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www.theloaferonline.com
January 28, 2014 • The Loafer, Page 3
Volume 28 Issue #8
SUPER BOWL XLVIII February, 2, 2014
MetLife Stadium • East Rutherford, N.J.
Publisher - Bill Williams • Editor/Graphic Arts Director - Don Sprinkle • Office Manager - Luci Tate Cover Design - Bill May • Photography - Mark Marquette Advertising - Dave Carter, Akey Kincaid, Lisa Lyons, Terry Patterson, Pam Johnson-Bowling Contributing Staff - Jim Kelly, Andy Ross, Ken Silvers, Mark Marquette, Pat Bussard Published by Creative Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 3596, Johnson City, TN 37602 Phone: 423/283-4324 FAX - 423/283-4369 www.theloaferonline.com • info@theloaferonline.com e-mail: editorial@theloaferonline.com (editorial) adcopy@theloaferonline.com (advertising All advertisements are accepted and published by the publisher upon the representation that the agency and/or advertiser is authorized to publish the entire contents and subject matter thereof.The agency and/or advertiser will indemnify and save the publisher harmless from any loss of expense resulting from claims or suits based upon contents of any advertisement,including claims or suits for defamation,libel,right of privacy,plagiarism,and copyright infringement.
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Bruno Mars
Bruno Mars & RHCP
Pepsi Super Bowl XLVIII Halftime Show Bruno Mars invited the legendary Red Hot Chili Peppers to join him for the Pepsi Super Bowl XLVIII Halftime Show at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. on Feb. 2, as announced on FOX. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have sold more than 60 million albums and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April of 2012. They have won six Grammy Awards. Their last album was in 2011. Bruno Mars was named Billboard’s 2013 Artist of the Year. His hits include the No. 1 song “When I Was Your Man” and his Grammy-nominated sophomore album, “Unorthodox Jukebox,” has sold almost 2 million copies.
Red Hot Chili Peppers
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Skyflight Productions & The Kingsport Office of Cultural Arts present an evening with
Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line The City of Kingsport Office of Cultural Arts in partnership with Skyflight Productions presents an evening with Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line on Saturday February 1, 2014 at The Renaissance Theater in Kingsport, TN. Nora Jane Struthers & The Party Line are a traveling Carnival of acoustic Americana. The high energy, Nashville-based quintet perform Struthers’ original story-songs with tight, three-part harmonies, fiddle, claw-hammer banjo, acoustic guitar, bass, and drums. Struthers was catapulted into the spotlight when she lead her band to a blue ribbon at the prestigious 2010 Telluride Bluegrass
Festival band competition (previous winners include Nickel Creek and The Dixie Chicks) and now her group is touring heavily in support of their April 16 release, Carnival. “When you go to a carnival, you go into a sideshow tent, and on every stage you find a different person with a different story,” says Nora Jane Struthers. “That’s why I’m trying to do with this album – craft vignettes, and in some cases more developed narratives, about imaginary people’s lives.” Nora Jane Struthers steps forward with a distinctive sound and on-stage style – her personal collection of vintage dresses makes her one of the most
visually striking of modern acoustic artists. But the moving, perceptive, and witty songs on Carnival represent a new quantum leap, born of hard work and deep creative reflection. “Over the past three years, as I’ve been touring and performing, I realized that primarily I’m a storyteller,” she says. “I’ve been working to hone my skills so I can do that better.” After album marks the recording debut of Struthers’ touring band, the Party Line (which takes its handle from listening to Carnival, no one will deny the keen edge of Struthers’ masterful new work. The one of the record’s songs, about the early days of rural telephone calls). The gifted group of instrumentalists includes Struthers’ longtime collaborator P. J. George (upright bass, harmony vocals, pedal steel guitar, accordion and banjo), Joe Overton (clawhammer banjo and harmony vocals), Aaron Jonah Lewis (fiddle, three-finger banjo, baritone fiddle, mandolin) and Drew Lawhorn (drums). East TN native Josh Oliver has spent the past five years as a side man, touring all over the United States, singing harmony, playing lead guitar and piano with the likes of the everybodyfields, Sam Quinn + Japan 10, and Jill Andrews. And now, with his debut album, Troubles, he’s taking a stab at being out front. The album features both original and traditional material, including a unique take on …Townes Van Zandt’s, “White Freightliner Blues,” and a mournful rendering of
the Carter Family tune, “I Never Will Marry.” The album features Oliver on lead vocals, guitar, and keys, as well as familiar faces Brandon Story on upright bass, Megan Gregory on fiddle and vocals, and Sam Quinn on harmony vocals. Troubles, a warm and inviting collection of songs, harkens back to a simpler time, whether it’s through the contemporary renderings of traditionals or the traditional style of Oliver’s self-penned tunes. This album, from start to finish, is a piece of classic, easy Americana. Show starts at 8 pm (Doors open at 7pm). Tickets: $15 Reserved Seats www.EngageKingsport.com
Winter Plant Life program set for Feb. 1st
Citizens of all ages are invited to join Nature Program Coordinator Connie Deegan from 10-11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 1 to learn how plants adapt through the winter months. With frosty winds, frozen water, hungry animals, and other concerns, it’s not always easy for a plant to manage. After a brief discussion, participants will suit up and head out to identify the amazing ways plants pull through the winter chills. Cost is $1 per person. Participants will meet at the Winged Deer Park Administrative Offices, 4137 Bristol Highway. Please call (423)283-5821 for more information.
