimony of sexual harassment against a nominee, the Senate voted to confirm the accused as a Supreme Court justice.

Just because Senate members might not have learned much since 1991, Hill said, does not mean society has not evolved. She said people shouldn’t judge society by the leadership of the Senate.

“If people think that the Senate hasn’t changed enough, we have the best system in the world to make sure that it does. People can get out and vote,” she said. “We have a system that allows us to change our leadership, to call our leadership into question and to hold them accountable either in public forum or at the ballot box.”

The 2018 hearings came almost a year after the #MeToo movement gained national attention and media coverage. Countless women, many in roles with power and authority, came forward and joined the movement, saying they too had been victims of sexual harassment. Hill said the movement, while discouraging in some ways, has motivated more women to stand up for themselves and get involved.

“In my experience, what I have found is that there are many, many people who will say, ‘Look. This person stood up. I have a chance to stand up for what I believe and to protect myself, and now I have a model for how to do it right,’” Hill said. “A lot of people don’t even know that they have a right to resist. They’re waiting for information and they’re waiting for some inspiration as well.”

The year after Thomas’ confirmation as Supreme Court justice is known as the Year of the Woman because more women were elected to Congress than ever before. Many credit this to the anger women felt watching Hill being

Anita Hill speaks at University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma (USAO) fundraising gala Feb. 22. Tickets are on sale now. | Photo Brandeis University / provided

questioned by a committee full of white men on national television. Hill said anger continues to be an important motivator for people to get involved politically but that USAO’s center and similar institutions can help keep people involved.

“People should get angry in the face of injustice,” she said. “What the center can do is to keep people engaged throughout. The center can also … provide the ideas and the research to support our arguments for change. So it’s important that the center is going to be at a university where we can come together and study these issues, make recommendations of how to directly confront them, figure out what does work for positive change and what doesn’t and then share that information, not only with our students, but to the public.

“I know that there are many people in this country who want to see the kind of behavior that we hear about in the paper that angers and saddens us to end, and they’re looking for help on how to make it happen.”

USAO’s gala is 6 p.m. Feb. 22 at Oklahoma History Center, 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive. Individual tickets are $100, and sponsorships range from $2,500 to $25,000. Visit usao.edu/gala.

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CO M M E N TA RY

NEWS

Opinions expressed on the commentary page, in letters to the editor and elsewhere in this newspaper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of ownership or management.

Paper money Advertorial content is muddying the ethical waters in local journalism.

By George Lang

Late last year, a candidate for public office was interviewed by Oklahoma Gazette for an election preview story, and everything went perfectly well — at least until the interview ended. As the reporter got up to leave, the candidate had the temerity to ask if he could read the story before it went to press.

Just to be clear, Oklahoma Gazette does not do that. No newspaper should do that, yet people now ask for the privilege of editing stories about themselves with alarming frequency. When I started in this business, no one would dare make such a request, but something has changed.

My theory is that advertorial content — advertising that looks like a news article — has warped the ethical backbone of too many publications. The result is that readers and potential interviewees believe that if a magazine or newspaper will publish a piece of selfdealing drivel that was bought and paid for by its subject, then reporters, editors and publishers are complete pushovers at best and prostitutes of the written word at the very worst.

Like the devil, advertorial content can take many forms, some of which are easy to spot while others come heavily camouflaged. Some publications will run advertorial content with a “Special Advertising Section” label at the top, but that is as good as it gets. At worst, an advertorial for a business receives no labeling at all and runs adjacent to a display ad for that same company.

Shortly after I became editor-in-chief of Oklahoma Gazette, I received a call from an editor at a local magazine who I’ve known for a couple of decades. This editor had been told by a local merchant that Gazette was offering his business a piece of advertorial content accompanied by a display ad, and he wanted a

similar deal from this magazine. He then used this line of hot garbage with another local news organization.

It was a lie that defamed my publication in an effort to scam two others.

I don’t know if he found a newspaper or magazine willing to suck up to his company at the expense of their journalistic credibility, but I could point him to The Oklahoman in case his business ever reopens.

In the Feb. 10 issue — the Sunday edition, so the ad rates are higher — a story ran on a local restaurant chain with the headline, “Charleston’s Bricktown great for game time.” This story ran under a banner: “Oklahoman BrandInsight — connecting marketers to The Oklahoman reader.” At the end of the story, the newspaper printed a qualifier for the preceding content, saying that the “article is sponsored by Charleston’s Bricktown, a Hal Smith Restaurant.”

The story was not what the industry typically calls “sponsored content.”

That is when a business decides to sponsor, say, Oklahoma City Thunder coverage. In this scenario, that business cannot be the Oklahoma City Thunder, and it cannot exercise editorial approval over a Russell Westbrook profile.

It is simply trading cash for association with the paper’s Thunder coverage.

The Oklahoman’s BrandInsight content is purely advertorial, but that line about “connecting marketers to The Oklahoman reader” couches it in the language of reader service. The lengthy explainer/disclaimer that runs on NewsOK.com goes farther in pushing this idea.

“BrandInsight content is by-invitation and it is reviewed by NewsOK editors for appropriateness,” the paragraph reads. “However, it allows businesses and organization [sic] to engage

directly with the NewsOK audience on areas in which they have special knowledge. These sponsored native advertising articles are not intended to promote products or services, but rather provide valuable information to our readers.”

So, when The Oklahoman publishes a BrandInsight piece with the headline “OBU to add on-campus MBA classes,” it is not to promote Oklahoma Baptist University’s on-campus masters of business administration program?

Then there is the Dec. 18 story titled, “Regent Bank passionate about nonprofit banking.” This is a story designed to recruit nonprofit organizations to the bank, plain and simple. It only uses sources from the bank, and it does not quote anyone from the nonprofit community, which would be a nice angle if this were an actual news story.

The online version of the Regent Bank story is accompanied by two click-through ads for the bank. One of the ads features the same photo of Whitney Randall, Regent Bank’s director of nonprofit banking, that is featured in the story.

The Oklahoman has a business section that reports on banks, a food section that reports on restaurants and an education reporter whose beat includes higher education. If these stories “provide valuable information” to The Oklahoman’s readership, why are they not being assigned to staff reporters?

There is a perceived value to what looks like a news story. When I worked in public relations for a bit, I learned what “earned media” is and how the value of a news story that results from PR outreach is calculated based on advertising rates, and a news story with color photography is worth some serious dollars.

Advertorial is not the same as earned media, but when it takes up real estate

in Section A, it looks a lot like it, but it is taking up space that could otherwise be allocated to actual news.

When the managers of Oklahoman BrandInsight claim that the stories are “reviewed by NewsOK editors for appropriateness,” I wonder just how much oversight is applied to this content.

After all, when the Charleston’s Bricktown story ran, the entire body of text was dumped into the page layout with no paragraph breaks. It might be the longest paragraph ever published in The Oklahoman.

I wonder what that did to the story’s perceived value.

This is, of course, the work of the trusty copy editors GateHouse employs in Austin, the same ones who wrote the April 2018 headline for Steve Lackmeyer’s column, “Urban Agrarian reborn, and will add shop in downtown Edmonton.”

Because when you’re looking to expand your organic food store based in Oklahoma City, you don’t think of Edmond — you immediately start scouting locations in the capital of Alberta, Canada.

But hopefully you don’t buy a piece of advertorial to promote it.

George Lang is editor-in-chief of Oklahoma Gazette and began his career at Gazette in 1994. | Photo Gazette / file

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chicken

friedNEWS

Courtroom infestation

Bus(ted) fleet

TATYANA FAZLALIZADEH

Bedbugs are notoriously hard to eliminate when an infestation becomes apparent. They can live for more than a year without food, during which time they can reproduce more than four generations of new pests. In order to clear an infestation, you have to kill every bedbug; that’s why most people just move or take out the trusty family flamethrower to escape their tiny clutches.

Hotel rooms and rental properties with deadbeat landlords aren’t the only places that are impacted by bedbugs. Last week, the Rogers County courthouse, which is just outside Tulsa, had to shut down for an entire day after a lawyer brought bedbugs inside a courtroom during a morning docket, according to Tulsa World.

Sheriff Scott Walton told the newspaper that when the lawyer laid his coat over some files, “bedbugs fell out” when he moved his coat. The courthouse was closed at noon and re-opened the next morning after exterminators were called the spray the area.

Despite a Facebook post from the courthouse describing a “confirmed case of bedbugs,” a county commissioner told Tulsa World that the pests were never actually confirmed.

That’s exactly the kind of statement Chicken-Fried News expects from an official who does not want to give an unprepared lawyer or scared defendant any ideas on how to delay their court date. It might be the next “call in a bomb threat” when a student didn’t properly study for a test. Can you imagine being on jury duty only to have it delayed another day by some bedbugs that might or might not have actually existed?

Either way, we applaud the county for taking caution, even if it likely meant some taxpayer money. It’s better than burning down the entire courthouse.

for an organization that is working to rebrand their image.

“I think they wanted to get new buses,” he told Fox 25. “They didn’t want to mess with them because they knew new buses were coming.”

OKCPS bought 42 new buses in 2009 through property taxes. The district retired 13 of those buses early, and according to Fox 25, many had only been in service for about five years.

Though the district did not agree to an interview, they sent the station a statement calling the whistleblower a “disgruntled employee” — another great PR move — and confirmed they had to sell the buses at auction because the mechanical repairs were too costly.

Anyway, the allegedly disgruntled whistleblower told Fox 25 that he just wanted the public to

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Oklahoma City Public Schools faces quite a number of challenges. There are teacher shortages, big class sizes, outdated facilities, upcoming school closures — Chicken-Fried News could keep going, but we would be here all week.

As if there were not enough challenges to overcome, the district also has an ongoing issue with buses.

Since 2003, OKCPS has spent $18 million on new buses and transportation, according to Fox 25 News.

For about 16 years, the district has bought and/or sold new buses every three to four years. The first fleet of 160 buses was part of MAPS for Kids. They were bought for about $60,000 each through the MAPS sales tax, but more than 100 of them were sold for about $650; our calculators say that is only 1 percent of the purchase price.

Fox 25 interviewed an anonymous whistleblower and former lead mechanic at the OKCPS bus garage who said the buses would have been easy to maintain if they were properly taken care of. He said OKCPS told mechanics to “leave them alone” and claims district employees penciled in safety inspections.

District officials declined an interview request by Fox, which, as public relations professionals know, is always a great idea — particularly

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know how unsafe the buses are because they’re not being taken care of. Too bad the buses aren’t riding OKCPS superintendent Sean McDaniel’s Pathway to Greatness.

Home to roost

The old political promise of “a chicken in every pot” seems more tenable when you consider the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates the world’s chicken population is about 22.8 billion, or roughly three chickens for every human being on the planet.

According to some concerned residents, far too many of those chickens live in northeast Oklahoma.

“Drive Highway 412 from Tulsa to Siloam Springs, see clusters of new white poultry barns in groups of 6,” reads a blog post on the website for Green Country Guardians, an organization created specifically to prevent more large-scale chicken housing from being built in Green Country. “Each barn is 2 football fields long and wide as normal semi-truck with holding capacity of 32,000 or more growing chickens.

All pooping, some die, and their badbacteria litter emits pungent unforget-

table odor of ammonia vapors. … [O]ne undisputable [sic] definition of creating and maintaining a public nuisance is having annually tons of new chicken litter from industrial poultry producers’ barns in your country home’s front and back yards.”

Oklahoma Board of Agriculture temporarily halted processing of new registrations for poultry houses in October and created the Coordinating Council on Poultry Growth to address concerns of residents upset by clucker influx, but the suspension of new registrations will end in May if no further action is taken by the board, which processed applications for more than 200 poultry houses in eastern Oklahoma in the 12 months prior to the moratorium. According to Tulsa World, it approved several more in the months after. Fried chicken and discriminatory housing practices both play major roles in Oklahoma’s history, so it is hard to guess how this one will shake out, but Chicken-Fried News just wants to point out that, as far as we know, no one anywhere is protesting the smell of soybean poop.

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11

M A R I J UA N A

THE HIGH CULTURE

Effective advertising

A proposed Super Bowl ad featuring a family from Oklahoma has gone viral since being rejected by CBS. By Matt Dinger

Millions tuned in for the Super Bowl, but what viewers did not see was an ad featuring a former Choctaw family who left home to treat their son with medical cannabis.

Amy Bourlon-Hilterbran moved with her family to Florence, Colorado, in 2014.

“My husband Jason and I are from Oklahoma, born and raised. Choctaw,” Bourlon-Hilterbran said. “He’s a Republican; I’m a Democrat. He’s a former firefighter in our hometown.

Our son, Austin, has a catastrophic form of epilepsy; it’s called Dravet syndrome.

So in addition to what they call intractable seizures, there’s cognitive and physical decline very similar to Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. It’s inescapable, if you will.

“Austin had been on pharmaceuticals from the time he was a year old. He’d been on daily pharmaceuticals since the time he was 4. They never stopped the seizures. We were on dozens of different kinds, dozens and dozens of different combinations. We were on life support at least once a year on the pharmaceuticals. They had hideous side effects; several of them almost killed him. One almost killed him after one pill, and so, when he was 12 years old, he was on life support and the doctors told us that the pharmaceuticals had begun shutting down his organs. So it wasn’t the dozens to hundreds of sei12

F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

zures that he was having every day; it was the pharmaceuticals shutting down his organs that were killing him faster.

At that point, they told us he had two years to live.”

Thanks to medical cannabis, Austin will turn 18 in November.

When the first attempt to get medical marijuana on a ballot petition fell through, she and her husband packed up their family and moved.

“We both went to the same high school, the same high school my grandma went to, the same high school our kids went to,” Bourlon-Hilterbran said. “I mean, we moved from our, from our family, our community, everybody.

We had to leave everything behind.

Neither one of us thought that it would work, but we had to try. ... My husband administered Austin’s very first cannabis drops here in Colorado, legally, but if he would have done so in Oklahoma, he would have been a felon instead of a fireman. So the very first drops that Austin was given, he didn’t have a seizure for three days. And at that point in our life, Austin was having literally hundreds of seizures every day, and we were immediately able to begin weaning and removing the pharmaceuticals from his daily regimen. It took us 10 months to do that.

“Now he’s completely off of the phar-

THC

maceuticals that were shutting down his organs. He hasn’t been in the hospital in two, three years now, and the last time we were in, the tests revealed that he no longer had damage to his kidneys or liver. ... He will go weeks and months with no seizures at all now, and it’s an entirely different world for us, and it absolutely saved his life. But we had to move to another state at the time to be able to have that opportunity. Austin didn’t have any more time. He literally was dying in front of our eyes. I wouldn’t have believed it if we hadn’t lived it ourselves. Prior to this, my husband didn’t believe in medical or recreational in any shape, form or fashion. I didn’t believe in medical. I just thought it’s a recreational drug. But this is America, and we should be able to choose what we consume. And you can easily research the impact. Its potential side effects and dangers are far less than alcohol, or even tobacco or sugar.”

She and her husband are now both certified nursing assistants and have a home and 35 acres in Colorado. Their family has done numerous interviews and was featured in a documentary called The Legend of 420 that is currently available on Netflix.

Going viral

In January, Acreage Holdings arrived at their home for a two-day shoot. The result was two ads: a 30-second spot featuring only their family and a 60second version that also features a former opiate addict and a disabled veteran who also used cannabis to change their lives.

The ad quickly tells their stories and ends with on-screen text that reads, “The time is now. Please call your U.S. Representative or U.S. Senator to advocate for change now.”

No products are mentioned in the

Amy Bourlon-Hilterbran and her son Austin were featured in a rejected Super Bowl ad produced by Acreage Holdings. | Image YouTube / provided

advertisement, and there is no cannabis being smoked on-screen.

Acreage Holdings was willing to pay not only the $5.3 million for the shorter ad, but agreed to finance the 60-second version at a reported cost of up to $10 million, Bourlon-Hilterbran said.

“We knew that there was a risk that they would not air it, but we had been told that the NFL was allowing a CBD coffee stadium ad and Acreage Holdings was willing to put up the money if CBS aired it,” she said.

CBS ultimately rejected the ad. The broadcasting company has not released a statement with their reasoning, but Acreage Holdings tweeted about the rejection on Jan. 22.

