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Ketchum Named One of Twelve Top Small Town Art Places
INSIDE!
Page 3
ids amp C
Expedition Inspiration’s Boobapalooza Fundraiser Features Body Canvas Page 5
Living Well: This One’s For the Bees (and Their Keepers) Page 11
& mer es SumActiviti
A p r i l 1 7 , 2 0 1 3 • V o l . 6 • N o . 1 6 • w w w .T h e W e e k l y S u n . c o m
Brewery Turns to Comedy Comedian Steve Sabo to Play Sun Valley Brewery BY KAREN BOSSICK
T
he Sun Valley Brewery will turn into Comedy Central Tuesday night when the Hailey brews-andburger house stages its first ever Comedy Night. Comedian Steve Sabo, who calls himself “the caffeinated voice of reason,” will take the mic at 8 p.m., following an opening comedy act at 7 p.m. Sabo has appeared on HBO, Showtime, Comedy Central, USA, the Laugh Network, Spike and CMT and has regular shows on XM/Sirius Radio as part of his “Caffeinated Voice of Reason” show. He has recorded several DVDs and CDs, his latest being “Mental Fornication.” “You know how it is when you’re driving to work and you’ve had 15 cups of coffee and all those little thoughts running around in your mind start driving you nuts? That’s me,” he says. The Brewery’s Sean Flynn says the comedy night is part of the Brewery’s efforts to provide a variety of entertainment. “We’ve been offering different types of music, including kids from Notes Music. This definitely is a way to bring something different to Hailey,” Flynn said. The dance floor in front of the stage will be turned into cabaret-style seating spruced up with white linen. The Brewery will offer special drinks and dishes that night, Flynn said. “Steve’s a pretty accomplished comedian. He’s been on just about every TV station over the past 20 years and he tours the country quite a bit. He’s very funny,” said Flynn. Sabo knows how to tell a story and has a talent for one-liners, according to those who have heard him. His act is “classy with just a touch of edginess,” said Darlene Wilmot, head of the Alpena Events Center. Sabo says stand-up comedy is our last remaining pure art form—a world of free speech where personal convictions and political correctness do not apply… a world of immediate gratification where in the blink of an eye you can elicit a response from hundreds of individuals. “That’s the greatest experience any one person can encounter in their lifetime,” he says. The difference between comedy and tragedy? It’s a punch line, he adds. Tickets are $10 in advance and at the door. tws
Opening a New Chapter
Nardagani Works Reading Miracles
Narda Pitkethly and Leslie Andrews tutor Sven Dickey, who says he looks forward to his twice-weekly reading lessons.
STORY & PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK
I
n February, Narda Pitkethly got a note from a desperate grandmother. “My grandson is 12 years old, autistic and cannot read,” wrote Catherine Hayward. “His teachers say he may never learn to read. It would be a miracle if you could teach him to read.” It turned out Pitkethly did have a “miracle”—a reading system she invented based on a method created 250 years ago by the Japanese to help readers learn the 10,000 characters that make up the Japanese language. Sven Dickey, who couldn’t read such simple words as “a” or “at” when Pitkethly met him, was reading five-letter words after just five lessons using Pitkethly’s Nardagani program. Two lessons a week and six weeks later, the Hailey youth had read his first full book— “Biscuit,” about a yellow dog. “I…am…going…on…a…safari,” he slowly read as he started a second book in his grandmother’s kitchen a week later. He sat the thin paperback book down and grinned from ear to ear. “I do like reading,” said Dickey, who has used a combination of memory games and codes to learn to read. “It used to be hard to read. It was difficult. I would go someplace and see a sign and not know what it meant. But now I like reading stories by myself.” Nardagani uses 12 symbols that tell what sound a letter makes to allay the confusion that comes with the silent letters and other idiosyncracies of the English language. “There are 14 letters that make more than one sound,” said Pitkethly. The letter “H,” for instance, has a main sound as in “horse,” is soft in “teeth,” hard in “feather” and “chair,” but soft in “Christmas.” It’s soft in ”sheep,” helps make the “f” sound in “phone” and “laugh,” and often disappears with the pairing of “gh.” Most students can learn to read in fewer than two weeks, Pitkethly said. In time, they’re able to dispense with coding the words with Nardagani symbols. “Sven’s teachers said he had trouble reading because his short-term memory was such that he couldn’t remember the rules of reading,” said Pitkethly. “The Nardagani system requires very little memory.” Leslie Andrews, who worked with disabled children for 30 years as a social worker, said she was a doubting Thomas after her first meeting with Sven Dickey. “I remember coming out from our first meeting and saying this isn’t going to happen,” said Andrews, who recently became a
Sven Dickey uses a Nardagani key to learn to read.
Nardagani teacher. “Now look—we’ve taught an autistic child to read! He has a way to go—he’s not ready to read ‘War and Peace’ yet. But what he’s accomplished in such a short amount of time is amazing!” Sven’s father, Sam Dickey was equally pleased: “Sven’s come a long way in a short amount of time. His teachers taught him a lot but he seemed like he was kind of stuck on my name and the dog’s name and his grandmother’s name when it came to reading. And his teachers didn’t seem to have any answers how to get past that.” Pitkethly got the idea for Nardagani from her own experience learning to read Japanese in one week using the Japanese method. A person learning Japanese is given one symbol to memorize for each of the 40 sounds of Japanese. When China copied the
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