www.theloaferonline.com Filmmakers. “The Iran Job” is the first of three independent films to be shown during spring semester. After the screening of the film in ETSU’s Martha Street Culp Auditorium, Schauder and the audience will engage in a discussion about “The Iran Job” and his work as a filmmaker. A reception will follow. All activities are free and open to the public. “This kind of documentary turns your world upside down,” says reviewer Bob Maier on davidsonnews. net. “It rebels against the autocrats and haters on all sides. It turns the very idea of ‘bomb Iran’ into a reptilian nightmare of shame. It offers rays of hope that we can get along just fine with a little direct human-to-human communication, unfiltered by selfserving pundits, hypocritical scolds, and power-hungry officials.” In the fall of 2008, husband-andwife filmmakers Till Schauder and Sara Nodjoumi had a Skype call with Kevin Sheppard, a flashy American point guard about to start a basketball contract in the Iranian Super League. Sheppard was so entertaining that they decided to start filming. Schauder filmed in Iran over several visits, until on his last trip he was informed that he had been placed on a “black list” and sent back to New York. The result of those visits, “The Iran Job” follows Sheppard as he accepts The Mary B. Martin School of the Arts at East Tennessee State University a job to play in one of the world’s will present the film “The Iran Job” Monday, Feb. 3, at 7 p.m. with filmmaker most feared countries: Iran. With tenTill Schauder as part of the South Arts Southern Circuit Tour of Independent
ETSU to screen film
‘The Iran Job’
January 28, 2014 • The Loafer, Page 7 sions running high between Iran and the West, the athlete tries to separate sports from politics, only to find that politics are impossible to escape in Iran. Along the way, Sheppard forms an unlikely alliance with some outspoken Iranian women. Thanks to these women, his apartment turns into an oasis of free speech, where they discuss everything from politics to religion to gender roles. “He is obviously an exceptionally brave and curious person, and what he found was a culture bursting with love for America,” Maier says, “and especially two precocious young women delighted to guide him through their proud, but sympathetic culture.” Sheppard’s first season in Iran’s Super League culminates in something much bigger than basketball: the uprising and subsequent suppression of Iran’s reformist Green Movement – a powerful prelude to the currently unfolding Arab Spring. “I think the film has wider appeal than at first meets the eye,” says Mary B. Martin School of the Arts Director Anita DeAngelis. “If one is interested in basketball, of course, there’s some significance, but if one is interested in politics, there are political situations Sheppard had to navigate. If one is interested in Women’s Studies, he becomes friends with several Iranian women and he is able to speak very freely with them. There are sociological aspects to the film. There’s so
much to glean from this film.” Schauder is a graduate of the University of Television and Film in Munich. He teaches film classes at NYU and has been a guest lecturer at various other campuses. He has also been invited to serve on film festival juries and panels including the Munich International Film Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival. Nodjoumi is a film producer and programmer, who has co-produced and directed a series of documentaries about the Iranian community in America. In 2009, Nodjoumi launched and programmed the first children’s film series at Tribeca Cinemas. For more information on the film, visit www.theiranjob.com. For information about the ETSU Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, call (423) 439-TKTS (8587) or visit http://www.etsu.edu/martin. “Like” ETSU Mary B. Martin School of the Arts on Facebook and follow it on Twitter at TheArtsAtETSU
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The Paramount Chamber Players to present
Song, Rhapsody and Drama on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 & 2 Celebrating song with and without words is the core of the first half of Song, Rhapsody and Drama. In the song cycle, Let Us Garlands Bring, Mark Owen Davis will sing poetry by the great William Shakespeare combined with the harmonies of Gerald Finzi, an English composer. Songs America Loves to Sing presents instrumental versions of tunes you are likely to have sung all your life (Amazing Grace, What a Friend and Happy Birthday etc.). The second half of the program tips-the-hat to rhapsodic drama with Debussy’s Premier Rhapsody for clarinet and piano perform by visiting artist pianist, Chih-long Hu from East Tennessee State University and member clarinetist, Eugene Jones. The program ends with the dramatic Piano Quartet in G minor by the king of composers—Mozart. Performances are on Friday, January 31, 7:30pm at First Presbyterian Church in Kingsport, Tenn; Saturday, February 1, 7:30pm at The Paramount Center for the Arts in Bristol, Tenn; and on Sunday, February 2, 7:30pm for the SpencerMiller Memorial Concert Series at Sinking Spring Presbyterian Church in Abingdon, Va. Also appearing in this program: Craig W. Combs, piano; Vicki Fey, piano; George Figueroa, violin; Kimberly Ray, violin; Luis Casal, viola; Cherylonda Fitzgerald, cello; and Rebecca Paluzzi, flute. Tickets are $12 General Admission, $10 Senior and students are admitted free. On Saturday evening, tickets are available through the Paramount Box Office 423-274-8920 or on line at www.ETIX.com.. Tickets for the Spencer-Miller Memorial Concert Series on the Sunday afternoon performance are available at the door for $10/adults, free for students.