“We’re disappointed that we weren’t able to get our #SuperBowl PSA approved by @CBS and share our message on the largest national stage. Acreage stands with the 93% of Americans who s up p or t medica l c a n n a bi s . #TheTimeIsNow for change.”

The same day, they also tweeted, “Amidst the flurry of alcohol ads allowed by @CBS and the #NFL during the #SuperBowl, our PSA was rejected for simply advocating for equal access to medical #cannabis. Who else thinks this needs to change?”

The $10 million advertisement might have reached more than 100 million people if aired, but the buzz the rejection generated among billions is priceless.

Acreage Holdings released the ad online when CBS refused to air it. Print, broadcasting and digital news organizations from around the world picked up the story and shared the video. Current and retired NFL players were talking about it. Jimmy Kimmel and Trevor Noah joked about it on air. Joe Rogan commented on it in his podcast.

“After four days, it had to almost 2 billion impressions for the release of the ad,” Bourlon-Hilterbran said. “At that point, they had captured more than the last four or five Super Bowls and it hadn’t even been a week yet. If the ad had to get rejected, we’ll take this kind of rejection. However, we are incredibly grateful that the rejection has caused this kind of conversation and this uproar in the movement because we were honored to be included, to be able to tell our son’s story, and certainly hope it helps open the door for more, you know, more awareness and education.

“Oklahoma has some of the most progressive, if not the most progressive medical marijuana legislation in the United States currently, and the citizens at this point are not allowing interference and are really taking the reins and creating an industry and a patient forum and an agricultural opportunity for our farmers that is going to it’s going to take it’s going to put a whole another level to the great state that we love and adore.”

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M A R I J UA N A

N Y

THE HIGH CULTURE

Healthy competition

THC

Dispensaries vie to stay relevant in the highly saturated medical marijuana market.

By Matt Dinger

The Oklahoma cannabis market is roaring, with the number of patients snowballing and dispensaries clambering for market share.

As of Feb. 4, 51,978 patient, 348 caregiver and 3,333 business applications have been received, a total of 55,659 applications. Of those, 38,592 patient, 232 caregiver, 928 dispensary and 1,548 grower licenses have been approved, according to Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA).

That means there are now more medical marijuana cardholders in Oklahoma than there are people in Muskogee and more applicants than the entire population of Enid, the ninthlargest city in the state.

The demand has increased so much that OMMA had to shut down its call center and apply that manpower to processing applications, spokeswoman

Melissa Miller said.

“The last week of January, we got over 4,000 patient applications in one week,” Miller said. “And back in September, it was closer to 1,200 applications a week of patient applications, so it’s just steadily kind of increased and then just recently, it seems to be ramping up even more. So we’re just making sure we can get those processed in the 14 days and in order to do that, we needed all hands on deck.”

As of Feb. 1, there were also 234 licensed dispensaries in Oklahoma City, a full quarter of the total number of dispensaries in the state, according to OMMA. That means pockets of concentrated dispensaries in various areas of the city and even some neighborhoods. Gaia’s Favor, 2507 NW 23rd St., sits on the northeast corner of NW 23rd Street and Villa Avenue, directly across the street from Rabbit Hole, 2500 NW 23rd St.

Gaia’s Favor has an online ordering system to serve patients. They go online, select their purchases from the inventory, place the order and receive a message when it’s ready for pickup.

“When you wake up in the morning, if you know you’re going to want something after work, you can send a message that says, ‘Hey, I’ll be in at this certain time to pick it up,’ and it will be ready for you whenever you get here. All you have to do is come up to the counter, pay for it and you’re on your way,” owner Shawn Carson said.

He updates his online ordering page daily.

“It’s easier than always having to call four or five dispensaries,” Carson said.

“The market’s not very mature right

Dispensaries are not only competing to provide the best medical marijuana flowers, but also service perks. | Photo Alexa Ace

now. So things like tinctures and new edibles and stuff like that are always coming out. You want to be informed.”

Patients can also sign up for a system that texts them about new arrivals in the dispensary, broken down into categories.

Tied into both the ordering and customer database is a rewards program. A first-time patient gets 50 points the first time they sign up. Afterward, each time a patient walks into Gaia’s Favor and logs in, they earn 20 points, even without a purchase.

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THE HIGH CULTURE M A R I J UA N A

continued from page 15

Chillum, a glass one-hitter pipe. At 220 points, a free pre-roll is given, and a free gram at 260 points.

The flower in-store is a combination of strains grown by Carson and those purchased from trusted growers.

Down the road at The Greens of Central Oklahoma, 3401 NW 23rd St., the name of the game is quantity and ease of location. They topped out at about 40 strains ranging from $10 to $20 a gram, co-owner Sam Folmar said.

“We’ve got it all. There’s no need to go somewhere else,” he said. “Come up here and get it all and be on your way.”

The Greens of Central Oklahoma purchases from multiple growers but does not grow its own flower.

If patients want larger quantities and variety at the same time, The Greens of Central Oklahoma will allow people to break purchases down by grams at the same price point.

“That’s not going to go on forever, but for right now, it’s giving people opportunity to try out different things and not have to buy one and come back 50 times to try out everything,” Folman said.

Specialty product

Another concentrated area for dispensa-

ries is NW 39th Street. Green Leaf Supply Co., 4417 NW 39th St., carries only a handful of strains, but all of them are grown at its own farms in Oklahoma City and Wanette, co-owner Rob Atkins said.

“Our vision is to become as vertical as possible so we can control the quality of our product,” he said. “We feel like that’s the only way you can honestly control what you’re prescribing to customers — the quality of your flower, your concentrates, all that stuff — is to be hands-on and doing it yourself.”

Atkins said he tried to lure processors from states where cannabis is recreationally legal to come to Oklahoma and work but was turned own. Instead, he hired two of them to come out and teach their extraction processes so they can handle production of their own specialty products like diamonds, which are pure THCA crystals.

Three months after flower has become legal in the state, diamonds are still a rarity.

Atkins knows of only one other processor in the state currently making them.

Across the city, S. Western Avenue is also becoming a hotspot for dispensaries, with a handful of dispensaries along the road south of Interstate 240.

Green Plus, 8613 S. Western Ave., is luring customers with two specialties: the $150 ounce and, soon, an in-store press for home concentrates.

“Right now, this is a bit of a market share grab, so that being said, that’s

where we kind of wanted to make the decision to do the $150 ounce,” said Gary “Turbo” Webb. “Come hell or high water, no matter what, you walk into the Green Plus over here, you’re going to get your ounce for $150 on Western.”

With taxes, that comes out to $173.63.

Webb, a former on-air personality for KATT under that moniker, is now the store manager at the Western location.

“Talking to a lot of the patients that come in, they’re all kind of really interested in doing their own concentrates. And so us securing a nug smasher and providing a nug bar for them to do that is, like, a big deal,” Webb said. “They can’t bring their own flower in and have it smashed because it’s something of a health hazard or whatever. So, as I understand it, they can buy the flower from here, from us, and have it smashed on location.”

They do not plan to charge for the service.

“It doesn’t really cost us anything to do but a little bit more time, so why not give somebody an option?” owner Steve Fritz said.

Regardless of tactics, dispensaries will still be competing with stiff and growing competition for the foreseeable future. The good news is that there might also be more patients to serve than previously expected.

“We thought we’d be getting close to 80,000 perhaps in the first year, but you

Kelly Dawson and Sam Folmar run The Greens of Central Oklahoma dispensary, 3401 NW 23rd St. | Photo Alexa Ace

know, we’re five months in at 50,000, so we might exceed the upper end of our estimates,” Miller said. “We’ll see. It’s possible it could slow down too. You never know.”

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REVIEW

EAT & DRINK

Neighborhood date

After 13 years, Paseo Grill remains the district’s best dining option. By Jacob Threadgill

Paseo Grill 2909 Paseo Ave. | paseogrill.com | 405-601-1079 WHAT WORKS: The seafood is well-executed, and there are tasty vegetarian options to complement steaks and duck.

WHAT NEEDS WORK: The cucumber salad is heavy on pepper.

TIP: It is usually booked on Valentine’s Day by mid-January.

As a kid watching reruns of I Dream of Jeannie, I always wondered what it would be like to lounge inside the bottle full of pillows and colorful curtains.

I was immediately transported back to those memories the first time I sat in a booth with curtains at Paseo Grill, which is definitely one of the best date night locations, be it Valentine’s Day or otherwise, in the city because of its unique setting and its perfectly sized menu that is wellexecuted.

Celebrating its 13-year anniversary this year, Paseo Grill is credited with leading the current Paseo Arts District Renaissance, and it remains a standardbearer as more dining options enter the neighborhood with the recent Pueblo development (Scratch Kitchen & Cocktails, Buttermilk and Oso on Paseo) and upcoming Frida Southwest.

Paseo Grill co-owner Lesley Rawlinson said that the now-signature curtains started with only about three booths.

“It just took off over the years,” Rawlinson said. “We added more and added more, and at this point, it’s almost a monster sometimes because everybody wants to sit in the booth. We didn’t set out to be known as a romantic restaurant, but it’s definitely evolved into that. [The curtains weren’t] about the

romantic part of that, but it was more about being able to have a conversation.”

She said the restaurant is usually booked solid on Valentine’s Day, as it is this year, by mid-January but noted that when it falls in the middle of the week, it usually means increased reservations the weekend before and certainly the following weekend.

“It’s like having an extra Friday night; it’s definitely a bonus,” Rawlinson said of a Thursday night Valentine’s Day. Paseo Grill doesn’t offer a prix fixe menu on Valentine’s Day, instead featuring a daily special in addition to offering lobster tail and lobster bisque. The restaurant uses a consultant chef — a position most recently filled by Josh Valentine, and a new consultant will be announced in March — to handle its daily specials, wine dinners and private catering. Rawlinson said it has developed a solid menu that is not too big and not too small with a consistent kitchen staff. A consultant chef position is purely creative, without having to deal with the day-to-day headaches like schedule management and cost spreadsheets.

Some of its longtime favorites include cream of mushroom soup, Southwest meatloaf with smoked cheese and chipotle demi-glace, and the fresco farfalle pasta with chicken breast, hearts of palm, prosciutto, mushrooms and artichoke hearts in a champagne cream sauce.

“The cream of mushroom is something we’re known for; it’s luscious and silky,” Rawlinson said. “We’ve talked several times about replacing [the farfalle] with something else, and people are just like, ‘Oh no; it’s too good.’”

Over the years, Rawlinson said she

is surprised at the amount of seafood Paseo Grill sells. Grilled salmon with beurre blanc and smoked jicama and pepper confetti, blackened trout with avocado kiwi salsa and miso sea bass with a fried potato cake were elevated from features to full-time menu options.

“We didn’t forecast selling the amount of seafood we do at the beginning, but we have great product and the staff cooks it well,” Rawlinson said.

I ordered the blackened trout ($24) on a recent visit, and it was excellent.

The trout was cooked evenly well with a good amount of spice, and its toasted pine nut orzo was nice and al dente with a good finish. The avocado salsa resembled more like a faintly sweet guacamole, but it was a great complement to the spicy blackened seasoning.

About a year and a half ago, the restaurant retooled its menu to, among other things, add more vegetarian options to the menu. The final result can be found on the lunch menu in a falafel sandwich ($9) and a Singapore street noodle bowl that can easily add chicken or shrimp.

I ordered the falafel sandwich during a lunch visit, and I enjoyed the flavor of the patties and the accompanying hummus. I was expecting a little more crunch on the patty, but Rawlinson said they didn’t want to overcook the falafel.

The cucumber side salad was heavy on the pepper in the marinade but tasty nonetheless.

“It is a little more of a soft

The blackened trout is topped with an avocado kiwi salsa that is like a sweet guacamole. | Photo Paseo Grill / provided

patty even though it is fried,” Rawlinson said. “Falafel can be hard sometimes and quite crunchy. That definitely came up in conversation when that item was developed. It’s not what your normal falafel would be. Our little tagline is ‘American cuisine with international flair,’ so it’s just taking that dish and putting your own little twist.”

Another vegetarian option on the lunch and dinner menu is the vegetable moussaka, which Rawlinson was inspired to add after a trip to Greece eight years ago. Instead of traditional lamb, Paseo Grill uses green lentils and chickpeas that are layered with eggplant on top of red potatoes with mushrooms, tomatoes and artichoke hearts topped with champagne cream sauce, bread crumbs and arugula.

It’s definitely one of my favorite vegetarian options in the entire city; the combination of spices was perfect, and the dish is very hearty with the cream sauce, lentils, mushrooms and chickpeas.

For dessert, I finished one of my meals with an excellent piece of Key lime pie.

I don’t always order dessert, but it’s difficult to pass up a well-made Key lime pie that has a cinnamon, pecan, walnut and graham cracker crust.

Not only is Paseo Grill is excellent date night option, it should be considered for lunch, when it serves smaller entrée portions like its famous chicken pot pie at a lower price in addition to fun sandwiches like a burger topped with basil pesto mayo, pickled fennel and red onion and a beef stroganoff sandwich.

left The seared duck breast is co-owner Lesley Rawlinson’s favorite dish on the menu. | Photo Paseo Grill / provided right The falafel sandwich is a recent addition to add more vegetarian options to the menu at Paseo Grill. | Photo Jacob Threadgill

O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9

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EAT & DRINK A Valentine’s Day take-and-bake option is available at Nosh with chicken piccata or pot roast, and candles and love soap can be added. | Photo Alexa Ace

one served in the restaurant, where it is available as a potpie.

Torres has been serving take-andbake meals since she got a storefront for her Creative Catering in Norman. The previous tenant served take-and-bake meals, and after encouragement from her friends and family, she began to do the same. It continued when she opened Nosh Restaurant in Moore in 2015 after finding the new space through Moore Chamber of Commerce.

It gives people a different option because I know most restaurants are completely booked on Valentine’s.

F E AT U R E

Kim Torres

Holiday helper

Nosh Restaurant offers take-and-bake Valentine’s options to make you a hero on the holiday.

By Jacob Threadgill

What happens when you want a romantic Valentine’s dinner but your favorite restaurant is all booked up and you don’t want to cook an entire meal from scratch?

Nosh Restaurant in Moore is here to save the day with a take-and-bake Valentine’s option that includes food, a dozen red roses, love spell candles and “fall in love” artisan soap.

“We’ve had good response,” said Nosh owner Kim Torres of the Valentine’s take-and-bake option. “It gives people a different option because I know most restaurants are completely booked on Valentine’s.”

Nosh is offering take-and-bake base options built around either pot roast or

chicken piccata, which are two of its top-selling menu items at the restaurant. The meal serves more than two people and comes with garlic mashed potatoes, grilled green beans, salad and cake dots for $60. A total package including a dozen roses from a local florist, candles and a bar of soap is $180.

The candles and soap are supplied through Torres’ secondary business, Rustic 1773 Mercantile, which is named in honor of the Boston Tea Party.

The piccata is dredged in flour and Parmesan cheese, pan-fried until golden brown and served with a lemon garlic sauce made with white wine and capers on the side. The pot roast is the same

The take-and-bake section of the restaurant, which accounts for about 15-20 percent of total sales, Torres said, is fully customizable through the restaurant’s website. Users can add sauces and seasonings while customizing order sizes and choosing from more than 15 entrée items like chicken enchiladas, lasagna, beef tips, brisket and sweet and sour chicken.

Nosh is also offering a special Valentine’s Day menu that will include live music.

Nosh started with inspiration from original chef Ashley Hough, whom Torres hired for seasonal work at the catering company after Hough returned home after years on the road as the personal chef for touring acts like Rihanna and U2.

Torres hired Hough full-time to open the restaurant when the space became available. She credits Hough with coming up with the name of the restaurant, which is a traditional German Yiddish term for “nibble,” but she prefers to use the secondary definition, “to eat enthusiastically,”

ALCOHOLMANAC Gazette’s annual ALCOHOLMANAC is a libation sensation, celebrating bold local BEER, WIN E TREN DS, ARTISANAL COCKTAILS & WICKED LIQUOR, along with the b est party destinations in Oklahoma City. Arriving just in time for ST. PATRICK’S DAY, this issue is good for the SPIRITS! 20

F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

which Torres said drives an interesting menu at the restaurant.

“Now that I look across the country, there are already Nosh restaurants, but in this part of the world, people haven’t really heard of it before,” Torres said.