February Calendar of Events Tuesday, February 4th - Sunday, February 16th - Valentine’s Science Celebrate Valentine’s Day and American Heart Month in the Eastman Discovery Lab. Get smart on your heart, and help make plasma soup out of holiday candies. Then, add a secret Valentine’s Day message to an acid/base experiment and you will end up with the most amazing scientific Valentines you’ve ever seen! The Eastman Discovery Lab will be open by announcement periodically throughout each day. (***Please note this program may contain peanuts and small parts that may not suitable for children under 3 years of age.) Wednesday, February 5th - Boy Scouts Free Day Free admission for boy scouts that visit the museum in uniform. Groups of 10 or more require a reservation. Friday, February 14th, 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm - Kid’s Night Out Have big plans for Valentine’s Day? Drop the kids off at Hands On! Regional Museum for a night of worry-free fun while you paint the town red! Drop off is 6:00-7:00 and pick-up is 9:00-10:00. For ages 6-13. The evening will include a pizza party plus a healthy snack, guided projects in the Art Studio and Eastman Discovery Lab, plus a museum full of adventure. Reservations are required with payment by February 13th. Download a registration form. Tuesday, February 18th - Sunday, March 2nd - Reverse Engineering Do you like to take things apart? If so, join us for some fun disassembling in honor of National Engineering week. Test out your reverse engineering skills on various items adults would never let you take apart such as computers, phones, keyboards, and more! The Eastman Discovery Lab will be open by announcement periodically throughout each day. (***Please note this program may contain small parts not suitable for children under 3 years of age.) Wednesday, February 19th, 9:30 am - 12:00 pm-Imagineer It! Workshop Celebrate National Engineering Week with a workshop that will test
your craftsmanship, skill, and ingenuity. Build a disc jiggle robot, design a miniature hovercraft, and help your team build a giant windbag structure. A healthy snack will be included as well. Cost $12 for members, $15 for non-members. Ages 7-12. Payment is required with registration by Wednesday, February 5th. To register, please call 423-434-4263 ext. 100, T-F 9-5 or e-mail main@handsonmuseum. org
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Singer/Actress
Laura Bell Bundy to Perform at NPAC on Saturday, February 1st
Laura Bell Bundy will perform with her band at Niswonger Performing Arts Center on Saturday, February 1st at 7:30 pm. She currently appears on two television series, performs as a country music artist, and has been involved in the entertainment industry for several years. Her passion for performing, writing music, and telling stories combined with her talent and determination are some of the key factors that took Bundy from her southern comfort zone to the bright lights of Broadway and now beyond. Debuting at age 9 in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular was the fuel to the fire. Since then, she has originated the roles of Amber Von Tussle in Hairspray, Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, and took a turn as “Glinda” in the smash hit Wicked. She has earned numerous nominations for her performances including a Tony Award nomination, an Outer Critics Circle nomination, and Drama Desk nominations. In addition to dominating Broadway stages, Laura Bell has also been spotted in front of the camera appearing on the current network television shows Anger Management (as Dr. Jordan Denby opposite Charlie Sheen) and as “Shelby” on Hart of Dixie. She has also appeared in Cold Case, Veronica Mars, Home Improvement, How I Met Your Mother, Malibu Country, and as disgruntled teen “Marah Lewis” on Guiding Light. Taking television to the big screen, Laura Bell’s film work includes Dream Girls, Jumanji, Life with Mikey, The Adventures of Huck Finn, CMT’s first original movie To The Mat, and a recent film, Watercolor Postcards. Laura Bell’s previous album, Achin’ and Shakin’ was heartbreakingly personal and joyfully rowdy. “Two records, one woman, is my motto,” jokes Laura Bell, who penned all but one of the songs on the album. Her breakout hit from the Shakin’ set was “Giddy On Up” which reached #31 on the U.S. Billboard Country Charts and was also featured on the popular video game Just Dance 3. “Shakin’ was the party and Achin’ was the hangover.” Now, dancing the “Two-Step” with her buddy Colt Ford she continues to show off her bold and outspoken personality. “Two-Step” answers the age-old question of what happens when you combine hot country, dance tracks and hip-hop beats. To answer this question even further, Laura Bell is also currently working a series of mix tapes with Nashville producer, David Huff. Entitled ‘Beats & Banjos’, these mixes include mash-ups of popular country songs with well-known country, pop and hip hop beats. Each tape will feature an LBB original as well. The most recently released mix tape, ‘Do Si Do’, can be heard at www.laurabellbundy.com. LBBTV was created to forge her own creative path and to pursue an overflowing whiskey barrel of comedic ideas. One of the most successful LBBTV projects to date is the sketch comedy web series, Cooter County (www.
cootercounty.com). Cooter County has garnered more than four million upload views and a cult following that quote characters like Shocantelle Brown, Euneeda Biscuit, and Justice Goode, to name a few. The LBBTV team most recently produced the style web series OMC! (Oh My Country!) on the CountryNow channel (www.youtube.com/countrynow). A mix of sketch comedy and all things related to country music and southern style, OMC! brings fashion in music to another level. LBBTV continues to have many projects in the works with Laura Bell not only producing but directing as well. Laura Bell’s latest song release, “Kentucky Dirty” was released on iTunes on November 5th. The track references the singer’s good ole Kentucky roots and will be featured in “The Sixth Man” - the highly anticipated University of Kentucky basketball documentary about the fans of Big Blue Nation. In LBB’s own words, “The motivation is not to be famous, it’s to have fun until I drop dead.” Laura Bell Bundy will perform at Niswonger Performing Arts Center (NPAC) in historic downtown Greeneville, TN on Saturday, February 1st at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $25 for orchestra and mezzanine level seating and $15 for balcony seats. Tickets may be purchased online at www.npacgreeneville.com, in person at the NPAC box office, or by calling 423-638-1679. NPAC offers online seat selection and no-fee ticketing. The box office hours are Monday through Friday, 10 am until 5 pm. The 1130 seat performing arts center is located adjacent to the campus of Greeneville High School in Greeneville, TN. For venue information, and to purchase tickets, please visit www.npacgreeneville.com.
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‘Life in the City’ at Reece Museum features work of Joseph Delaney
As part of Black History Month, the Reece Museum on the campus of East Tennessee State University is featuring “Life in the City: The Art of Joseph Delaney.” The exhibition runs through March 15, and a free public reception is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 30, from 4-7 p.m. A second Reece exhibit, “Wallflowers: Antique Photographic Portraits from the Permanent Collection” is also part of the Jan. 30 reception and will remain on display through Feb. 21. “Life in the City: The Art of Joseph Delaney” spans much of the artist’s lifetime body of work and includes city scenes, portraits, figure drawings and sketches. He worked in a multitude of media, including oil, watercolor, gouache, charcoal, pastel, ink and pencil. The son of a Methodist minister who was originally from Bristol, Joseph Delaney was born the ninth of 10 children in Knoxville
in 1904. Owing to Rev. Delaney’s vocation, the family spent a great deal of time at church. It was there that Joseph and his older brother, Beauford (also to become a painter in New York and Paris), discovered their interest in art by drawing on Sunday School cards. In 1930, Joseph left Knoxville for New York, where he studied at the Art Students League. He spent the next 56 years living and making art in New York. After a retrospective of his work was selected by the University of Tennessee’s Ewing Gallery as part of then-Gov. Lamar Alexander’s statewide celebration “Tennessee Homecoming ’86,” Delaney accepted an invitation to join the UT Art Department as a non-teaching artist-in-residence. He remained in Knoxville until his death in 1991. “Since the 1986 retrospective, paintings and drawings by Joseph Delaney now grace the collections
of major American museums,” Ewing Gallery Director Sam Yates said, citing the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Knoxville Museum of Art, the Greenville County (S.C.) Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., as some of the institutions that own works by the artist. “Although belatedly, Delaney is now being accepted for the talented artist he was and is finally taking his rightful place in the history of American art. As Joseph once said, ‘Someday my day will come.’ It has, and today he is receiving the recognition enjoyed by other artists of his generation.” Attendees of the Jan. 30 Reece Museum reception are also encouraged to attend the 5-7 p.m. reception for “The Ceramicists of Seagrove, N.C.,” at the nearby Slocumb Galleries in the Department of Art and Design. That exhibition
is on display until Feb. 7. For more information about either reception, call the Reece Museum at (423) 439-4392. For disability accommodations, call the ETSU Office of Disability Services at (423) 439-8346.
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Playing Songs from her new album, Quicksand
Reagan Boggs’
To Appear in Johnson City, TN
Most of us have only witnessed quicksand in the movies: The hero walking through the jungle inadvertently steps into a pit of quicksand only to be dramatically sucked under, leaving only his hat on the surface. Sometimes he’s rescued at just the last minute by grabbing a nearby vine or limb and dragging himself out. For acclaimed singer-songwrit-
er Reagan Boggs, quicksand is not necessarily seen. It is more commonly experienced. Boggs will appear with The Coalmen in Johnson City, TN on Saturday, Feb. 1 at 8:00 p.m. at the Down Home (300 W. Main St.). For information, call 423929-9822. On her new album, Quicksand, (release date February 11,
2014), Boggs examines the those mired living a routine existence, only to wake up one day wondering whatever happened to their dreams. For Boggs, the theme was not one she struggled to understand. In 2009, Boggs was well on her way to becoming a successful recording and touring artist when she put that life on hold to raise her newborn son. Boggs never regretted the decision — and even “found some interests” she didn’t know she had — but before long, she found herself drifting further from who she wanted to be as an artist. She was getting stuck in the quicksand of her daily life. Born and raised in the mining and farming country of Southwest Virginia, singer-songwriter Boggs remains true to her musical heritage, offering deep insights into a wide, diverse range of emotions from insecurity to hopelessness, loss to revelation. The album is as powerful as any scene from a movie, and twice as real. www.reaganboggs.com www.downhome.com www.thecoalmen.com
Open auditions for
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe set Jan. 28 and 29
The Northeast State Community College Department of Theater announces open auditions for their spring production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Performers daring to step through the wardrobe and into Narnia are invited to two open auditions scheduled Jan. 28 and 29 from 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. at the Wellmont Regional Center for the Performing Arts (WRCPA) on the College’s main campus at Blountville. Auditions are open to all students, faculty, and community members ages 18 and up. Performers are asked to gather in the lobby of the WRCPA Theater. All actors should be familiar with the story and are asked to prepare a one-minute monologue to be read at the audition. Callbacks will be made on Jan. 30 between 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. A list of performers invited to callbacks will be posted at the Theater web site. The play was dramatized for the stage by Joseph Robinette from the story by C.S. Lewis. The play is being brought to the Northeast State stage courtesy of Dramatic Publishing. The play is being directed by Northeast State’s own Elizabeth M. Sloan. For more information, contact Northeast State Theater at 423.354.2479 or e-mail emsloan@NortheastState.edu.
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Anu Sava
Acoustic Coffeehouse February 1st
Anu Sava is an international touring artist spending her time between Nashville, TN and Australia. Anu just returned from Australia and is currently completing a regional tour to promote her latest release “BURIED”. “BURIED” features 10 tracks and is completely self-produced. Anu Sava is the lead singer of indie group Girl With Cake (http:// www.girlwithcake.com). Anu Sava is a new solo project with songs written in a far more emotionally intense style with a further emphasis on the lyrical content. BURIED is an exploration into a variety of themes with narratives and ideas sourced from real life experiences featuring themes such as love, addiction, cancer, abuse, death, relationships, surreal art and even unicorns. Each song on BURIED is unique and Anu Sava hopes to use this release to progress her art and release it to the world. Anu Sava is consistently experimenting with sounds and textures and hopes to complete at least another release this year. Anu Sava’s music consists of live instruments combined with synthesized ones, beats and various other sound samples. Anu’s music has a relaxed and reflective feel to it with powerful emotional qualities and intelligent lyrics. Anu is similar to bands and artists such as Tegan and Sara, Bat for Lashes, and Cat Power. Anu Sava is looking towards expanding her tour base throughout North America and possibly to Canada and Europe in 2014.
Souper Bowl Wednesday January 29th
Join us on January 29 for the “Souper Bowl!” The Friends of the Washington County Library will be serving a variety of soups and chilies for lunch starting at 11:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m., or while supplies last. You can eat-in, come to our convenient drive-through for pick-up, or Friends will be making deliveries for group orders around Jonesborough. The Friends’ menu will include a choice of taco soup, vegetable soup, red chili, and a white chicken chili. With the soup you will receive a side-salad, crackers, and brownie for dessert. All of this for a minimum of a $7.00 donation! For more information call the Jonesborough Library at 423-7531800.