Current executive chef Ben Gardner is helping guide the restaurant menu into a new iteration that will debut in March, but there are certain things — pot roast potpie; a daily macaroni and cheese special; and King’s Frenchee, a deep-fried overloaded grilled cheese served with smoky ketchup and sweet pickles — that will remain.

Torres grew up eating the sandwich, which was a signature from the chain King’s Food Host in Norman. When she developed the menu with Hough, they found a retro recipe online.

“I like to eat odd things, and I always remembered eating it as a child,” Torres said. “I found the menu online through a Facebook page for nostalgic menus. We tried it and I was like, ‘This is exactly what it tasted like!’ I had a table come in last week of five older women and they all got the Frenchee. I took it out to them and asked if they grew up in Norman.

They did and said they ate it when they were in high school. It’s fun from that standpoint to hear the stories.”

In addition to rolling out a new menu, Torres recently obtained a food truck from her landlord that will be seen at local events and the nearby TOLY food truck park in Norman as soon as it gets re-wrapped.

“We’re excited to take it out soon,” Torres said. “[Gardner] is going to breathe new life into the menu with the understanding that if enough people go up in arms with anything we’ve taken off that, we will reintroduce it.”

Nosh is open 11 a.m.-3 p.m. TuesdayThursday, 10 a.m.-9p.m. FridaySaturday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sundays. It is closed on Monday.

Visit noshinmoore.com.

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to reserve space!

F E AT U R E

Deuce dining

After years of waiting and planning, La Baguette Bistro and Black Walnut are open in time for Valentine’s Day. By Jacob Threadgill

After being in the planning stages for more than seven years, the first two of three restaurants by partners Rudy Khouri and chef Andrew Black in The Maywood apartments in Deep Deuce are open in time for Valentine’s Day. Khouri founded La Baguette Bistro in Norman more than 30 years ago and licenses the name and concept to Michel and Alain Buthion for their May Avenue bistro. He took the opportunity to open his first Oklahoma City La Baguette location in January.

“It’s been exciting and scary at the same time to take on something like this, even though [La Baguette has] been in this business for more than 30 years,” Khouri said. “It’s exciting; it’s like seeing something grow and happen. It’s like waiting for a baby.”

With the bakery’s wide array of chocolates, pastry and cakes, it is the perfect spot to fill a Valentine’s craving, but it has added a few elements to make it more amiable to what Khouri said are 2,400 residents in the Deep Deuce neighborhood and those who work nearby downtown.

“We’ve introduced new stuff; it’s very much the same menu with a few twists and changes,” Khouri said, noting that there is now a grab-and-go section for salads, dips and sandwiches. “Also, we’re introducing nice European items like jams and honey and oil. If you’re going to buy a baguette, we’re doing cheese and charcuterie. We want to be a one-stop shop, not like a grocery store, but a dif-

ferent vibe and more convenient for people who live and work nearby.”

La Baguette’s brunch service added an avocado Benedict to the service, which has been a hit since it opened. Black said the addition of charcuterie and cheese along with the store items are among the only changes to La Baguette compared to its Norman locations.

“They say, what is not broke, don’t fix it,” Black said. “There is nothing wrong with that menu [at La Baguette].

As I was working in this building, I think I spent about a year and a half in the building; it was just me and the construction workers every day. Every time I got hungry, I’d drive to Norman just to eat at La Baguette because it is so good. There was no way we wanted to change the menu.”

Born and bread

Khouri and Black became friends not long after Black, a Jamaican native, moved to Oklahoma City to re-open The Skirvin Hilton Oklahoma City after working at the famed Peabody Memphis.

Black also opened Vast and Flint and began working with Khouri on the concepts at The Maywood about seven years ago. They originally planned for one of the three locations to be a Meatball House but instead took that to Norman, where it closed in 2017.

Black said they always knew they would do a La Baguette and a tasting menu restaurant, Grey Sweater, which is set to open in April and already sold

out of reservations for its first month.

The middle restaurant, all of which are connected by sliding wood doors, was a late concept. After speaking with a marketing agency, they decided on the name Black Walnut because it combines the chef’s last name with bordering Walnut Avenue. Black fashions Black Walnut as a casual eatery that will eventually be open for lunch and weekend brunch with cocktails from around the world, in comparison to Grey Sweater, which is much more driven by technique and designed to push the boundaries of palates.

“It’s going to be a place where flavor has no apology,” Black said. “It means everything on the plate has a story. It’s a happy place to come, and you have a great meal with great company in a casual atmosphere with great wine and a cocktail program that will bring street cocktails from around the world.”

During the interview with Oklahoma Gazette, Black tried a cocktail from a staff mixologist. The staff is still finalizing the menu before it opens for a public preview service featuring a pared-down menu on Valentine’s Day before showcasing its full menu Feb. 15.

Khouri described Black as an innovator on the forefront of cooking, which includes taking a different approach to menu construction. The menu at Black Walnut does not categorize items by appetizers, salads and groups of entrees.

Instead, menu items are grouped by flavor profile like “sweet and savory” or “fresh and light.”

“It’s a new wave of cooking,” Khouri said. “You see it throughout the U.S. and Europe. The millennials are a driving

The new La Baguette Bistro in Deep Deuce offers a new stylistic take on the company’s signature flavors and aesthetic. | Photo Alexa Ace

force around those changes, and it has been fun and fantastic because it challenges chefs and cooks to think outside the box to bring something new and different to the market.”

“We don’t want to be locked into one [type of] food,” Black said. “We want it to be an experience. You can have fried quail with green tomato jam and hushpuppies. You can have lamb ribs glazed in chimichurri and brown sugar with pickled vegetables. We want to cross borders and cuisine. Flavor is the only thing that rules.”

The Maywood building offers a free parking lot with 100 spots with access via Third Street. Guests can take an elevator from the parking garage, where they’ll walk past custom artwork on their way to the three restaurants.

Black admitted that when he moved to OKC 13 years ago, he only planned to stay for a year, but he has fallen in love with the area and considers it home. He is hopeful that Deep Deuce’s growing residential population and easy access to Interstate 235 makes it a viable location.

“We want it to feel like a neighborhood restaurant,” Black said. “I like the fact that if you park, you can walk to it easily.

I love that everyone has a dog or is walking around and you can say hello to everyone.”

To make reservations at Black Walnut, visit blackwalnutokc.com or call 405-445-6273.

La Baguette Bistro in Deep Deuce offers a limited introductory menu as well as its signature cakes and macarons for Valentine’s Day. | Photo Alexa Ace O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9

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GAZEDIBLES

EAT & DRINK

Amorous appetite

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we are focusing on seven of the best aphrodisiacs that are both scientific and anecdotally based. These seven restaurants will help you on the most romantic night of the year.

By Jacob Threadgill with photos

by Alexa Ace, Gazette / file and provided

The Metro Wine Bar & Bistro

The Drake Seafood & Oysterette

Pistachios are extremely high in protein, fiber and healthy fats, which mean they should be part of your everyday diet regardless, as with many nuts. Its high fiber content is key to lowering risk of heart disease, and improving cholesterol is key to getting better blood flow for men suffering from ED. The roasted beet salad at The Metro has been on the menu for years and can get you on the way to a daily pistachio intake.

Oysters are one of the most common anecdotal aphrodisiacs; it comes up on Google right behind appetizers. While there is one study finding evidence to that claim in rats, it has never been traced to humans. Still, there must be something to all of those stories. Why not find out at the best place in the city for fresh oysters, The Drake?

6418 N. Western Ave. metrowinebar.com | 405-840-9463

Ganache Patisserie

13230 Pawnee Drive, Suite 114 ganacheokc.com | 405-286-4068

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

Compounds in cacao are often said to have aphrodisiac effects, especially for women, but there isn’t much scientific evidence to back up those claims.

Anecdotal or not, if you bring home something from Ganache, which uses some of the finest European chocolate in the area, you might increase your chances of getting lucky.

PER PERSON

5 - 10PM

22

F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

BUFFET MENU Steak Pasta Roasted Chicken Salmon Pork Loin 1lb of Crab BROUGHT TO YOUR TABLE

Bananas Foster Cherries Jubilee

Sheesh Mahal 4621 N. May Ave. 405-778-8469

Not only is saffron one of the world’s most expensive spices, it has been found to have significant aphrodisiac properties, especially for men and women who take antidepressants. You don’t have to spend the money at the grocery store for a few threads of saffron when you get Sheesh Mahal’s tasty chicken biryani that is chock-full of saffron rice.

Teapioca Lounge

1101 NW 23rd St. teapiocalounge.com | 405-525-4108

Scientists in China and Korea have long touted red ginseng’s ability to facilitate cellular regeneration, which helps ward off cancer, among many other healthy benefits. It has also been traced to being used as an aphrodisiac for both men and women, if taken daily for one to three months.

Teapioca Lounge’s ginseng oolong tea is a tasty way to get your daily dose.

Theory Coffeehouse & Juicery

Queen of Sheba

2308 N. MacArthur Blvd.

405-606-8616

2209 SW 104 St., Suite L theoryokc.com | 405-378-2316

A lot of aphrodisiacs are anecdotally based or require more scientific research, but maca root is one backed by plenty of science. It even goes by the nickname “the Peruvian Viagra.” It also helps curb the loss of libido experienced by certain antidepressants, and patients have found results in as short as two weeks of daily intake. Theory, a new coffeehouse on the south side, offers maca powder as an addition to its tasty smoothie bowls.

Fenugreek is one of the main spices in the ubiquitous Ethiopian spice blend berbere, but it’s also found in many South Asian dishes. Fenugreek extract, when used daily for six weeks, has been found to increase sexual arousal for both men and women. Combining the use of fenugreek with chili spices that are a common anecdotal aphrodisiac, Queen of Sheba is the perfect place to improve your love life.

SamoSal Chaat 4621 N. may | oKC | 778-8469

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Found treasure

A local collector displays a curated collection of pieces by unknown artists at Artspace at Untitled.

By Joshua Blanco

Emily Reynolds is not your typical art collector. Rather than subscribe to industry-wide trends that place high value on works forged by esteemed artists, Reynolds opts for pieces tailored to her own tastes and preferences, a practice rarely observed in many curatorial circles.

Originally from Boston, Reynolds began collecting artwork nearly two decades ago, gradually adding more pieces to her growing assortment. Her only requirement was she had to like the items she purchased.

In a town not far from her home, vendors and enthusiasts gathered in south-central Massachusetts for the six-day Brimfield Antique Show, an event abounding with over 6,000 antique dealers converging on a piece of land with over 100,000 customers. Always in search of an opportunity to add to her ever-expanding art collection, it didn’t take long for Reynolds to learn there were a number of works out there that, despite being masterfully crafted, were not attached to a name associated with any sort of creative prestige.

To Reynolds, the sense of the unknown that often accompanies these pieces provides them with a certain intrigue absent in many mainstream collections.

“I like things that are a little bit unusual and outside the box,” she said.

“I think it’s neat the mystery behind a lot of these pieces.”

As time went on, her collection grew, and so did her desire to share these works with prospective owners interested in purchasing one for themselves. In 2010, she moved to Oklahoma City, where she continued to build her expanding collection. Six years later, in December 2016, 24

F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

she founded Anonyma Fine Art, a platform for interested parties to purchase or request certain pieces they might otherwise be unable to find.

Reynolds made it her mission to find pieces from lesser-known artists — pieces she finds personally appealing — and sell them to individuals looking to diversify their own collections.

“There are just so many people who’ve made stuff over the last hundred years who were really talented, but maybe they didn’t have much recognition during their lifetime. So I’m finding all this stuff,” Reynolds said. “It’s fairly modern stuff, but it’s a different way for people in Oklahoma City to buy art to make their collections more eclectic.”

Among the pieces in her collection are a variety of paintings and sculptures with an emphasis on abstracts, nudes and portraiture. In building her artistic estate, however, she has made it a point to avoid specializing in subjects related to Native Americans and the Southwestern United States in an attempt to “introduce people to artists from outside our region.” In this way, Reynolds has been able to establish her own style markedly different from that of her contemporaries.

Her approach appears to be working.

Just two years after establishing her dealership, business continues to flourish. Reynolds currently runs operations inside her home, where she invites prospective buyers to see her collection consisting of works from countries like Saudi Arabia, Japan, Cuba and other places across the globe.

Personal aesthetics

One of her biggest challenges thus far has been staying true to her own tastes.

The Art of Collection: A Collaborative Exhibition is on display at Artspace at Untitled through March 14. | Photos Artspace at Untitled / provided

month and serves as a representation of Reynolds’ entire collection, featuring a variety of eclectic works often centered on principles of minimalism As many curators eventually come to and modernity. While these pieces realize, their own thoughts and reacmight elicit an initial sense of attractions to certain pieces do not necessartion, many possess qualities that create ily mirror those of the general public. a deeper sense of appreciation.

“I have to straddle that line between For example, the original creators buying strictly stuff that I would put behind a number of these works are not in my own home, you know, that I like known, and many of the stories behind at a personal level, and then keeping it these pieces will remain forever untold. broad so that it isn’t narrow, it appeals “If people want to buy art for a particular artist or they want to be able to to a broad group of people,” she said.

One of these people happened to be sit down with the artist and have a glass Artspace at Untitled co-founder Laura of wine and hear the artist’s story, I can’t Warriner. According to Warriner, a few provide that because that connection years ago, she collaborated with has been lost over time,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds’ husband on a poetry-in“I can tell them what I know, and somespired exhibition. She began hearing times it’s a lot and sometimes it’s a little. positive comments regarding his wife’s And sometimes, it’s nothing.” collection, and when Reynolds joined This lack of knowledge and history the committee for the Steamroller behind the pieces only serves to strengthen their appeal for many Festival hosted at Artspace last April, Warriner finally had the opportunity viewers. to meet the curator she had heard so “They’re conversation pieces,” much about.

Reynolds explained. “If someone buys Eventually, Warriner visited the something and it’s either unsigned, the Reynolds’ residence and was immedisignature is illegible or there isn’t much ately impressed information on by the pieces the artist, you get to kind of Emily Reynolds create your had in her posow n stor y session.

“I was kind of about it.” intrigued and I The Art of Collection: A really liked her Collaborative eye,” Warriner said of her initial Exhibition with i mpr e s sion s .

Emily Reynolds “[Her collection] and Anonyma was varied in Fine Art is now texture, in on display at A r tspace at content, but the Untitled, 1 NE thing that stood out to me was Third St. Those the real quality interested in experiencing of the work.” the exhibition She was esfirsthand are pecially taken

by Reynolds’ Emily Reynolds, curator and owner of Anonyma Fine Art, encouraged to A rationale for ac- gathers interesting art pieces by mostly unknown artists. a t t e n d quiring these | Photos Artspace at Untitled / provided Discussion with pieces. Rather the Exhibition than seeking big-name artists or pieces Curator 6-7 p.m. Feb. 28. The closing that might one day hold considerably reception is 5-8 p.m. March 14. Most more value as a means of investment, pieces are available for purchase.

Reynolds was going after those which “I think it gives permission to a lot appealed to her own personal sense of of people who are afraid to buy art aesthetics. unless it’s by a name that they can rec“You’ve gotta to buy it because you ognize or understand,” Warriner said. love it, because it speaks to you,” “It’s a good way to educate people to Reynolds said. “I know immediately understand that you should be buying whether I’m gonna buy a piece or not. the art because it speaks to you.”

It’s just a gut thing.”

Visit 1ne3.org.

Warriner also seemed to have an immediate reaction to these works.

Shortly after her initial visit, she The Art of Collection: offered Reynolds a chance to create A Collaborative Exhibition her own exhibition. Reynolds accepted 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, the invitation, agreeing to display apthrough March 14 proximately 40 pieces from her collecArtspace at Untitled tion at Artspace at Untitled.

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F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

ARTS & CULTURE T H E AT E R

Quick Lube Oil Change

Artistic Almosts

Pollard Theatre Company’s upcoming production of Almost, Maine knits together several romantic vignettes about love, life and the liminal. By Ian Jayne

According to urban legend, “almost” only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades, but it also figures pretty largely in John Cariani’s 2004 play Almost, Maine, coming to Pollard Theatre, 120 W. Harrison Ave., in Guthrie Friday–March 2. Tickets are $15-$25.

Almost, Maine is composed of a series of several independent scenes about life in the titular town and what it means to live in a place called Almost. Situated almost in Canada and almost in the United States, the town clings to its tenuous existence, an ambiguous place marked by liminality, its in-betweenness.