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River North Dance Chicago Performs at Schaefer Center on Jan. 31 and Meets with University Students For 24 years, River North Dance Chicago has been touring their contemporary, jazz-based repertoire nationally and internationally. As a part of the South Arts Touring Dance Initiative, Appalachian State University’s Performing Arts Series will be hosting the dance company for a residency on campus and a live performance on January 31 at 8 p.m. at the Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts. To watch videos, purchase tickets and get more information on the January 31 event, visit http://pas. appstate.edu/schedule/id/283. About River North Dance Chicago “In a stylistically wide-ranging program, the company kept the energy high while allowing for engagingly creative shifts in mood and atmosphere.” -The St. Louis Post Dispatch Critically acclaimed for their athletic, sensual and dynamic repertoire, River North Dance Chicago (RNDC) presents dynamic works that combine athletic prowess and artistic perspective with bold, theatrical flair. Founded in 1989, RNDC is now under the leadership of Artistic Director Frank Chaves and Executive Director Gail Kalver. The company continues to make a name for the themselves on the world stage travelling throughout the country and internationally. “Jazz dance never looked so… funny, mystical, poignant, inexplicable, sexy.” -The Arizona Republic For information on RNDC, visit http://rivernorthchicago.com/. This performance is part of a collaborative project with the South Arts Dance Touring Initiative, involving residency activities by River North Dance Chicago from January 29-31. Residency activities and performances are funded in part by a grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. Company members will hold master classes and meet one on one with dance students at Appalachian and in the community. RNDC will also perform as a part of the APPlause! K-12 Performing Arts Series for
area school children on the morning of January 31. For more information on the APPlause! Series, visit http:// theschaefercenter.org/applause. Tickets: Adult tickets are $20 and student tickets are $10. The Pick 5 discount is available for this show and offers a break on the ticket price when the tickets are purchased in multiples of five. The Pick 5 discount is offered on most of the events during the 2013-14 Performing Arts Series. To purchase tickets or inquire about the Pick 5 discount, call or visit the Schaefer Center for the Performing Arts box office at 828-262-4046. Tickets can also be purchased online at pas.appstate.edu. 2014 Performing Arts Series Season For videos, images and detailed information about each performance, visit pas.appstate.edu.
MPCC Camp Gladiator to start in February Memorial Park Community Center, 510 Bert St., will begin MPCC Camp Gladiator on Monday, Feb. 3. Class will meet from 6:45-7:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for six weeks. All classes will begin with a 10-minute cardio session of walking/running. Mondays will focus on toning legs, Tuesdays will focus on arms, and Thursdays will focus on abs. This boot camp class promises a motivating and challenging workout for all fitness levels. Cost is $3 per class or $45 for the camp. For more information, please contact Memorial Park Community Center at (423)434-5749.
Page 14, The Loafer • January 28, 2014 Each fatal incident was a hard lesson and a major setback, but the ingenuity of rocket scientists prevailed. And with the improvements made after reach tragedy, it has been since that reentry destruction of Space Shuttle Columbia on Feb. 1, 2003 that anyone has been killed in space. But there have been some close calls with luck on the side of threatened spacefliers. There have also been some deaths by space workers for NASA and Russia, not to mention some major rocket explosions at the factory or on the launch pad that claimed the lives of about 60 Ameritional Space Station in the 2000s. cans and maybe several hundred Rus In the 50 years of manned space sians. travel, those three fatal NASA space- As of Jan. 1, 2014, 533 individuships are joined by two death disasters als from 38 countries have orbited in the Soviet Union space program Earth, and have spent an accumulative that claimed four lives. That’s 21 hu- 77 years in space, including 100 total mans killed in five space-related di- days of space walks. Since 1961, sasters in the dangerous job of build- Russia has launched 126 manned ing and riding rockets—a death ratio spacecraft, America has put 170 to manned space launches that is actu- spacecraft with humans into space, ally quite low over five decades. and China has five manned flights to
NASA’s Tragedies Heal with Time
NASA’s worst moments are the three deadly tragedies that happened in the same week but 36 years apart. The deaths of 17 astronauts on the Apollo 1 moonship, the Space Shuttle Challenger and Shuttle Columbia disasters were horrible reminders of the danger of space travel. Yet all the lives were avenged with the American conquest of the Moon in the 1960s and the construction of the Interna-
its credit—totaling 301 spaceships leaving the Earth. And then you have the danger of spacewalks, the first being in 1965 by Russian Alexi Leonov. As of January 1, 2013, there have been exactly 205 humans who made a total of 778 individual spacewalks. That includes the more than 350 individual spacewalks at the International Space Station lasting about 7 hours each. Compared to expected fatalities in military flights around the world, it’s truly amazing that more people haven’t been killed in space. The three US space disasters didn’t have to happen—investigation boards all found human judgment errors cre-
ated the problem. And in each of the three American disasters, NASA was criticized for creating an atmosphere of flying with accepted risks that stifled those people warning of the impending doom. Those American tragedies were: • Jan. 27, 1967, launch pad 34B at Cape Kennedy, 6:30 pm: An electrical spark in the haphazard wiring in the new Apollo 1 moonship creates an inferno in the pure oxygen, killing three astronauts. The flash fire was caused by wiring under the commander’s seat, and in only 17 seconds asphyxiated the astronauts as they struggled to open the capsule Continued on page 15
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Continued from page 14
door—a five minute procedure. Dead were Gus Grissom, veteran of a Mercury and Gemini spaceflight and the favorite to be the first man on the Moon; Ed White, who performed the first American space walk on Gemini IV; and rookie Roger Chafee. • Jan. 28, 1986, 11:38 am: Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after lift-off just 9 miles above the Florida coast. This was the 25th launch in the Shuttle program, and coldest launch conditions ever. Freezing temperatures compromised a segment of the stacked solid rocket booster on the right side, allowing fire to breach a cold O-ring at the connection of a booster segment, erupting like a blow torch and cutting a support beam holding the rocket in place and shoving it into the huge fuel tank. Challenger was thrown sideways and broke up at 1,200 mph, the seven astronauts surviving in their cabin segment, possibly knocked unconscious from hypoxia—but three of them tried to activate their emergency oxygen. Free-falling for three minutes, many astronaut insiders believe their colleagues were alive when the cabin
hit the Atlantic Ocean at 207 mph with an unsurvivable force. The cabin wasn’t found until March 7 in 1,200 feet of water, 20 miles off shore. The remains of the crew were returned to their families April 29th. They are Commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael Smith and mission specialists Judith Resnik, Ellison Onizuka, Ronald McNair, Greg Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian as part of a teacher-in-space program. • Feb. 1, 2003, 9 am, 35 miles above Dallas, Texas: Space Shuttle Columbia is ripped apart at 5,000 mph just 2 minutes from landing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At blastoff 14 days earlier on its 28th mission, Columbia was struck by a chunk of insulation that flew off the huge fuel tank, punching a footballsized hole in the right wing. Though the damage was suspected by some engineers, NASA never used spy satellites to check, and the astronauts continued their mission in the Space Lab in the cargo by, unaware of their doomed fate. Killed were six American astronauts and Israel’s first space flier. They are Commander Rick Husband, pilot Willie McCool and mis-
sion specialists Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark and Israel’s first astronaut, war hero Ilan Ramon. Space Shuttle debris from more than 2,000 locations between East Texas and Western Louisiana included human remains. All of the 17 killed aboard US spacecraft have been immortalized with their names adorning planetariums, science centers, schools, streets and parks. NASA has the Astronauts Memorial Foundation’s Space Mirror Memorial at Cape Kennedy. Constructed of mirror-finished granite, the Sun’s rays are projected through the engraved names of the astronauts. The two Russian space tragedies could also have been averted. They are: • April 24, 1967 – Veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when his new Soyuz 1 spacecraft hit the ground at 500 mph after a doomed maiden flight. The one-day mission was plagued with system problems, including navigation and cabin cooling. Komarov, unable to control his spacecraft accurately, knew he was likely to die, and called the flawed Soyuz a “devil machine.” The reentry angle was all wrong, and the parachutes were ripped to shreds, causing the fatal impact. The brave cosmonaut’s cremated remains are in the Kremlin Wall at Red Square in Moscow. • June 30, 1971 – Russia was shocked when their new space heroes were found dead in their seats after a soft landing of the Soyuz 11 spacecraft. The three cosmonauts had spent three weeks aboard the new Salyut 1 Space Station, and had been on Russian national TV several times to show
off their new home. After undocking and heading for a landing, a cabin vent valve accidentally opened about 1/16th of an inch during reentry, allowing the air to escape, asphyxiating the crew. The automated landing proceeded perfectly with good telemetry. Mission control thought something was wrong with the radio, thus the silence from the cosmonauts. When the hatch was opened, found dead were Georgi Dobravolski, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov. They are interred in the Kremlin Wall. Five American astronauts and two Soviet Cosmonauts have died while training for flights, including
the prime crew of Gemini 9 in February 1966. Elliot See was piloting the T-38 jet with his partner Charles Bassett in the backseat when they crashed while landing in bad weather at the St. Louis, Missouri factory where, ironically, their Gemini spacecraft was being built. In another tragedy, Russian hero Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space on April 20, 1961, was killed March 27, 1968 when his MiG jet trainer crashed in bad weather. Gagarin was training for a Moon mission at the time of his death, though some Russian space officials wanted him Continued on page 17
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Continued from page 15 grounded because of his fame. Gagarin insisted he wanted to fly in space again instead of becoming a political trophy. He is interred in the Kremlin Wall at Red Square. The history of the Space Age has also seen many space workers killed while working on rockets or spacecraft in both America and Russia. Some of the more tragic were: • April 4, 1964, Cape Canaveral While being mated to the Orbiting Solar Observatory in a test facility, the solid rocket motor was accidentally ignited by static electricity, killing three and injuring eight people. • July 3, 1969, the launch pad explosion of the Soviet Union’s Moon rocket, called N-1. A secret for decades, the sketchy details reveal a shutdown of all 30 first stage engines of the unmanned vehicle just 5 seconds after ignition, causing the huge rocket to fall back onto the launch pad. Loss of life was not revealed, those some top rocket scientists are suspected victims. US spy satellites and seismometers recorded the aftermath, one of the largest nonnuclear explosions in history. • June 26, 1973, Plesetsk Cosmodrome, USSR Forty-eight technicians were killed
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when a Vostok 2M rocket blew up during fueling. • Feb. 15, 1996, Xichang, China A Long March rocket with a communications satellite veered off course immediately after launch crashing into a nearby village less than 30 seconds in flight. Chinese officials officially said six people died, but other reports estimated 100 deaths. Without a doubt, launching rockets into space is serious business, fraught with danger, yet the rewards are great. Just look at our 21st Century world so dependent on satellites to provide instant information that drives modern business and pleasure. So, when you hear of the anniversaries of the space tragedies of Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia, take a moment to think of the human sacrifice in this glorious Space Age.
Parks and Rec looking for Johnson City’s greatest talents! Parks and Recreation is calling on talented singers, dancers, magicians, comedians, and musicians of all ages to compete in this year’s JC’s Got Talent contest, slated for 6:30 p.m. Saturday, March 1 at Carver Recreation Center, 322 W. Watauga Ave. The overall winner will receive two season tickets to Dollywood, paid entry fee to another local talent competition, and a professional audio or video recording from Dothert. “Parks and Recreation is thrilled to be part of this search for Johnson City’s talent,” said event organizer Robin DiMona. “Johnson City is filled with talented individuals, and this is certainly an event you don’t want to miss.”
· Auditions: Feb. 20-21 and 24-25, 5:30-7 p.m. at Carver Rec. Entrants should bring all music and equipment needed for their audition. · Applications are available online at www.myjcparks.com, at Carver, Memorial Park Community Center, and Earth Fare. · Entry fee: $5 single acts, $10 group acts (two or more people) For more information, please call 283-5820 or 483-8830.