Beyond a prologue and an epilogue, there are nine scenes in Almost, Maine.

With evocative titles such as Her Heart, Getting It Back, They Fell, Where It Went, Story of Hope and Seeing the Thing, each mini-episode follows different residents of Almost as they fall in and out of love, according to director Matthew Alvin Brown.

Brown has been involved in theater for the majority of his life and began directing rock shows and musicals about seven years ago. While Brown has performed in several shows at the Pollard (including American Idiot, Passing Strange and Company) and collaborated with W. Jerome Stevenson on a production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, he said Almost, Maine will be his directorial debut at the Pollard.

Initially, Brown said he wanted to direct Almost, Maine because if its fantastical qualities.

“I really resonate with the absurdist elements of this show,” Brown said. “It’s very funny and very sweet, sure … but the absurd magical realism just spoke to me.”

Brown wanted to emphasize the ways in which “almost” functions in the play, in terms of this magical

realism that translates geographically and romantically throughout the show.

“It’s Maine … almost. It’s you … almost.

It’s me … almost. It’s just that heightened bit of reality that makes it ‘almost,’ so that it can seem more of a fairy tale than a mirror. It’s almost an accurate depiction of love. It’s just a bit askew,” Brown said.

Although Almost, Maine follows several different character paths through and to love, the show’s cast is small, with just four actors. Consequently, Brown said finding the right actors was paramount since each has to play almost everyone, tapping into a character’s essence.

“They aren’t caricatures, and they don’t have time to hide behind wigs, etc.,” Brown said. “They have to find the subtle, honest nuance of each person, and quickly.”

Making magic

Cast member Kris Schinske Wolf has worked as an actor in the Oklahoma City metro for two decades. Wolf is affiliated with Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre (CityRep) as well as the Actor’s Equity Candidacy program and has performed in three shows at the Pollard, most recently in last December.

For Wolf, the biggest challenge that Almost, Maine poses is one of distinguishing different roles from each other, especially because all the characters are from the same town with similar backgrounds and ages.

“We want to honestly represent different people in the town without becoming caricatures,” Wolf said.

To prevent flattening out characters when playing multiple roles, Wolf said it’s helpful to develop histories and backstories for each.

“Each scene represents a glimpse into the lives of each of the characters and tells a complete story in and of itself,” Wolf said. “Although the characters know one another, we only see them interact with one or two others throughout the play.”

Wolf said part of the magic of per-

forming in Almost, Maine is bringing to life a world “where the figurative becomes literal.”

“Because Almost, Maine is magical and wonderfully peculiar, we all want to honor that spirit, allowing the scenes to naturally be what the playwright intended without trying to make them ‘funny,’” Wolf said. “John Cariani is a smart and funny man. We can trust that and let his stories do the work.”

All the work behind the scenes comes in order to create situations that ring true and with which the audience can identify, Wolf said, noting that the play is about finding love but also losing it, too.

The play is family-friendly, but Wolf said it also makes a great date night, especially since it runs through Valentine’s Day. Jared Blount, who has worked in theater professionally for the past decade and at the Pollard for the last six years, also described the challenges and rewards of playing multiple roles in Almost, Maine.

“I play five different characters,” Blount said, “but oddly enough, they have some pretty noticeable similarities. The greatest challenge so far has been bringing enough honesty to each character to make them relatable while finding the subtle differences that make them unique.”

Blount said each of the show’s romantic vignettes also has a “unique touch of Jiminy Cricket” and creates a quirky kind of magic that translated into a rewarding experience as an actor.

“Working with a director like Matt makes the job seem easier than it should be, and you leave every rehearsal thinking, ‘Was it supposed to be that fun?’ But then again, that’s pretty typical at the Pollard,” Blount said. “And I think that’s what audiences recognize more than anything at that place — how much fun the whole experience is.”

Visit thepollard.org.

Almost, Maine Friday-March 2 Pollard Theatre 120 W. Harrison Ave., Guthrie thepollard.org | 405-282-2800 $15-$25

Almost, Maine features several independent scenes that take place in the neither here nor there town of Almost. | Photo Pollard Theatre / provided

T H E AT E R

All Goodman

Julian Bliss Septet puts a spin on Benny Goodman’s iconic hits at Armstrong Auditorium on Thursday. By Jeremy Martin

Born in Chicago in 1909, Benny Goodman began playing clarinet at age 10, taking lessons at a local synagogue before playing in jazz bands as a teenager. He rose to national prominence in 1935 and became known as The King of Swing, leading bands that included other luminaries such as Gene Krupa, Harry James and Charlie Christian, but his interest in classical music led him to record Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and commission compositions from Béla Bartók and Aaron Copland.

Born in the UK in 1989, Julian Bliss began playing clarinet at age 4, performed at Buckingham Palace at age 6 and studied classical music under groundbreaking clarinetist Sabine Meyer before forming a septet to release an album of Goodman’s music in 2012, something he hadn’t imagined when he first bought a Goodman CD on a trip to America at age 7.

“I never really considered playing any jazz myself up to that point, even then to be honest,” said Bliss, scheduled to perform A Tribute to Benny Goodman with his septet 7:30 p.m. Thursday at Armstrong Auditorium, 14400 S. Bryant Road, in Edmond. “I listened to it, and I liked it, but it seemed far removed from what I was learning, what I was doing, and I didn’t really consider playing jazz until many, many years later when I was putting together a new project. … We thought we’d arrange a couple of tunes of Benny Goodman’s, tunes he made famous, and then it just kind of grew from there really. … I had always listened to jazz, and when it comes to jazz

and clarinet, that’s a pretty good place to start, I would say.”

While Bliss had to learn new playing methods and another branch of music theory in order to play Goodman’s music, he said the two styles are more alike than listeners often realize.

“I don’t feel that jazz and classical are as separated as some people make out,” Bliss said. “There’s a huge amount of similarities. It all stems from the same thing. You have a music theory to each discipline, and when you’re on stage, you are trying to improvise in one way, shape or form. The only difference in classical is that you have the notes on the page to play and in jazz, sometimes you don’t. … It’s all about giving the audience a good time. Essentially you’ve got to entertain them.”

Julian Bliss Septet’s album A Tribute to Benny Goodman includes versions of many of the clarinetist’s most famous songs including “Don’t Be That Way,” “Moonglow” and “Avalon,” but Bliss said he doesn’t just want to cover the classics note-for-note.

“What we’ve done with the show is taken some tunes that he made famous or was associated with and then put our own spin on them because jazz evolved over the years,” Bliss said. “Playing with the other guys I have in the band, who are absolutely phenomenal, means we can have a bit of freedom and we can come at these tunes from a slightly different standpoint. I’m still trying to remain true to the sound and feel at least of how it was back then, but in terms of style, I always say play whatever comes to your mind. … In the begin-

ning, we would listen to a lot of arrangements of Goodman to see what we liked and what kind of changes we wanted and what sort of framework, but from there, we tried to let it just be its own thing. … You’ll never be Benny Goodman, obviously, so we wanted to make it something different, kind of a modern take on that style of playing.”

Classic jazz

In addition to Bliss, the septet includes Martin Shaw on trumpet, Lewis Wright on vibraphone, Neal Thornton on piano, Colin Oxley on guitar, Tim Thornton on bass and Ed Richardson behind the drum kit.

Hearing Goodman’s take on classical compositions such as Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, which Bliss has also recorded, provided a new perspective on the relationship between jazz and classical music and more insight on Goodman as an instrumentalist.

“There are some elements of his playing that people would term unconventional as a traditional classic clarinetist, but they’re all good things and a very interesting take,” Bliss said. “We should always be open to hearing different interpretations of the same piece of music because you might hear something that you really like, and it’s nice to hear a fresh approach. So I’ve always enjoyed listening to his recordings and whenever they’re at times unconventional and the way he plays isn’t the way everyone would play, if nothing else, it’s interesting to hear.”

Performing works by Goodman and other jazz artists has shaped Bliss’ classical performances.

“Playing jazz has had an influence on my classical playing,” Bliss said. “I think it’s the freeness of jazz where we go out onstage and we don’t really know what’s going to happen until it happens.

Accepting that, if you like, has led to a certain type of freedom and of feeling relaxed before I go out onstage. … It’s nice to be able to bring that element to

Julian Bliss Septet performs variations of Benny Goodman songs. | Photo provided

the classical playing, too.”

Performing Goodman’s works in environments suited for symphonies can also give audiences a different listening experience.

“Most of the concerts that we do as a band for this project are in concert halls instead of jazz clubs,” Bliss said.

“In a jazz club, it would be very informal.

People would be eating and drinking and talking to each other, but here, they’re sitting down and watching the show. … So even though there are similarities, it is a very different atmosphere, and we encourage the audience to, if they hear something they like, make some noise. Feel free to get up and start dancing. … To be honest, the more into it the audiences get, funnily enough, the more into it we get. It’s that adrenaline.

The more you see people enjoy it, the more you get into it and try and take risks because you feel very comfortable and very free. So we like it when the audience is having a good time because it means that we’re doing something right.”

But because of jazz’s improvisational nature, Bliss can’t say for certain what exactly each show will become until it takes shape.

“It’s never the same from one gig to another,” Bliss said. “We could do 10 gigs in a row and they’d all be fairly different, so it’s a living thing.”

Tickets are $31-$71. Visit armstrongauditorium.org.

A Tribute to Benny Goodman 7:30 p.m. Thursday Armstrong Auditorium 14400 S. Bryant Road, Edmond armstrongauditorium.org | 405-285-1010 $31-$71

O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9

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ARTS & CULTURE

Advertise in Gazette’s Wedding & Event Guide The

from left Danielle Herrington and Emma Youngblood takes turns playing the titular role in George Frideric Handel’s Rodelinda. | Photos University of Oklahoma / provided

time. The large interval leaps and wide use of the soprano range express how unhinged Rodelinda is and allows for some great coloratura passages to be invented.”

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T H E AT E R

ook B of

Handel intrigue

A queen must make impossible choices to save her son and her kingdom in OU’s performance of Rodelinda. By Charles Martin

Winter is coming, but not fast enough.

The final season of Game of Thrones will not start until April, so for those jonesing for some brutal power grabs and complex political intrigue, George Frideric Handel has your hook-up with his soaring opera of royals gone rabid, Rodelinda. Emma Youngblood and Danielle Herrington take turns portraying the titular character in University of Oklahoma’s production opening Wednesday.

Rodelinda was first performed in 1725 and follows the desperate maneuvering by the queen of Lombardy. After her husband is deposed, Rodelinda’s son becomes the tantalizing prey to all her husband’s would-be successors. Villains are also angling to capture Rodelinda’s heart to secure their claim to the throne.

Impossible sacrifices are made, alliances are forged and then broken, and the story features decision-making so dark and shrewd that it could’ve easily come from the mind of George R. R. Martin.

Well, aside from all the singing and noticeable absence of dragons.

The time period has been shifted a bit from the original production, according to Herrington, who is pursuing a doctorate of musical arts in voice.

“The whole premise of the opera centers on the historical noble family of the Lombards, ruling in Milan in 661.

I am playing the queen, Rodelinda, who is wife to Bertarido — historically called Perctarit or Berthari — and mother to Flavio. However, our production is not set in the original historical period but rather in the Regency era during the Napoleonic wars. So still historical for us today but just a different point in history, which affects the costuming and our interpretation of the role.”

Youngblood is a first-year master’s

student majoring in voice with an emphasis on opera. She describes Rodelinda as a “very strong and courageous woman who knows her priorities.” Though some of the decisions she makes might seem shocking to modern audiences, Youngblood insists it’s all just an expression of her loyalty to her family.

“It can be challenging trying to relate to characters that were written centuries ago, but the themes of suffering through tragedy, not giving up on love and fighting for what’s right are universally and timelessly relatable,” Youngblood said. “I do think as opera singers, we have an advantage because there is so much to learn about our characters through the music.

Especially with Handel, his compositions are so emotional and expressive. There is so much said in the haunting chord progressions, fiery coloratura passages and the beautiful legato lines. You know immediately how your character is feeling just by listening to the opening phrase.”

Handel also does not go easy on the solos, creating some really challenging feats for Youngblood and Herrington to master on top of the complex character motivations of a woman going to any length to save her family.

“Rodelinda’s aria in act two, ‘Spietati, io vi giurai,’ was the most daunting to me,” Youngblood said. “During this scene, she is gambling the life of her son in exchange for her marital freedom. This is a crazy and dangerous bet that no mother would ever think to make, but her confidence, intimidation and tenacity allow her to win her freedom and keep her son safe. So understanding her motives and being able to channel all of those emotions was very challenging. It was even more challenging to sing. Handel’s voice writing in this aria is strong and quite revolutionary for his

For Herrington, there were two factors that proved the biggest challenge: the size of the role and the Baroque style.

“I’ve sang lead roles in Mozart and Rossini, which of course are difficult.

However, a Handel Baroque role calls for a massive quantity of music. Additionally, the da capo form requires the singer to create firework ornamentation on the repeated A section. Four of the five arias for Rodelinda are in the da capo form. It’s very thrilling to sing once mastered, but the process of learning it and deciding what is just right for each singer’s particular instrument takes an immense amount of concentration, time and skill.”

According to Herrington, every role is doubled in the production, which can create even more complications.

“We have the same music and the same blocking,” she said. “However, it does become trickier in regards to the da capo embellishments since we have different ornamentations we’ve written for ourselves. Essentially, we just have to keep it in tempo as much as possible and watch the conductor intently.”

Herrington has also performed in a number of operas, including Don Giovanni, Nicer When You Smile and Die Fledermaus. Her path to stage wound through early lessons in classical piano and classical voice because she just didn’t have access to live opera until her senior year of high school.

“I was given the opportunity to sing the role of Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, a one-act [Gian Carlo] Menotti opera. It was my first opera to see and to sing, and it changed my life.

I’ve been dedicated to the art form in various ways ever since.”

Youngblood has performed in Roman Fever, Iolanthe and Don Giovanni. She also found her passion for opera in high school.

“I attended a Metropolitan Opera performance of [Jules] Massenet’s Manon,” she said. “I was sitting in the last possible row in the back of the top balcony, but I couldn’t believe how resonant and clear their voices sounded.

I could hear every consonant, breath and emotion, and I was captivated.”

Visit ou.edu.

Rodelinda Wednesday-Sunday Weitzenhoffer Theatre University of Oklahoma 563 Elm Ave., Norman ou.edu | 405-325-4101 $10-$20

T H E AT E R

Valentine’s variety Internationally known burlesque performers showcase all sides of love and romance at Adèle Wolf’s Valentine’s Affair. By Matthew Price

Celebrate the “good, the bad and the ugly of love and romance” with Valentine’s Affair presented by Adèle Wolf’s Burlesque and Variety Show 9 p.m. Saturday.

“We work hard to make our events inclusive for a diverse audience, and the Valentine’s Affair is no different,” Wolf said in an e-mail interview with Oklahoma Gazette. “We have many couples and groups of friends coming to enjoy a night out or celebrate a special occasion. We’ve even had a couple get engaged at one of our shows!”

Every burlesque show is different, Wolf said, but the focus of her show from the beginning has been to showcase the top talent in burlesque and variety entertainment.

“Our motto is, ‘You don’t have to go to Vegas to see an amazing showgirl revue!’ because we believe that Oklahoma City deserves world-class entertainment,” Wolf said. “Our rotating cast features entertainers from Absinthe Las Vegas, Dita Von Teese tours, the Burlesque Hall of Fame and more. All of our shows feature a variety of performance genres and styles ranging from classic to modern, always with a good dose of comedy.”

Like each holiday production, Wolf said, the Valentine’s show incorporates the holiday into its theme. But don’t feel like you must be in love to enjoy a Valentine’s show.

“Our Valentine’s Affair in particular is a celebration of the good, the bad and the ugly of love and romance with something for everyone to relate to regardless of their sexual orientation or

relationship status,” Wolf said. “We will have burlesque, aerial arts, belly dance and hooping acts in addition to Valentine’s-themed audience participation games, cocktails and a photo booth.”

Bringing in well-regarded special guests is a noted aspect of Wolf’s variety shows.