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Skies This Week
Celestial events in the skies for the week of Jan. 28-Feb. 3, 2014, as compiled for The Loafer by Mark D. Marquette. The week is moonless, and the brilliant stars of Winter are simply fantastic. Taking time to step outside, sitting down and looking up for 15 or 20 minutes will reenergize our senses and maybe make you wonder if anybody is looking back (I say, “Yes!”) Orion, Taurus and Gemini dominate the night, along with the brightest star Sirius in Canis Major and its Little Dog companion Procyon. At midnight, rising in the east are planets Saturn and Mars in Virgo and bright, white star Spica. Tues. Jan. 28 On this 1986 date in space history, Space Shuttle Challenger blew up 70 seconds after launch in front
of a horrified crowd and television audience. Cold weather created a flaw in one of the two Solid Rocket Boosters, the blow torch of flames igniting the huge gas tank, destroying the Challenger orbiter and killing seven astronauts. Wed. Jan. 29 Orion the Hunter is unmistakable just looking up to the Southeast. All the stars have names of Arabic origin, and from the three belt stars dangle a starry sword that contains the Great Nebula of Orion, easily seen in binoculars. Thurs. Jan. 30 Planet Jupiter outshines the brightest star in the sky, Sirius, as they rise in the east. Above Sirius is another bright star, Procyon. Sirius, Procyon and reddish star in the shoulder of Orion, Betelgeuse, form the asterism known as the Winter Triangle. Fri. Jan. 31 On this 1958 date in space history, NASA joined the space race with the successful launch of Explorer 1. Coming after the Soviet Union shocked the world with its basketball-sized Sputnik 1 orbiter in October 1957, Explorer 1 was a six-foot cylinder that sent back scientific data.
Sat. Feb. 1 On this 2003 date in space history, NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia was destroyed on reentry, killing seven astronauts. A piece of foam at launch punched a hole in the left wing, but the astronauts never knew it. However, some space experts suspected the damage, but the use of spy satellites to check out the wing was denied. A surveillance satellite could have easily seen the damage, and a rescue mission no doubt would have been attempted by another Space Shuttle. Sun. Feb. 2 Ground Hog Day. Also a cross-quarter day, or halfway between Winter and Spring. No matter what that silly groundhog says, the Spring Equinox is seven weeks away on March 20. Mon. Feb. 3 High above the Vshaped stars of constellation Taurus the Bull and its red “eye” star Aldebaran is the star pattern of a charioteer named Auriga. Its very bright star, yellowish Capella is directly overhead at about 10 pm.
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Jack is Back!
the “Star Trek” films, is a great cinematic action hero. I enjoyed the fact the film kept me on the edge of my seat and provided a great reintroduction to the Ryan charStates and the world. acter. The film moves at an exciting Under the direction of Branagh, pace, and the 105 minute running “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” is time is adequate for the story-line. a thrilling action movie that proThe actors are all great in their vides a great respite from the winroles, and Pine, as he proved in ter chill. (Rated PG-13) B+
“Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” neth Branagh, and is an original tale not based on any of the novels by Clancy. In the rebooted version, Ryan is first seen as a Marine Second Lieutenant in Afghanistan, where he suffers a critical injury when his helicopter is attacked. During his rehab, he catches the attention of CIA agent Thomas Harper (Kevin Costner), who is impressed with is abilities to recognize complex patterns. Ten years after he is recruited, Ryan is employed on Wall Street as a covert CIA Analyst where he searches for suspicious financial transactions that could lead to terrorist activity. During one of his searches, Ryan discovers some high ranking members of the Russian Federation are up to no good, and their actions could make the United States economy vulnerable. Ryan uncovers the person responsible for the threatening actions, Viktor Cheverin (Branagh), and soon finds himself in Russia in direct contact with the devious Russian military veteran. Harper is also in Russia to provide support for Ryan, and his love interest and future wife Cathy Muller (Keira Knightley). The trio know they must thwart the efforts of Cheverin and his cohorts in order to prevent disaster for the United Jack Ryan, a character created by author Tom Clancy, first appeared on the big screen in the 1984 film “The Hunt for Red October” and starred Alec Baldwin in the title role. Harrison Ford was featured as Ryan in sequels 2 and 3, with Ben Affleck taking over the role in the 4th Ryan film “The Sum of All Fears”. Now fans of the series must cast all those aforementioned films aside, for a reboot of the Jack Ryan series with Chris Pine (“Star Trek”) in the title role. “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” is directed by Ken-
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The Wonder Twins
“Why did I agree to go out tonight?” is what the text on my phone read. The text message came in at a quarter to midnight. I was at home, watching the movie Die! Die! My Darling! for the first time on TCM (A film that I’ve wanted to see for a long time, but was mostly a disappointment). The text was not a cry for help from a night gone sour, not remotely, instead it was a text of despair from a friend of mine who makes up half of a superpower that fights crime in the most amazing way possible. We never actually go out and fight crime. We’re like The Wonder Twins, only we’re The Wonder Twins of Anxiety and Needing to Be Alone To Recharge. That’s exactly the situation my friend was in, she had spent most of her day out with people socializing, and she was desperately pining for the peace of being alone with a book. She pines for books, I pine for movies. On that particular day I was most sympathetic with her, as my day had been spent taking five hours to watch a 90 minute long Abbott and Costello movie. My day was filled with casual interruptions and giving relationship advice to friends. Now, all together, that doesn’t bother me. I’m kinda glad that people feel they can come to me for advice.