“This show, we have an internationa l headliner, Sweetpea from Minneapolis, who has been performing burlesque for 15 years,” Wolf said. “She has won more awards than I can count from the world’s top competitions in our industry, including Most Dazzling and first runner-up for Miss Exotic World/Queen of Burlesque at the Burlesque Hall of Fame.”

Other performers have backgrounds as aerialists, professional cheerleaders and belly dancers.

“We have aerialist Emma D’Lemma from Dallas whose choreographed works have been presented at the American College Dance Festival, the Burlesque Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Club Méditerranée and The Petite Palace Circus Tent Show, to name a few,” Wolf said. “And we have the award-winning Raven Rose from Hot Springs, who came to burlesque from professional cheerleading. I’ll be performing as local support as well as Ayperi Al Jawahir from Aalim Dance Academy; their organization holds several major awards under their collective shimmy belts.”

Burlesque school

Special guest workshops are held Sunday at Oklahoma School of Burlesque, 2520 N. Meridian Ave., in conjunction with Valentine’s Affair.

Emma D’Lemma is offering a Splits Clinic, and Sweetpea is offering Floorwork for Burlesque.

Access to noted burlesque instructors in Oklahoma City wasn’t available when Wolf first became interested in the art form.

“My interest in burlesque started much before the current revival really took hold.

And by the time I started performing, there were still very few burlesque schools,” Wolf said. “There certainly wasn’t one in Oklahoma City, which is why I later founded the Oklahoma School of Burlesque. So I was mostly teaching myself from classic burlesque reels and The Burlesque Handbook

by Jo Weldon.”

Wolf began taking workshops Raven Rose is an award-winning burlesque performer who began her career in burlesque after transitioning from professional cheerleading. | Photo Adèle Wolf / provided

Adèle Wolf’s 7th Annual Valentine’s Affair is Saturday at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center. | Photo Carrie Strong / provided

on her travels, training with many top names; she now also teaches at many of the same institutions, including The New York School of Burlesque, the first neoburlesque school in the world, founded by Weldon.

“That was such a dream to instruct there and really felt full-circle,” Wolf said. “My personal style is very classic, with a specialty in 1940- to ’60s-style burlesque, and I keep those Old Hollywood aesthetics and movement style whether I’m dancing to big band tunes from the era or to rock ’n’ roll.”

Rock ’n’ roll is a main inspiration behind another upcoming show in Oklahoma City.

“After the show, I’ll be popping back over to Berlin for some performances and production planning,” Wolf said.

“I’ll be back just in time to debut a new production that reflects my love of rock ’n’ roll and icons like Bowie at The Boom on March 22-23.”

David Bowie has long been an influence of Wolf in ways that go beyond his music.

“David Bowie has been my idol since I was 6 years old, and I wouldn’t be the person or the artist I am today without that influence. Although he is mostly known for his music, he was a true renaissance man with his hands in so many art forms, which I can greatly relate to as a multimedia artist myself: music, dance, theatre/film, visual arts,” Wolf said. “His various experiences and training in performing and visual arts informed his music, live performances and aesthetic.”

Much like Bowie was meticulously involved in every detail of his work from album covers to music videos and concert sets, Wolf said she is always trying to push herself to learn new skills and stay “very involved in every aspect of [her] production company, from the design of promotional materials, artistic direction and curation of the shows, to designing and often even fabricating set pieces [herself].”

Wolf said one particular Bowie quote reflects how he motivates her in her artistic life.

“One of my favorite quotes from Bowie in regards to being a working artist that can really summarize how I try to use his influence in my life is, ‘If you feel safe in the area you’re working in, you’re not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about in the right place to do something exciting.’”

Also coming up later this year for Wolf is the seventh annual Oklahoma City Burlesque Festival June 21-22 at Tower Theatre.

Wolf said about 40 percent of the audience at her shows are regulars who attend multiple productions. But even if you’ve seen each show, the content changes each year.

“Every show is completely different

Ayperi Al Jawahir from Aalim Dance Academy in Oklahoma City belly dances in Valentine’s Affair. | Photo Adèle Wolf / provided

than last, even within the same theme, as we have a different cast presenting acts that have never been seen in Oklahoma City,” Wolf said. “Audiences always have a fresh experience to look forward to with us.”

Visit adelewolf.com.

7th Annual Valentine’s Affair 9 p.m. Saturday Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center 3000 General Pershing Blvd. adelewolf.com | 405-673-6162 $25-$40

O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9

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ARTS & CULTURE

CO M M U N I T Y

Galentine’s Day, an alternative or extra Valentine’s Day celebration, was created by Parks and Recreation show co-creator Michael Schur. | Photo NBC / provided

Modern love

Valentine’s Day spending increases, even as less people participate in traditional forms of the holiday. By Jacob Threadgill and Jeremy Martin

Valentine’s Day spending in the United States is projected to grow this year even as fewer people are celebrating the holiday, as the market is fueled by those in the 35-44 age group and people ages 25-34, according to National Retail Federation.

Research from NRF finds that the average person spends $161.96 — men in the survey spend an average of nearly $230 while women spend almost $98, which the NRF projects to total $20.7 billion in total spending, a 6 percent increase from 2018.

“The vast majority of Valentine’s Day dollars are still spent on significant others, but there’s a big increase this year in consumers spreading the love to children, parents, friends and coworkers,” NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay said in a press release.

As spending increases, the number of people participating in the holiday is on the decline. Only 51 percent of the those responding to NRF’s survey said they plan to celebrate the holiday, which is down from 63 percent pre-recession in 2007.

The largest growth industry in Valentine’s spending is gifts for pets.

Although birthrates among the millennial generation are at an all-time low with wage stagnation and climate 32

F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

change hovering our heads like the sword of Damocles, millennials have a lot of fur babies and like to shower them with love and affection. Millennials represent a third of the country’s dog and cat owners, the largest pet ownership of any generation.

Spending on pets is projected to top $886 million this year, up from $751 million last year and an increase from $519 million when the NRF first included pet gifts in 2008.

The types of spending aren’t the only thing about Valentine’s Day that is changing. A 2018 study in England of Generation Z (ages 17-25) found that only 66 percent identify as exclusively heterosexual, the lowest generational gap, compared to 88 percent of Baby Boomers. Millennials and people from Generation Z are also less likely to think of relationships in a traditional binary setting.

Such is the case for cover models Ginnie Douthitt and Fern Salazar-Casanova, who

have been part of a gender and partnerfluid relationship.

Casey Longacre and Dennis Rudasill haven’t been dating long enough to have spent a Valentine’s Day together, but Longacre said they don’t have anything in particular planned for Feb. 14.

“We’ve only been dating for about eight months, so we haven’t had a Valentine’s Day yet,” he said. “It’s just to me like any other day. … I’ve never really been in a relationship around Valentine’s Day. I’m a chill person, so if I’ve ever been dating anyone, it’s been, like, just treat anyone you’re with special every day.”

Longacre, who performs in drag shows as Tape, said the day in the 21st century seems more like a cash-grab than a meaningful holiday, and since LGBTQ+ relationships have been historically excluded from mainstream celebrations of romantic love, he doesn’t feel any real connection to the traditions.

“I honestly just think it’s kind of a commercial day, as much money as people put into buying Valentine’s Day apparel and merch and how much of it you see in the stores,” Longacre said. “A lot of the people I see actually celebrating Valentine’s Day are my straight friends, straight couples. I just think LGBT people really haven’t had that long to experience it. … We didn’t have the chance to, so we’ve just made every day kind of like that.”

Other loves

In the last decade, Valentine’s Day has been joined by a pair of bookended holidays: Singles Awareness Day (SAD) and Galentine’s Day. SAD is typically recognized on Feb. 15, the day after Valentine’s Day, but Groovy’s in Oklahoma City, 505 Mosteller Drive, is

hosting a SAD dance party Thursday and will hand out colored wristbands: green for single, yellow for undecided and pink for taken.

Galentine’s Day was invented on the second season of Parks and Recreation in 2010. Lead character Lesley Knope (Amy Poheler) throws an annual celebration on Feb. 13 for her female friends to drink wine, eat sweets and spend quality time together. In the episode, Knope describes the day as “like Lilith Fair, minus the angst.” The celebratory event has taken on a life of its own, even four years after the end of the television show.

YWCA Oklahoma City hosts its second annual Galentine’s Day 10 a.m.-11:30 a.m.

Saturday in the ballroom at Skirvin Hilton Oklahoma City, 1 Park Ave. The event includes brunch with mimosas and will have raffle items like a pair of diamond earrings from Diamonds Direct, a goodie basket from The Pioneer Woman Mercantile and a weekend trip to Tulsa.

Individual tickets are $35, and a table seating 12 is $420. Tickets can be purchased at ywcaokc.org.

“My favorite part was how the whole room felt like community,” said Lynn Martin, who attended the event in 2018.

“Even though we sat down at the table as strangers, by the end of the event, we were chatting and just enjoying each other’s company like old friends.”

There has yet to be an official “male” version of Galentine’s Day, which has drawn the ire of so-called Men’s Rights Activists, but the irony of situation is that Galentine’s Day was invented by Parks and Recreation co-creator Michael Schur, who said the episode was created to show Knope cared about “her many girlfriends, as she did about her romantic partnerships,” Schur posted on Poehler’s website Smart Girls.

“She took them out to brunch, gave them personalized presents, celebrated their successes, and generally made a fuss about how wonderful they are,” he wrote.

Long live love — of all kinds!

Though millennials and people in Generation Z spend Valentine’s Day a little differently than most other generations — even treating their pets to gifts — holiday-related sales are expected to increase this year. | Photos bigstock.com

CO M M U N I T Y

Building honor

Urban Land Institute Oklahoma’s fifth annual Impact Awards honors responsible land use.

By Matthew Price

Making the community more user-friendly is part of what Urban Land Institute Oklahoma is celebrating with its fifth annual Impact Awards.

The Impact Awards honor projects that represent the best practices in land use and development. The awards are the headline event each year for ULI Oklahoma, which supports promoting and maintaining prospering communities through conscientious land use.

“Urban Land Institute Oklahoma’s mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide,” said Ashley Terry, event chair of the Impact Awards. “Each year, the Impact Awards allows our organization to honor the projects that are pioneering, creative and exemplary in their promotion of these goals.”

For example, last year’s winner in the Large Scale Rehabilitation and Restoration category went to the Page Woodson apartments, located in the historic former Douglass High School Building at 600 N. High Ave. Honoring rehabilitative projects of that nature is something that ULI Oklahoma is proud to do, said Mallory O’Neill, programs chair at ULI Oklahoma.

“Last year, we were able to honor Page Woodson as a large-scale rehabilitation and restoration, a building that had been part of the fabric of Oklahoma City for a long time, and repurposed and reused now as residential living when it used to be a former school,” O’Neill said. “Getting the opportunity to honor projects like that is pretty special and is something that’s not really happening anywhere else.”

Looking at a variety of land use projects statewide to gather a list of finalists falls to ULI Oklahoma’s Impact Awards selection committee.

Selecting the finalists for the awards is a multi-step process. First, there’s an open call for nominations that go to the selection committee, which narrows down the list.

“That committee actually goes around and tours each of these properties,” O’Neill said. “So they get a chance to hear from the developer, from the building manager, from the architect, from everybody that’s involved in that project.”

Finalists named

Once the committee finishes its firsthand look, the finalists are selected and announced.

The awards will honor finalists in each of six categories. One winner in each of the six categories will be announced Friday.

Outstanding Community Building Effort: Kerr Park: Heart of the Community Initiative, Red Andrews Park, Ride OKC Outstanding Public Initiative: Cleveland County Complex Master Plan, OKC Streetcar, Pete White Health & Wellness Center Boutique Development: 8th Street Church, Classen29, Rodeo Cinema Small Scale Development: 701 N. Hudson, The Seven at Page Woodson, Garner Crossing Small Scale Rehabilitation and Restoration: 8th Street Market, John Rex Middle School, Elevator Annex Large Scale Development: BOK Park Plaza, Steelyard Apartments “ULI Oklahoma is thrilled to recognize these projects for their positive impact on our communities, by making them more resilient, more walkable and more inclusive. On Feb. 15, we’ll honor the people responsible for developing projects that make Oklahoma a better place to live,” ULI Oklahoma chairman Todd Glass said in a news release.

O’Neill said the hope of the organization, beyond honoring the efforts of those involved, is that the awards will serve in some ways as inspiration to other cities and districts.

“That’s what we really hope this awards [ceremony] does,” she said. “It highlights some really great practices, and it gives people the opportunity to see success stories and take that away and replicate it in their own community, if it’s smaller, if it’s bigger, whatever that looks like.”

Bringing individuals involved in a variety of projects together to meet both at the awards and as part of ULI Oklahoma in general can be part of spurring new development, O’Neill said.

“It’s definitely a big part of this conversation, being able to highlight these best practices and highlight these success stories,” O’Neill said. “It’s something that you can kind of use as a benchmark on development that you would be pursuing in the future.”

Two awards, the Distinguished Merit Award and the Distinguished Service Award, were announced in advance.

The event will be held at Tower Theatre, which was last year’s recipient of the Distinguished Merit Award.

This year’s Distinguished Merit Award reflects the growing reach of ULI Oklahoma as it expands to the Tulsa market.

Tulsa expansion

After being local to Oklahoma City for over a decade, ULI Oklahoma has re-

8th Street Market is a finalist for ULI Oklahoma’s Small Scale Rehabilitation and Restoration Award. | Photo ULI Oklahoma / provided

Ride OKC is a finalist for ULI Oklahoma’s Outstanding Community Building Effort Award. | Photo ULI Oklahoma / provided

cently expanded to Tulsa.

“We’ve been excited to support our counterparts in Tulsa as they get their start,” Terry said. “That idea goes hand in hand with honoring America’s Best New Attraction, Gathering Place.”

The public park spanning more than 100 acres in Tulsa, funded by $465 million from George Kaiser Family Foundation and others, opened to the public in September.

It was awarded the title America’s Best New Attraction by USA Today.

Terry said the creation of Gathering Place is “revolutionizing the public realm” in Tulsa.

“Gathering Place has transformed over 100 acres of Tulsa’s riverfront into a dynamic downtown park,” Terry said.

“Its pioneering efforts in reinforcing a sense of place serve as an example for other communities.”

Brand-new award

For the first time, ULI Oklahoma will offer its Distinguished Service Award.

The first recipient will be Jim Couch, longtime city manager of OKC. “This is the first award of its kind, and ULI Oklahoma is incredibly pleased to honor Jim Couch,” Terry said. “Jim is the longest-serving city manager in our city’s history. Among his many accomplishments in this position, he negotiated a historic water settlement and helped to secure an NBA team in Oklahoma City.

Jim’s service will impact our community for generations to come.”

Couch served as OKC’s city manager starting in November 2000 and retired effective Jan. 2.

“He’s done amazing things for this city, so it feels like with him retiring, it was the perfect year to honor him and

Rodeo Cinema is a finalist for ULI Oklahoma’s Boutique Development Award. | Photo ULI Oklahoma / provided

the service that he’s given to Oklahoma City,” O’Neill said.

O’Neill said the Impact Awards have grown every year and the event showcases each nominee and contains a “fun, funny and innovative” video component.

So in addition to rewarding successful land use projects, the Impact Awards aim to provide an evening of fun.

“The ULI Oklahoma Impact Awards is the best party of the year!” Terry said.

“You do not have to be a member to attend the event. We would love to have folks join us to celebrate our city and recognize outstanding development.”

Tickets are $35-$80. Visit oklahoma. uli.org.

ULI Oklahoma: 5th Annual Impact Awards 5:30-8:30 p.m. Friday Tower Theatre 425 NW 23rd St. oklahoma.uli.org | 800-321-5011 $35-$80

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ARTS & CULTURE

#MeToo continued Local singles continue to navigate the stresses of dating during the heightened awareness of the #MeToo movement. By Jo Light

In late 2017, after the allegations of sexual abuse surrounding entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein came to light, actress Alyssa Milano encouraged women on social media to use the hashtag #MeToo to start a conversation about sexual harassment in their own lives.

Social activist Tarana Burke actually coined the phrase much earlier, in 2006, but the serendipitous mix of Twitter, widespread outrage about Weinstein and the experiences of numerous victims coalesced perfectly to spark a movement that continues today.

Now, the #MeToo movement colors and influences relationships of all kinds, causing some to reevaluate what they want in partners and what behavior they will accept.

Angie Ridings, a certified therapist at Tensegrity Counseling Associates in Edmond, has been practicing for 12 years and works with both couples and individuals. She has seen changes in her patients since the #MeToo movement began.

“I’ve noticed that people are becoming a lot more sensitive to what the other person experiences,” she said.

Now, Ridings said, some patients bring up types of harassment that were previously not considered on a wider scale. For instance, many women within the #MeToo movement have spoken out about issues in their marriages, particularly if a partner is pressuring them into unwanted sex.

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“It’s interesting the number of people that wouldn’t consider that wrong within the context of a marriage,” Ridings said. “Almost like spouses are property. People are really recognizing that either spouse has a right to say no.”

Part of Ridings’ work is helping patients understand when this and other types of behavior are inappropriate or unhealthy.

“A lot of people do struggle with that, women in particular,” she said. “Usually, they just need someone to tell them that it’s abuse.”

One element that Ridings often emphasizes to her patients is the importance of setting and keeping boundaries. She works with individuals to teach assertiveness and understand what makes them uncomfortable.

“The most important thing is to trust your gut,” she said. “If they’re feeling uncomfortable, there’s a reason.”

Ridings noted that some types of harassers often push those boundaries, wearing down a partner to eventually get what they want.

“If you’re slowly trying to coerce someone, you’re not being forceful and blatant about it,” she said, “but you’re basically saying, ‘I don’t like that boundary of yours, so I’m going to keep trying.’”

While working with patients who have experienced an upsetting situation, Ridings uses trauma recovery as a treatment method.

Illustration Ingvard Ashby

“A lot of people will blame themselves or feel like they did something to bring it on,” she said. “So I’ll just explain, over the course of several sessions, that doesn’t belong to you. That’s something that happened to you.”

An understanding of a person’s emotions within a relationship will help them know when a personal line is crossed. And Ridings said everyone needs to learn how to say no and take care of themselves, whether it’s in a dating environment or a committed relationship.

Generational “norms”

In 2016, Maggie Rose Wyatt founded OKC Socialites, a group that holds weekly social events for women age 20-39. Wyatt, a civil engineer, said she started the group seeking connections with women her age. Several group members approach dating with a different eye due to #MeToo. “I had a broken engagement in the spring of 2017,” Wyatt said via email, “so that kind of set me back into the dating game right around the time that women really started coming out about their issues with men, such as #MeToo.” She said that in most cases, the younger men she currently dates tend to be more aware of #MeToo issues.

“I’ve found that [Generation Z] often has less of that toxic masculinity that I see in a lot in men over 30,” she said via email. “But they are also very immature, so it’s definitely a give and take.”

This disconnect between older men who are perhaps insensitive to #MeToo and the younger men who lack maturity has kept her in casual dating circles, at least for now. She hopes men will hold each other accountable as the movement progresses.

Kate Kidd recently joined Wyatt’s

group and works in the alcoholic beverages sales industry. She was stunned when allegations against Weinstein led to an avalanche of harassment allegations and the beginning of the movement. It certainly impacted her point of view.

“I think there’s a couple things to be aware of,” she said. “With the #MeToo movement happening, that definitely raised my awareness around certain issues.”

Kidd, a self-proclaimed optimist and people-pleaser, said that her last relationship of about six months opened her eyes to what she wouldn’t tolerate from a partner. She pointed out that it’s sometimes difficult to spot problems while in a problematic relationship, especially at first.

No major trauma occurred, but she said that she found herself allowing things to happen that she didn’t want.

Problems would occur that she would recall and turn over later in her head with frustration.

“I think it’s very important for women to be aware of the mental impact that the behavior of the people they’re dating has on them,” Kidd said.

She credits #MeToo and her raised awareness as being instrumental in her decision to end the relationship. Now, for her, connecting on an emotional and intellectual level is more important than the physical.

“I know it’s funny to say, ‘Oh, all guys want is sex,’” she said. “But I don’t feel like it’s a good idea to compromise what you’re comfortable with just because people laugh and say that’s the norm.”

Visit metoomvmt.org.

GazetteJR.pdf

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11:15 AM

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OKCU FILM INSTITUTE PRESENTS A FREE SCREENING OF

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Sunday, February 17 2:00 pm Norick Art Center 1601 NW 26th St Oklahoma City University FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC for more info: 208-5707, filmlit@okcu.edu

O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9

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ARTS & CULTURE

SPORTS

Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark is undergoing a $2.5 million facelift that includes a completely new playing surface. | Photo Peter J. Brzycki / OKCTalk

Ballpark uplift

Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark will look different during April 4’s opening day and with a new manager in the dugout. By Jacob Threadgill

Coming off a season in which the Oklahoma City Dodgers were recognized as Baseball America’s Triple A Franchise of the Year and the team won its third division title in four years as an affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the organization is not resting on its laurels.

On a cold day in late January, OKC Dodgers president Michael Byrnes introduced the club’s new manager Travis Barbary and outlined a $2.5 million facelift for Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark that includes complete field renovation, new state-of-the-art LED field lights and patio seating along the first baseline.

“I learned long ago that you never want to invite people into your facility until it is looking its best,” Byrnes said at a press conference Jan. 28 as the field was completely torn up for an overhaul that includes drainage, irrigation and a new playing surface. “Today is a little counterintuitive; however, there is a lot to talk about that will lead to a beautifullooking field on (opening day) April 4th.”

The multi-million dollar project is funded through the city’s 10-year general obligation bond as part of the Better Streets, Safer Cities initiative and a cityinstituted facility fee on event tickets.

The ballpark hosted over 1,500 baseball games since it last installed new sod — when it opened in 1998. The new grass is currently growing on a farm in Tiago, Texas, and will be installed in early March. Its new 30 thousand gallon water reclamation tanks will save approximately 1.9 million gallons annually.

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Fans will immediately notice other improvements, like a new baseline patio atop the visitors dugout in Section 115 that can accommodate 30-50 people with mesh seats, lounge benches and high-top tables in a two-tiered patio that Byrnes said will provide a unique experience and builds off last year’s addition of a beer garden and the opening of the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame in the former restaurant space.

Crews are in the process of installing six new LED light systems produced by Musco Lighting, and the ballpark is one of 20 major and minor league ballparks in the country to have the top-of-theline system that reduces energy costs and on-field glare and has the ability to immediately turn on and off. No more waiting for the lights to “warm up” to take effect.

“We have the ability to add elements of fun,” Byrnes said. “The immediate on and off [adds the] ability of synchronization to music to celebrate home runs and wins.”

An additional 14 smart screens are being installed throughout the ballpark thanks to a partnership with Allegiant Air. The screens offer team facts and trivia and have the ability to be integrated into a fan’s individual mobile device.

Baseball America’s recognition of the Oklahoma City Dodgers organization has had much to do with its on-field success as its community initiatives.

Minor League Baseball recognized the organization as one of five best for its implementation of the Es Divertido Ser

Un Fan campaign to increase outreach to the Latino community. The organization played eight games with special Cielo Azul uniforms and unveiled special menu items and programing during the games. Overall, attendance increased by over 20,000 people in 2018 from the previous year, including its playoff run.

The team will again play as Cielo Azul in seven games June 20-23 against Memphis and July 19-21 against San Antonio in 2019.

Baseball America also recognized the organization’s initiative to create a youth baseball league with Oklahoma City Parks & Recreation, after the department failed to have a league for ages 10 and under in 2017.

“We understand there are barriers to playing baseball,” Byrnes said.

“There are a number of pieces of equipment that go beyond a bat and ball.”

OKC Dodgers funded equipment and uniforms for 20 youth teams across four age divisions that registered 240 children at Stars & Stripes Park. The commitment continues into 2019, and registration is underway.

New manager

Before introducing Barbary, Byrnes noted that the team won its first 15 home games last season, with a joking aside of “good luck” to Barbary — a veteran of the Dodgers organization of 25 years, who rejoins a managerial role for the first time since 2006 after serving as the organization’s coordinator of catchers.

Barbary joked that he has had the

reoccurring dream that he is unable to get the opening day lineup implemented into the computer system, perhaps the manifestation of how much the game has changed since he last filled out lineup cards on carbon paper.

“The biggest challenge for me is getting back into the flow of the game after being so focused on the catchers,” Barbary said. “It’ll take time. The one thing I’m looking forward to the most is spending a majority of the season with a lot of the same 25 guys.”

Barbary will likely get a chance to guide two of the organization’s top prospects Will Smith and Keibert Ruiz — both catchers — at different points during the season. Baseball has changed over the last decade and a half, with a reliance on advanced analytical statistics and defensive shifts. Barbary said he has plenty of people in the organization to lean on for the implementation of those metrics.

“I’m going to lean on a lot of people.

One of them is Jeremy Rodriguez. He has managed a couple of years (2017 with the Great Lakes Loons in Midland, Michigan, and 2018 with the Odgen Raptors in Ogden, Utah) and been through learning the shifts all of the information you have to be able to digest. He’ll be a big resource for me,” Barbary said. “They give us information on shifts before the game starts, and it’s just a matter of being able to interpret it and putting guys in the right spot to be successful.”

Visit milb.com/oklahoma-city.

New Oklahoma City Dodgers manager Travis Barbary with team president Michael Byrnes at an introductory press conference Jan. 28 | Photo Jacob Threadgill

CALENDAR are events recommended

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

BOOKS Adam & Eve poetry exhibition poets Obbie West and Master Piece read romantic and erotic poems, 7:30-10 p.m. Feb. 17. Ice Event Center & Grill, 1148 NE 36th St., 405-208-4240, iceeventcentergrill. eat24hour.com. SUN 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 Literary Lunch: The Federalist Papers learn more about the life and work of founding father James Madison at this lunchtime discussion, 1-2 p.m.

Feb. 13. OCU Sarkey Law Center, 800 N. Harvey Ave. WED

Margaret Verble book signing the Pulitzer Prize finalist will autograph copies of her book Cherokee America set in the Cherokee Nation West in 1875, 6:30 p.m. Feb. 20. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-2900, fullcirclebooks. com. WED New Ink meet up-and-coming authors including Tom Guild, Tohnyonah Jackson, Kirby Davis and more, 3 p.m. Feb. 16. Full Circle Bookstore, 1900 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-2900, fullcirclebooks.com. SAT To Speak Unfortunate Truths poets Mark Tardi, Lauren Zuniga and Todd Fuller will read from their works, 7 p.m. Feb. 19. Norman Santa Fe Depot, 200 S. Jones Ave., 405-307-9320, pasnorman.org. TUE

FILM Capernaum (2018, Lebanon, Nadine Labaki) a boy sues his parents for giving him life, Feb. 15. Rodeo Cinema, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-235-3456. FRI Office Space (1999, USA, Mike Judge) burned-out workers attempt to embezzle money from the corporation they reluctantly work for in this cult classic comedy, 7-10:30 p.m. Feb. 18. Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23rd St., 405-708-6937, towertheatreokc.com. MON To Sir, with Love (1967, UK, James Clavell) a teacher (Sidney Poitier) struggles to get through to students in the slums of London in this classic film presented on OETA as part of its weekly movie club, 9 p.m. Feb. 16. SAT VHS & CHILL Presents: I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988, USA, Keenen Ivory Wayans) Wayans wrote, directed and stars in this tribute to/parody of ‘70s blaxploitation films, 10 p.m.-midnight Feb. 15.

Rodeo Cinema, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-235-3456.

FRI

HAPPENINGS Black History Month Celebration an event honoring the legacy of African-Americans in the US with a presentation ceremony for the Maya Angelou Community Peace Awards, 6-8 p.m. Feb. 14. Ralph

Ellison Library, 2000 NE 23rd St., 405-424-1437, metrolibrary.org/locations. THU Growing Food Together learn practical tools for urban gardening at this workshop led by Dale and Carrie Spoonemore, 1-2:30 p.m. Feb. 16. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. SAT Home on the Range Dinner and Film Screening enjoy a three-course dinner and a screening of the docudrama about the iconic cowboy song “Home on the Range” introduced by director Ken Spurgeon, 5-8 p.m. Feb. 15. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org. FRI Impact Awards a ceremony honoring projects that exemplify positive land use and development in the OKC community, 5:30-8:30 p.m. Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23rd St., 405-708-6937, towertheatreokc. com. FRI Lunar New Year Norman Public Library and the Confucius Institute at the University of Oklahoma present a celebration of the traditional Chinese New Year with live music and dance, 4:30 p.m. Feb. 14-15. Pioneer Library System, 225 N. Webster Ave., Norman, 405-701-2600, pioneerlibrarysystem.org.

THU-FRI

Mashed in 2019 a showcase of home-brewed craft beer, 2-5 p.m. Feb. 17. TapWerks Ale House, 121 E. Sheridian Ave., 405-319-9599, facebook.com/ tapwerks. SUN Midsouth Wrestling Alliance professional wrestlers compete in this local promotion raising funds for the Titans youth baseball organization, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15. OKC Farmers Market, 311 S Klein Ave., 4054860701. FRI OKC Emo Night: Cupid’s Chokehold revisit the romantically troubled pop punk from 1998-2008 at this retro dance party, 10 p.m.-2 a.m. 51st Street Speakeasy, 1114 NW 51st St., 405-463-0470, 51stspeakeasy.com. SAT Oklahoma City Democratic Socialists monthly meeting all are invited to attend this monthly meetup for democratic socialists, 3-5 p.m.

Feb. 17. Will Rogers Garden Center, 3400 NW 36th St., 405-943-0827, okc.gov. SUN Polar Plunge participants dive into cold water to raise money for the Special Olympics, 9 a.m.-noon Feb. 16. White Water Bay, 3908 W. Reno Ave., 405943-9687, whitewaterbay.com. SAT Pop Culture Trivia team up to answer questions about entertainment and other topics in this competition, 8:30 p.m.-midnight Feb. 16. Opolis, 113 N. Crawford Ave., Norman, 405-673-4931, opolis. org/. SAT Saved by the ’90s Celebration celebrate the last decade of the 20th century at this part featuring snacks, drinks, karaoke, music, giveaways and more, 8-11 p.m. Feb. 15. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. FRI Spelling Bee show off your way with letters at this adult version of the scholastic competition, 9 p.m.

Feb. 14. Guyutes, 730 NW 23rd St., 405-702-6960, guyutes.com. THU Tunnel of Love Haunted Attraction use and LED torch to navigate a four-story building full of spooky surprises, Feb. 15-16. The Sanctuary OKC, 12101 N. I 35 Service Road, 405-237-2803, thesanctuaryokc.com. FRI-SAT

Wild Wits Trivia Night compete in teams to show your knowledge at this 21-and-older event with a cash bar, pizza and popcorn provided, 7-9 p.m. Feb. 16. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405-478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org. SAT

FOOD Galentine’s Day Bash join female friends for mimosas and a waffle bar, 7-8:30 p.m. Feb. 13. The Treasury, 10 N. Lee Ave., Suite 100, 325-660-2264. WED

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 success-building habits at this weekly clinic, 11 a.m.