However, I woke up in a mood that morning, and I was unable to shake it as the day went on. Finally around noon, I knew I had to do something to get my brain onto a happier path. “Why don’t I watch some Abbott and Costello movies today?” I thought to myself, as their films were on repeat quite often when I was a kid, I had all the really good ones on tape, and I still keep my VHS copy of Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein on my desk. A few years ago for Christmas, my parents gave me the DVD box set of all the films they made for Universal, and the tapes went into storage. I walked over to my DVD shelf, which is the land of wonder and happiness, and picked the good sized box off the shelf. Opening it up and reading over the list of 28 films I had to choose from I picked Hold That Ghost, one of their best films, and one that I loved as a kid, but hadn’t seen in a number of years. It was exactly what I needed, my mood was being push away, and I found myself starting to feel back to normal. Until the phone rang 15 minutes into the film. “Hey! We’re in town and we’re bringing the kids over to meet you!” boasted a family friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. I paused my movie, and spent an hour and a half with
them. I was happy to see them, but I was even happier to get back to my movie. Here is when being half of a unique brand of Wonder Twins comes in handy. I bet that some of you reading this just stopped to say “He’d rather watch a movie then spend time around people? What’s wrong with him?” Nothing, there’s nothing wrong with me or my friend who desperate needed some alone time. We’re not anti-social, just a little selective about how we socialize. When the times comes that we need to recharge, we need to recharge, and we can’t do anything else with any sense of peace till we do. We can smile, and we can fake that we’re having a good time, even if we wind up sitting in the corner just quietly observing everyone else. For my friend and I, our books and our movies is our precious oasis away from the rest of the world. A chance to get out of our own heads for a while, and shut off that voice that keeps telling us what we can’t do. A voice I think we all have, even if we don’t wish to admit it or not. I think that’s why I was moody in the first place, I sometimes get short lately with people who always make it a point to critique my taste in movies. People assume I don’t watch new movies, I do, but I just don’t talk about those as much as my classics. What people don’t understand is that I don’t see this films as having an expiration
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date on them. A time when you have to stop watching them, and they become irrelevant. “This movie is 50 years old” says to me “Ok, so I have to think about when it was made and what was going on.” But outside of that, if it’s a good movie, it’s a good movie. Yeah, I own more older movies than contemporary ones, because they’re a big part of me who I am because they were always around me for as long as I could recall. Why it bothers people I never understand, because is one small way they’re trying to say to me “You should change who you are to fit in better.” Which is a bunch of crap. So yes, world, my friend and I are The Wonder Twins, and when we recharge ourselves and activate our secret powers, nothing can stand in our way of doing amazing things. Would
I prefer to “fit in” or be a Wonder Twin? I’d rather be a Wonder Twin. Because being a Wonder Twin along side my friend is saying that we don’t need to keep up with everyone else to be happy. It’s kinda awesome to live that way. See you next week.
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abc123: THE LONG-AWAITED 2013 BAD PASSWORD AWARDS
A perhaps unintended consequence of the advent of ubiquitous mobile technology is the increasing concern and paranoia about online security and password creation techniques. Who would have thought twenty five or so years ago that we would be so freaked-out about a string of numbers, letters, and symbols as we are today? It appears that having a bad password day is much more damaging than having a bad hair day. I want to thank the folks at the Internet security and password protection firm SplashData (founded in 2000) for giving me my topic this week. And a good one it is. They just announced the top spots on their annual list of twenty-five most common (and most insecure) passwords. And guess where they found their award-winners? Yes, you guessed it, from “files containing millions of stolen passwords posted online” during the past year. Let’s just hope that SplashData isn’t a front for identity theft hackers. I’ve often suspected that the most dangerous predators out there are Internet security providers. After all, who would be in a better position to steal data than those in whom we put our trust to protect that very data? Enough of this paranoia—let’s get on with the awards ceremony. I certainly wouldn’t want to upset you before we even begin this week’s foray into the wonderful world of pop
culture. And the winner is. . . . . . “123456.” Hard to believe than anyone would pick this as a password, but it was the most commonly used one in 2013, followed closely by “12345678” and “1234567890”; in case you’re wondering, 12345 occu-
in the #4 spot; it probably isn’t a very good idea to use a password that is spelled out in a prominent place on every keyboard in the world. For all you Jackson 5 fans out there, you will relish “abc123” sitting in the #5 spot, and should also stand in awe of two more strings of numerals—“111111” and “000000.” I find three words —“monkey,” “shadow,” and “sunshine”—mildly amusing as I also do “letmein,” which reminds me of my favorite vampire movie. New to this year’s li are “princess,” “azerty,” “admin” (can’t believe this one hasn’t been on the list before), and “adobe123” (too bad the Jackson 5 will never be able to use this one for a song title).
pies the #20 spot on the list of 25. The second most used password is the very unimaginative “password,” down one slot from its coveted top spot last year—its companion, “password1,” sits proudly in the #21 slot. As I compose this sentence, I am also amazed that anyone would choose “qwerty” as their password, but there it is
We’ve all heard this before, but I guess we should hear it again. The experts at SplashData tell us to avoid the passwords on their Top 25 list by picking random words that don’t make any sense. For example, “cakes years birthday” or “smiles_light_skip?” are good choices that should baffle most hackers. Of course we (and
that most definitely includes me) should not use the same password for multiple sites. In addition to the words on the awards list, stay far away from passwords like “j%7K&yPx$”. While something like this seems at first glance pretty unguessable, it is precisely because it looks so hacker-proof that we will probably never remember it and will always be locked out of our precious data. So, I guess we should amend our 2014 New Year’s Resolutions to include creating better passwords. We should of course treat this as a creative exercise instead of a chore. Why not pick stuff from the list of ancient Assyrian gods? How about Nergal, Aruru, Gushkin, Nin-ildu, and Enmesharra? And you might like to throw in some Norse gods and goddesses just for good measure. That should confound the hackers, unless they happen to be experts on Assyrian and Nordic deity. Why not use some really long words like Antidisestablishmentarianism? Yes, I
know that would be a pain to type, but add a few easy-to-remember symbols and numbers and you should be very secure. In the past I’ve used favorite jazz artists for my passwords—i.e. Thelonious Monk. Or you could use movie directors, film noir titles, or entomological terms like acariphagous, coccidophagy, hypopharynx, or
mixomycetophagy. Hey, what’s wrong with typing passwords and becoming an expert in entomology at the same time. Interestingly enough, we might not have to put up with passwordcreation for too much longer. The next frontier might very well be biometrics, when we start harnessing the power of biology to secure and authenticate our valuable data. A preview for this brave new world is already here in the fingerprint scanner found on the new iPhone 5S. Motorola has speculated that soon we might also be using pills and “electronic tattoos for authentication.” A pill, for instance, could be “powered by stomach acids,” generating an 18bit signal similar to an ECG that will transform “your entire body into an authentication token.” Wow! Another development to watch closely is a wristband called Nymi that “reads your unique heartbeats to identify you, then pairs with a smartphone via Bluetooth to provide authentication.” I can hear strains of “My Foolish
Heart” and “My Funny Valentine” now, just in time for February 14. Just think—before very long you might be able to login to www. theloaferonline via your heartbeat. I can see that it’s time for me to go create some new passwords. And I urge you to do the same. See you next week, hopefully with a renewed sense of security and well-being.
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