Wednesdays through April 27. Nappy Roots, 3705 Springlake Drive, 405-896-0203, facebook.com/pg/ nappyrootsbooks. SAT Cosmic Mobiles children in kindergarten through fourth grade are invited to make a solar systemthemed mobile for their rooms at this afternoon crafting workshop, 2-5 p.m. Feb. 18. Mustang Parks & Recreation, 1201 N. Mustang Road, 405-376-3411, cityofmustang.org. MON Curious George: The Golden Meatball the inquisitive primate takes a trip to Italy in this familyfriendly musical adventure, Through Feb. 17. Lyric Theatre, 1727 NW 16th St., 405-524-9310, lyrictheatreokc.com. WED-SUN Discovery 2: Knights and Princesses the OKC Philharmonic presents an afternoon of heroic music and stories featuring Phil the Penguin; knight and princess costumes encouraged, 2 p.m. Feb. 17. . SUN Families Explore: Coding learn about computer programming at this family-friendly workshop, 11 a.m.-noon Feb. 16. Moore Library, 225 S. Howard Ave., Moore. SAT I Love Books! young readers ages 0-18 will receive a free book at this event featuring story time, snacks and games, 1-3 p.m. Feb. 16. Nappy Roots, 3705 Springlake Drive, 405-896-0203, facebook.com/pg/ nappyrootsbooks. SAT Nature Music Maps learn how to use nature to inspire songwriting at this musical workshop for children ages 7-11, 10-11 a.m. Feb. 16. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. SAT UCO Opera for Children:Johnny Squeaky a kid-friendly adaptation of a classic Giacomo Puccini opera about a family of mice fighting over a large inheritance of cheese, Feb. 16-17. UCO Radke Fine Arts Theatre, 100 N. University Drive, 405-974-2000, uco.edu. SAT-SUN

PERFORMING ARTS Ailey II a presentation from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater celebrating African-American contributions to modern dance, 7:30-10 p.m. Feb. 16. Mitchell Hall Theatre, 100 N. University Drive, Edmond, 405-974-2000, uco.edu. SAT Barefoot in the Park a newlywed couple struggles with the realities of daily life in New York City in this Neil Simon comedy, Through Feb. 17. Jewel Box Theatre, 3700 N. Walker Ave. THU-SUN Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Dr. Jekyll’s alter-ego Hyde is played by five actors in Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novella, Feb. 15-March 9. Carpenter Square Theatre, 806 W. Main St., 405-232-6500, carpentersquare. com. FRI-SAT Electric Pizza hear new electronic compositions from University of Central Oklahoma graduate students Jonathon Edwards, Breck McGough and Santiago Ramones, 7-9 p.m. Feb. 20. UCO Jazz Lab, 100 E. Fifth St., Edmond, 405-359-7989, ucojazzlab. com. WED GENTRI three tenors perform their self-styled “cinematic pop” music, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14. OCCC Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater, 7777 S. May Ave., 405-682-7579, tickets.occc.edu. THU Gloria editorial assistants struggle to succeed at a Manhattan magazine in this play by Branden JacobsJenkins, Feb. 14-17. Oklahoma City University, 2501 N. Blackwelder Ave., 405-208-5000. THU-SUN

Surrealism & St. Valentine’s: A David Lynch Affair There’s nothing wrong with the traditional roses, chocolates and wine, but sometimes you really just want to treat your Cowboy or your Log Lady to a damn fine cup of coffee. Celebrate Valentine’s Day the David Lynch way at this double feature screening of Mulholland Drive and Fire Walk With Me and check out Lynchian artworks and replicas of the Red Room and Double R Diner from Twin Peaks. The doors open 6 p.m. Thursday for the 7 p.m. show at Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23rd St. Tickets are $15. Call 405708-6937 or visit towertheatreokc.com. THURSDAY Photo provided 37

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The Gravest Showman figure out the culprit in this interactive murder mystery dinner theater production set at a circus, 6:15-9:15 p.m. Feb. 14.

Cattlemen’s Steakhouse, 1309 S. Agnew Ave., 405236-0416, cattlemensrestaurant.com. THU Impressionist Variations the Oklahoma City Philharmonic performs works by Claude Debussy, Astor Piazzolla, Maurice Ravel and Jerod Tate, 8 p.m.

Feb. 16. Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave., 405-297-2264, okcciviccenter.com. SAT Iron Horse Open Mic and Showcase perform music on stage at this show open to all experience levels, 7-10 p.m. Wednesdays. Iron Horse Bar & Grill, 9501 S. Shields Blvd., 405-735-1801. WED

GO TO OKGAZETTE.COM FOR FULL LISTINGS!

OKC Drag Queen Adult Story Hour: Lashes & Lips The ever-popular, always-at-capacity Drag Queen Story Hour hosted by Shantel P. Mandalay is typically a family affair, meeting monthly at Sunnyside Diner, but in the spirit of St. Valentine, adults will have the chance to get in on the fun in February. Ms. Shantel will be joined onstage by her friends Vera Ball, Raven Delray, Tilly Screams, Vanidy Van Cartier and more for an evening celebrating progressive literature and raising funds for the kid-friendly readings that take place on the second Saturday of every month. Story time is 8-11 p.m. Friday at The Boom!, 2218 NW 39th St. Tickets are $25-$75. Call 405-6017200 or visit theboomokc.com. FRIDAY Photo provided Joel Forlenza: The Piano Man the pianist performs variety of songs made famous by Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and of course Billy Joel, 5:30-8:30 p.m. TuesdaySaturday. Othello’s Italian Restaurant, 434 Buchanan Ave., Norman, 405-701-4900, othellos.us. TUE-SAT Pick-A-Tune with Lucas Ross people who have never played the banjo are invited to learn a song; instruments provided, 2-3 p.m. Feb. 16. American Banjo Museum, 9 E. Sheridan Ave., 405-604-2793, americanbanjomuseum.com. SAT Sanctuary Karaoke Service don a choir robe and sing your favorite song, 9 p.m.-midnight Wednesdays and Thursdays. Sanctuary Barsilica, 814 W. Sheridan Ave., facebook.com/sanctuarybarokc.

WED-THU

Storytelling Night: Comedy see local artists, musicians, writers and more sharing funny stories, 7-11:45 p.m. Feb. 16. Resonator, 325 E Main St., Norman, resonator.space. SAT Traditional Music of the Open Prairie hear musician Wayne Cantwell perform folk songs on banjo, dulcimer and fiddle, 1-2 p.m. Feb. 16. American Banjo Museum, 9 E. Sheridan Ave., 405-604-2793, americanbanjomuseum.com. SAT Twelfth Night stranded by a shipwreck in an unfamiliar land, Viola disguises herself as a young man while she searches for her lost twin in this comedy by William Shakespeare, Feb. 14-March 2.

Shakespeare on Paseo, 2920 Paseo St., 405-2353700, oklahomashakespeare.org. THU-SAT

ACTIVE Heart Health Dance learn to dance merengue to keep your heart active at this casual-attire event with heart-healthy snacks and door prizes, 7-10 p.m. Feb. 15.

Northeast Regional Health & Wellness Campus, 2600 NE 63rd St., 405-419-4150, occhd.org/clinics. FRI 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 Run for Recovery 5K and 10K runs to benefit Teen

continued on page 38

News from the Oklahoma Legislative Session

Fridays at 4:44 pm & 6:44 pm Mondays at 6:45 am & 8:45 am

With KGOU’s Dick Pryor & eCapitol’s Shawn Ashley

CALENDAR C A L E N DA R

CAPITOL INSIDER

continued from page 37

ers, through Feb. 28. 21c Museum Hotel, 900 W. Main St., 405-982-6900, 21cmuseumhotels.com. SUN-THU

Recovery Solutions, a nonprofit helping teens deal with substance addiction, 9 a.m. Feb. 17. Stars & Stripes Park, 3701 S. Lake Hefner Drive, 405-297-2756, okc.gov/ parks. SUN

Resistance an exhibition of artist Don Holladay’s works created from burlap, string, house paint, joint compound, sand, collaged photographs, gravel and clothes pins, through Feb. 24. Norman Santa Fe Depot, 200 S. Jones Ave., Norman, 405-307-9320, pasnorman.org. FRI-SUN

Stretch & Sip an hourlong yoga session followed by a wine tasting, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Feb. 16. Waters Edge Winery-OKC, 712 N. Broadway Ave., 405-232-9463, http:wewokc.com. SAT

Valentine’s Pop Up Shop Shop locally from various vendors for unique Valentines gifts., Wed., Feb. 13, 6-8:30 p.m. Will Rogers Garden Center, 3400 NW 36th St., 405-838-8945, facebook.com/events/574734126331221/. WED

A Ship Named Atlast an exhibition of paintings and sculptures by multimedia artist and author Tammy Nguyen, Feb. 18-March 15. The Lightwell Gallery, 520 Parrington Oval, Norman, 405-3252691, art.ou.edu. MON-FRI 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

Complete program schedule at KGOU.org

Filmography: Blindspotting Set in Oakland, director Carlos López Estrada’s Blindspotting follows two friends (Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs, who also wrote the screenplay together) attempting to navigate a gentrified and occasionally brutally violent city where racial tension and class struggle seethe just below the surface, mixing comedy with suspense and sharp social commentary. The Guardian called it “practically 2018: The Movie” making an “insidious crawl away from comedy into sweaty waking nightmare” in its 95minute runtime. Presented by deadCenter Film and Oklahoma Film Society, the screening begins 8 p.m. Friday at 21c Museum Hotel, 900 W. Main St. Admission is free. Visit facebook.com/okcfilmsociety. FRIDAY Photo provided

VISUAL ARTS 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., 405478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org. SAT-TUE

The Chickasaw Nation Arts & Humanities Division

Ansel Adams and the Photographers of the West an exhibition of nature photographs by Adams and several of the photographers he inspired, through May 26. Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive, 405-236-3100, okcmoa.com. FRI-SUN The Art of Collection an exhibition of outsider and anonymous artworks from theAnonyma Fine Art collection owned and curated by Emily Ladow Reynolds, Through March 14. [Artspace] at Untitled, 1 NE Third St., 405-815-9995, 1ne3.org. THU

Mahota Studios 2019 Workshops

Eggtion Figures an exhibition of sculptures by Norman-based artist Tomoaki Orikasa, through March 22. Paseo Studio Six, 3021 Paseo St., 405-528-0174, thepaseo.org. FRI Layered Lives an exhibition of artworks created

by Oklahoma artists Jena Kodesh of Tonkawa and Jill Webber of Stillwater, Through Feb. 16. Cherokee Strip Regional Heritage Center, 507 S. Fourth St., Enid. 580-237-1907. TUE-SAT Monsters and Madonnas view a series of photographs created by University of Central Oklahoma students and inspired by the work of William Mortensen, through Feb. 28. UCO University Library, 100 N. University Drive, Edmond. THU

$100, per class, covers all class instruction and materials.

For more information, or to enroll, call the ARTesian Gallery & Studios at (580) 622-8040.

Opening Reception: A Little Bit of History an exhibition featuring the works of established artists alongside artworks from their high school days, 6-9 p.m. Feb. 15. IAO Gallery, 706 W. Sheridan Ave., 405-232-6060, iaogallery.org. FRI Peggy D. Farris solo show an exhibition of 30 surrealistic oil paintings, Feb. 14-21. Whispering Willows Art Gallery, 226 E. Main St, 405-928-5077. THU Pop Stars! Popular Culture and Contemporary Art an exploration of contemporary pop art inspired

by Andy Warhol, Nick Cave, R. Luke DuBois and oth-

Westheimer Distinguished Visiting Artist Chair: Mildred Howard the mixed-media and sculptural artist creates works that explore socio-political topics such as sexism and racism in unconventional ways, through April 7. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-3253272, ou.edu/fjjma. FRI-SUN Whiteout at Campbell Art Park an outdoor artwork made by hundreds of transparent white spheres embedded with white LED lights and animated in large-scale patterns, Oct. 10-March 31 Free, Through March 31. Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, 3000 General Pershing Blvd., 405-951000, oklahomacontemporary.org. WED-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

see page 41

O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9

38

MUSIC

F E AT U R E

Katy Weaver and Wayne Coyne were wed Jan. 5 on the roof of Plenty Mercantile in downtown OKC. | Photo Katie Lane / provided

Family man

Wayne Coyne discusses his recent marriage and how he feels about bringing a child into this world.

By Jeremy Martin

Asking The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne a question he hasn’t heard before seems almost impossible. He has collaborated with Yoko Ono and Kesha and played Madison Square Garden and Beverly Hills, 90210’s Peach Pit in his more than 35-year career. But after he and Katy Weaver were married last month on the roof of Plenty Mercantile in downtown OKC, we saw an opportunity to ask newlywed Coyne relationship questions that aren’t new but were hopefully new to him, taken from older interviews with other celebrities: Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Much like the Lips’ music, Coyne’s answers used an oddball concept as a launchpad for a multifaceted discussion of life, death, love and more. We discussed pregnancy tests, the Queen of England and the time he was held at gunpoint in an armed robbery while working at Long John Silver’s. What follows is a very small portion of that conversation.

Oklahoma Gazette: Can we start with the proposal and the actual moment of your engagement? When did it happen?

How did it happen? (taken from a BBC interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, 2017) Wayne Coyne: I believe Katy and I, we always thought that we would get married, and then her father died a year and a half ago. … It makes you think, “Oh, gosh.” This family that we’re building or whatever, it has a little

bit more meaning to you, or it did to Katy. It started to mean more to Katy.

And then, we were not trying to not, how would you say it? Before people take the pill and all that sort of stuff, you’re saying, “We’re not trying to get pregnant.” Well, we weren’t trying or not trying, and the second she got off the pill, she got pregnant. We kind of thought, “Well, that was part of the deal.” That was a couple of days or a week or so, and we thought, “Well, let’s see if that’s real or whatever.” You’re kind of in a shock. … So on the way to Hawaii, we stop at — this is tabloid — Miley Cyrus’ house, but she wasn’t there; she was in somewhere. We spent the night there … and while we were in her big bathroom, we did a double test because we are starting to think, “Let’s see if this is real.” She took about 20, I think. ... It started to seem like that was really going to happen, and she started to have signs of that.

Then I just sort of pick a day in the Hawaiian Islands where I thought it could be a surprise and it could work. So it was quite exotic. There’s a little area on the side of one of the beaches there called the Queen’s Bath, and it’s a rocky, romantic thing and water comes in and floods you. … It’s big, jagged rocks and then a very powerful ocean full of turtles and dolphins. It’s beautiful, but it’s hazardous as well. I mean, luckily, we had been there a couple of times, so we kind of knew how not to get killed. And I knew that she really loved the place. We had a little bit of an internal ceremony for her father when we were there the year before because he had just died. So it had a kind of a deep meaning and a fun meaning and a romantic meaning. And it worked out that we were going to be there on a day, and the day was beautiful.

And it just all came together. I very nervously picked some flowers and got a few things together. … Because, you know, you don’t know. Nobody knows it’s happening. Except for you. And, you know, you want the universe to cooperate. And you want it to be a surprise. … We were both on the same page. I was going to propose, and she was going to say, “Of course,” or whatever, and then it did. It went well, yeah.

OKG: Have you met the queen?

Coyne: It depends on who you consider the queen. I mean, to some people, Miley Cyrus is the queen, so yeah, I’ve met her. Is that what you mean? No, you mean the Queen of England. … I’ve never met the queen, but I don’t know if I will.

I mean, I’m not trying to. I think if I wrote a letter every day and said, “It’s my last dying wish,” I’m sure, she would, but I’m not. … I don’t want to make it seem like I’ve tried and failed or that she even knows that I exist. We’re indifferent to each other.

OKG: You two are parents. What do you think about the problems of this modern world and all the changes that it’s bringing to children? Is there something wrong with the younger generation? (60 Minutes interview with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, 1970) Coyne: I’m always encouraging people to, “Do your thing. Do your thing.” And while you’re young, do your thing, because my life was kick-started. I was working in Long John Silver’s, and I already had this wonderful life with my older brothers and my older sister and my parents, who were all great and encouraging and all that, but nothing kickstarted my life like thinking I was going to get killed when I laid on the floor up there at the Long John Silver’s on 30th [Street] and Classen [Boulevard]. I walked out of there, like, “Oh my god!

I’m alive.” I never realized that I was alive. ... I think that really helped me when I was young to say I wanted to play music. I wanted to do art. And I did, and I didn’t really care what other people thought of it. … I do get annoyed some older people that just simply think they know everything and they have no energy. … What can you say? You can’t even reason with them. They already know everything. They’ve already done everything. There’s nothing new.

Everything that happens is stupid now.

left Coyne posted a wedding photo to his Instagram with the hashtag #ihavethegreatestlifethatcaneverbelivedandiamtheluckiesthumantoeverbeonearthmyfamilyisfirstmymusicissecondiamthird. right Lights from Wayne Coyne and Katy Weaver’s wedding | Photos Katie Lane / provided

O KG A Z E T T E . C O M | F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9

39

MUSIC

EVENT

Lettuce’s most recent release is Witches Stew, a tribute to Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew period. | Photo Alex Varsa / provided

Miles ahead

Lettuce brings its cosmic funk to Tower Theatre.

By Matthew Price

For more than two decades, the band known as Lettuce has been bringing the funk in exciting live performances and a series of recordings. The band, comprised of drummer Adam Deitch, guitarist Adam Smirnoff, bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes, keyboardist and vocalist Nigel Hall, saxophonist Ryan Zoidis and trumpet player Eric “Benny” Bloom, comes to Tower Theatre Feb. 20 as part of its Vibe Up tour.

“We love Oklahoma,” Coomes said in an interview with Oklahoma Gazette.

“We have incredible shows there, always. It’s a really funky place. … The Gap Band is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they’re really funky, man.”

Lettuce’s most recent release is Witches Stew, a contemporary jazz fusion album that pays tribute to the late Miles Davis.

The collection of seven songs is an interpretive take on Davis’ Bitches Brew era and was recorded at the

Witches Stew | Image provided

40

F E B R U A R Y 1 3 , 2 0 1 9 | O KG A Z E T T E . C O M

2016 Catskill Chill in Lakewood, Pennsylvania.

“We’ve always been in reverence of Miles and loved Miles and never thought we’d do anything like that,” Coomes said.

But the process came together very quickly.

“It was a morning after a really late night; we’d stayed up at a festival having fun, woke up hurting, just trying to wake up,” Coomes said. “And Benny, the trumpet player, is like, ‘I signed us up for this thing.’ And I’m screaming at him. And then … [we] pulled it off.”

Coomes said he thought he was the most unsettled about the sudden idea to perform the Miles Davis tribute.

“I was completely and totally intimidated, 100 percent,” Coomes said. “As the bass player, I was maybe the most intimidated. Getting together with the rest of the guys, [they] take [away] some of my intimidation. And the confidence we give each other, they passed that confidence on to me.”

Coomes said his initial nervousness led to an energy that fed into the performance.

“It’s an energy that comes to you when you get those feelings of intimidation or fear, and it’s like, what are you going to do with that right then? You have to use it to accomplish the task,” Coomes said. “We didn’t have any time to overthink it or back out or any of that. We just had to get it together … and move forward.”

After the performance, the band listened to the recording of the show and decided it was worthy of being put out as a release. The EP was released on

Halloween 2017. The first single, “Shhh/ Peaceful” was released on Sept. 28, 2017, the 26th anniversary of Davis’ death. “[We] barely knew we were going to do it the day of,” Coomes said. “Part of that is one of the things that made us want to put it out because it was so unbelievable. We kind of found out we were doing it right before and then put it together pretty fast — really fast, like in the car on the way over there. ... Listening to it later, we thought the vibe was on there, so let’s put it out there.”

Roughage diet

Coomes said the band draws from the location and from the energy of the crowd during its performances and that the shared experience works as an energy boost all around.

“We all get together in one room, and we all share an experience of the funk, and of the music and of each other. It’s kind of an energy exchange,” Coomes said. “You’re gonna be able to take this music and give yourself good energy, some physical energy you can use for the rest of your week. So it’s kind of an exciting, experimental, improvisational dance party.”

In addition to his musical projects, Coomes still occasionally works as an actor, which he has been doing since childhood.

“I took acting quite seriously before the band was started. I was really into acting, and I got a couple of jobs right away,” Coomes said. “It’s hard to get an acting job; you gotta go on a lot of interviews and auditions for that. But I had good success right away, and I got a Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes commercial.”

When acting jobs hit a dry spell, he reached out to noted stuntman Greg Barnett, a family friend and neighbor.

Barnett took him to auditions and helped Coomes land a small role in Point Break, the 1991 action thriller with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze.

“If you watch Point Break, when

you’re going through the chase scene on foot and they go through the backyard and they run out into the street and there’s a trash truck coming by and then there’s kids on bikes, I’m one of those kids on the bikes.”

In 1992, several future Lettuce band members attended a summer program at Boston, Massachusetts’ Berklee College of Music as teenagers. Returning to Berklee as undergrads in 1994, the group put together a live set and began asking jazz clubs to “Let us play,” which spurred the name Lettuce.

“One of the best things about the name is that it’s so healthy. I mean, people should eat and consume more lettuce,” Coomes said. “I don’t want to ‘should’ on people, but basically Lettuce is good for you in audio in your ears and in your stomach. So we’re grateful that it’s a healthy thing, that it’s a positive word that means something that is positive for a human being.”

The band released its studio debut Outta Here in 2002, Rage! in 2009, Fly! in 2012, Crush in 2015 and the Mt. Crushmore EP in 2016. A new album is slated for this year.

Between Lettuce tours and albums, Coomes has worked with Wiz Khalifa, toured with Britney Spears and recorded with Dr. Dre and Eminem.

“That was really, really fun,” he said.

“I have a really high work ethic, and so does Eminem. What we get to call work is so fun we don’t take it for granted. I got to fly on the private jet with Dre to get there in the first place.”

As appreciative as Coomes is of all his collaborators, he holds his bandmates in Lettuce in high regard.

“It’s, like, a really good friendship, but it’s also a really active friendship where we accomplish things together,” Coomes said. “And as we accomplish things together, it gives us more and more love for each other.”

Even in the early days, Lettuce appeared to be something special to its members.

“In the beginning, I think we made sure we were all serious about it,” Coomes said. “I know I made sure that the different relationships that we were creating were real. We were all pretty mature when we were young. ... Luckily it’s been just an honor to be friends with these guys.”

Visit towertheatreokc.com.

Lettuce: Vibe Up Tour 8 p.m. Feb. 20 Tower Theatre 425 NW 23rd St. towertheatreokc.com | 405-708-6937 $25-$28

LIVE MUSIC

List your event in

These are events recommended

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

Submissions must be received by Oklahoma Gazette no later

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 13

than noon on Wednesday seven days before the desired

Cursive, Tower Theatre. ROCK

publication date. Late submissions will not be included in

The Gentlefolks, The Deli. JAZZ

the listings. Submissions run as space allows, although we strive to make the listings as inclusive as possible.

Jade Castle, Vices. ACOUSTIC

THURSDAY, FEB. 14

Submit your listings online at okgazette.com or email them to listings@okgazette.com.

Sorry, but phone submissions cannot be accepted.

August Burns Red/Fit for a King/Miss May I, Diamond Ballroom. METAL/HARDCORE Blake Shelton/The Bellamy Brothers, Chesapeake Energy Arena. COUNTRY Chanda Graham, Saints. JAZZ Elecktra/Ed & Karen Petit/Jarvix, Sauced on Paseo.

SINGER/SONGWRITER

Hot House Band, Othello’s Italian Restaurant. JAZZ Kyle Dillingham & Horseshoe Road, CHK/Central Boathouse. FOLK/COUNTRY Remo Drive/Pierre/Hookup, 89th Street-OKC. ROCK Rousey/Magic Munchbox/Me Oh My, 51st Street Speakeasy. ROCK

FRIDAY, FEB. 15 Dirty Red & The Soul Shakers, VZD’s Restaurant & Bar. BLUES Hosty, Fassler Hall. FOLK Insider Petty Tribute, Oklahoma City Limits. COVER Jake Castle Duo, Othello’s Italian Restaurant.

SINGER/SONGWRITER

Josh Sallee/Sativa Prophets/Original Flow, 51st Street Speakeasy. HIP-HOP My So Called Band, The Deli. COVER

Helen Kelter Skelter Helen Kelter Skelter’s Melter, released last year, twists the brain as well as the tongue.

The Norman-based band’s 21st-century psych-rock is song-centric, employing intricately structured sound collages, hypnotic drones, distorted guitars and broken radio vocals in the service of memorable melodies. Miracle Worker jokes notwithstanding, it’s hard to believe this kind of kosmiche musik can be locally sourced. Tulsa’s electric mudslingers The Shelter People and glammed-out Golden Ones share the bill. The concert is 7-11 p.m. Friday at ACM@UCO Performance Lab, 329 E. Sheridan Ave. Tickets are $10. Call 405974-4700 or visit acm.uco.edu.

FRIDAY Photo Dylan Johnson/provided

On a Whim, Bossa Nova Caipirinha Lounge. JAZZ Rozlyn Zora/Mandias/Useless Randy, Red Brick Bar. ROCK Stewart Wolfs, Legacy on Main Street. COVER Superfreak, The Liszt. COVER

Eric Herndon, Full Circle Bookstore. ROCK Homewrecker/Creeping Death/Funeral Chic, 89th Street-OKC. METAL Jarvix/Eos/Super Sharp Snakes, Sauced on Paseo.

EXPERIMENTAL

SATURDAY, FEB. 16

ELECTRONIC

Darlin’ Darla/Cutter Elliott/Sydnee Spears, Rodeo Opry. COUNTRY

MONDAY, FEB. 18

Elizabeth Speegle Band, Bedlam Bar-B-Q. JAZZ

Alan Doyle, The Blue Door. SINGER/SONGWRITER

Erick Taylor & Friends, Twisted Spike Brewing Co..

Jason Hunt, Sean Cumming’s Irish Restaurant. FOLK

Fabulous Deerays, Brewskey’s. COUNTRY

TUESDAY, FEB. 19

ACOUSTIC

Felina Rivera/ Christen Eve/Chloe-Beth, The Root. SINGER/SONGWRITER Helen Kelter Skelter/The Big News/Dresden Bombers, The Deli. ROCK Howard Brady Band, Full Circle Bookstore. SINGER/

Subtronics/Blunts & Blondes, OKC Farmers Market.

Blackberry Smoke/Chris Shiflett, Diamond Ballroom. ROCK Country Clique, Friends Restaurant & Club.

COUNTRY

Kyle Reid, Scratch Kitchen & Cocktails. SINGER/

SONGWRITER

SONGWRITER

Jeremy Fullbright Band, Fuel Bar & Grill. COUNTRY

Sarah Maud, The Blue Door. JAZZ

Kaitlin Butts, The Blue Door. COUNTRY Layken Urie, Lumpy’s Sports Grill. SINGER/SONGWRITER

Lilac Kings, VZD’s Restaurant & Bar. ROCK Shocker Boys/Unglued, Oklahoma City Limits.

COVER

Stephen Salewon, Othello’s Italian Restaurant. FOLK Todd Snider/Kevin Gordon, Tower Theatre. SINGER/

SONGWRITER

SUNDAY, FEB. 17 Camille Harp & John Calvin Abbey, Norman Santa Fe Depot. SINGER/SONGWRITER

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.

Elizabeth Speegle Band, Othello’s Italian Restaurant. JAZZ

GO TO OKGAZETTE.COM FOR FULL LISTINGS!

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FREE WILL ASTROLOGY Homework: What is the best gift you could give your best ally right now? Testify at https:// FreeWillAstrology.com.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

Climbing mountains has been a popular adventure since the nineteenth century, but there are still many peaks around the world that no one has ever ascended. They include the 24,591-fot-high Muchu Chhish in Pakistan, 23,691-foot Karjiang South in Tibet, and 12,600-foot Sauyr Zhotasy on the border of China and Kazakhstan.

If there are any Aries mountaineers reading this horoscope who have been dreaming about conquering an unclimbed peak, 2019 will be a great time to do it, and now would be a perfect moment to plan or launch your quest. As for the rest of you Aries, what’s your personal equivalent of reaching the top of an unclimbed peak?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

Eminem’s song “Lose Yourself” was a featured track in the movie 8 Mile, and it won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2003. The creator himself was not present at the Oscar ceremony to accept his award, however. He was so convinced his song would lose that he stayed home. At the moment that presenter Barbra Streisand announced Eminem’s triumph, he was asleep in front of the TV with his daughter, who was watching cartoons. In contrast to him, I hope you will be fully available and on the scene for the recognition or acknowledgment that should be coming your way sometime soon.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

While enjoying its leisure time, the peregrine falcon glides around at 50 miles per hour. But when it’s motivated by the desire to eat, it may swoop and dart at a velocity of 220 miles per hour. Amazing! In accordance with your astrological omens, Gemini, I propose that we make the peregrine falcon your spirit creature for the next three weeks. I suspect you will have extraordinary speed and agility and focus whenever you’re hunting for exactly what you want. So here’s a crucial question: what exactly do you want?

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CANCER (June 21-July 22) Now and then the sun shines and rain falls at the same time. The meteorological name for the phenomenon is “sunshower,” but folklore provides other terms.

Hawaiians may call it “liquid sunshine” or “ghost rain.”

Speakers of the Tangkhul language in India imagine it as “the wedding of a human and spirit.” Some Russians refer to it as “mushroom rain,” since it’s thought to encourage the growth of mushrooms. Whatever you might prefer to call it, Cancerian, I suspect that the foreseeable future will bring you delightful paradoxes in a similar vein. And in my opinion, that will be very lucky for you, since you’ll be in the right frame of mind and spirit to thrive amidst just such situations.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)

A study by the Fidelity financial services company revealed that in 43% of all couples, neither partner has an accurate knowledge of how much money the other partner earns. Meanwhile, research by the National Institute of Health concludes that among heterosexual couples, 36 percent of husbands misperceive how frequently their wives have orgasms. I bring this to your attention in order to sharpen your focus on how crucial it is to communicate clearly with your closest allies. I mean, it’s rarely a good idea to be ignorant about what’s going on with those close to you, but it’ll be an especially bad idea during the next six weeks.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Torre Mayor is one of the tallest skyscrapers in Mexico City. When workers finished its construction in 2003, it was one of the world’s most earthquake-proof buildings, designed to hold steady during an 8.5-level temblor. Over the course of 2019, Virgo, I’d love to see you erect the metaphorical equivalent of that unshakable structure in your own life. The astrological omens suggest that doing so is quite possible. And the coming weeks will be an excellent time to launch that project or intensify your efforts to manifest it.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Multitalented Libran singer and actor Donald Glover uses the name of Childish Gambino when he performs his

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Correction: This week’s Astrology is for the Feb. 6th issue. The Feb. 13th Astrology ran a week early and appeared in the Feb. 6th issue of Oklahoma Gazette. music. How did he select that alias? He used an online random name generator created by the rap group Wu-Tang Clan. I tried the same generator and got “Fearless Warlock” as my new moniker. You might want to try it yourself, Libra. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to add layers to your identity and expand your persona and mutate your self-image. The generator is here: tinyurl. com/yournewname. (P.S.: If you don’t like the first one you’re offered, keep trying until you get one you like.)

kitchen counter that no one ever sees. An example of the second is when you download an update for an existing piece of software so your computer works better and you can raise your efficiency levels as you pursue a pet project.

The coming weeks will be an excellent time to keep this distinction in mind as you focus on the minor, boring little tasks that are crucial steps in the process of eventually fulfilling an important goal.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Can you sit on your own head? Not many people can. It requires great flexibility. Before comedian Robin Williams was famous, he spontaneously did just that when he auditioned for the role of the extraterrestrial immigrant Mork, the hero of the TV sitcom Mork and Mindy. The casting director was impressed with Williams’ odd but amusing gesture, and hired him immediately. If you’re presented with an opportunity sometime soon, I encourage you to be inspired by the comedian’s ingenuity.

What might you do to cinch your audition, to make a splashy first impression, to convince interested parties that you’re the right person?

Leonardo da Vinci’s painting *Salvator Mundi* sold for $450 million in 2017. Just twelve years earlier, an art collector had bought it for $10,000. Why did its value increase so extravagantly? Because in 2005, no one was sure it was an authentic da Vinci painting. It was damaged and had been covered with other layers of paint that hid the original image. After extensive efforts at restoration, the truth about it emerged. I foresee the possibility of a comparable, if less dramatic, development in your life during the next ten months, Scorpio. Your work to rehabilitate or renovate an underestimated resource could bring big dividends.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

We can behold colors because of specialized cells in our eyes called cones. Most of us have three types of cones, but a few rare people have four. This enables them to see far more hues than the rest of us. Are you a tetrachromat, a person with super-vision? Whether you are or not, I suspect you will have extra powerful perceptual capacities in the coming weeks. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you will be able to see more than you usually do. The world will seem brighter and deeper and more vivid. I urge you to deploy your temporary superpower to maximum advantage.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

There are two kinds of minor, boring little tasks. One is when you’re attending to a detail that’s not in service to a higher purpose; the other is when you’re attending to a detail that is a crucial step in the process of fulfilling an important goal. An example of the first might be when you try in vain to scour a permanent stain on a part of the

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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)

About 11 percent of the Philippines’ population is Twitter wit Notorious Debi Hope advises us, “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assho--s.”

That’s wise counsel for you to keep in mind during the next three weeks. Let me add a few corollaries. First, stave off any temptation you might have to believe that others know what’s good for you better than you do.

Second, figure out what everyone thinks of you and aggressively liberate yourself from their opinions. Third, if anyone even hints at not giving you the respect you deserve, banish them for at least three weeks.

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.

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