Scoot in the News

Barefoot and Progressive drew our attention to a New York Times article about scooter taxis that gave lots of great press to Louisville's own City Scoot. I know I've blogged about City Scoot before, but this article included several fun facts that I wasn't aware of:

• Soon [Mark Roberts, founder of City Scoot] will introduce No Excuse for Drunk Driving, or NEDD, a nonprofit organization intended to take the success of his scooter program national.
• [City Scoot] has delivered more than 50,000 consumers home safely since 2004.
• The service is open seven nights a week, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. The average cost of a ride home is about $20, though City Scoot has teamed up with local establishments, which help defer the cost, and with their help a ride could be as low as $9.
• [City Scoot] works with Brown-Forman, the wine and liquor giant, which gives its 1,000 employees in Louisville free and anonymous access to CityScoot services... The company intends to work with NEDD in some fashion... Brown-Forman just completed a pilot program with Zingo [another scooter program] in Atlanta. (Bravo, Brown-Forman! sez me.)

Just a reminder: City Scoot's number is 502-566-6384. I have it programmed into my cell phone (though I have yet to use the service). You should too.

Rocky Live!

I have a shameful pop culture confession to make: I have never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  None of it. Or not more than the ten or fifteen continuous seconds that you sometimes see as clips on tv.  I've heard a few songs from the soundtrack.  I can sorta hum "Time Warp," and I know there's a dance associated with it, but I don't know the words or any of the moves.  "Let's do the Time Warp Again! Let's do the Time Warp Agaaaaain....!! MMmmm mmmm blahhh blahh hm..."

 

Yep. Nope.

 

So... questions: Would it behoove me to try to see the movie before I go see Pandora Production's live stage show?  Will I feel super out of touch if I go to the musical as a Rocky Horror virgin?  Do I need to bring toilet paper and.... uh... bread?

 

Help a sister out, readers. 

 

The Rocky Horror Show will be at the Henry Clay Building in the Bunbury Theater September 24-October 4 at 7:30pm.  The Pandora Productions website doesn't have the actual schedule up yet, but usually their shows are Thursday night through Sunday night with maybe a matinee. I'm sure they'll add the actual dates/times soon.

 

PS: My other shameful pop culture confession: I've never seen Fast Times at Ridgemont High either.  I know! Crazy, huh? And that's my last confession, I think.  My pop culture soul is now clean.  I feel like a better woman already.

 

Unseen Undead

Alas, this year will be the first year that I've missed the annual August 29 Zombie Attack since I moved to Louisville. But it's Roommate's and my shared birthday weekend (Aug 29/Aug 31), and he's in Erlanger with the Writers Retreat Workshop, so I'm heading thataways to hang with good writer friends.

 

But the Zombie Attack is always an awesome time, and at one point it sounded like the annual event (now in its 5th year) was dead dead (as opposed to undead dead), so I'm wicked happy it's still... um... alive and eating brains.

 

Zombies seem to be this year's Pirates here in Louisville. Of course, Pirates are still this year's Pirates too.  (Make sure you mark Sep 19-- Talk like a Pirate Day-- on your calendar.  More on that event soon!)

"America's Happiest Music"

That's what the website for the Jug Band Jubilee says: "America's Happiest Music." And just reading that phrase makes me happy, so imagine what a whole day of jug bands from around the U.S and Japan (JAPAN?? I know... crazy, huh?) will do for your summer-is-over blahs.

The Jug Band Jubilee was started in 2005 by Rod Wenz, who passed away last year. This year's Jubilee is dedicated to him. It will be held at the Brown-Forman Amphitheater in Waterfront Park on September 19 from noon til 11p. It's free and food and drink will be sold-- no outside coolers, alcohol, or pets.

In conjunction with the event, the Jubilee pays homage to a jugband legend with the unveiling of a headstone at the previously unmarked grave of Earl McDonald, on Sep 18 at 2p at the Louisville Cemetery. On Saturday at noon, a historical marker celebrating Louisville as the birthplace of jugband music makes its debut on River Road.

Much more information available at: www.jugbandjubilee.org

Wednesday Afternoon Randomness

So, yeah, kiddos... I forgot to mention that I am home. Back in the Ville. Home Sweet Home. And very glad to be here. Missed Casa Lou, missed Louisville, missed my friends, even missed Roommate a little. Although I must say, after traipsing around the relatively cool Northeast for the better part of the summer, it's too fraking hot here!

And I'm back at work. Both here at Loueyville and in Meatspace too. And while working on Loueyville is a pleasure, and it sure is good to have a Meatspace job in this economy, Big Girl work is for the birds. I used to think that if I had "too much free time" on my hands, I'd go bonkers; now I know that there ain't no such thing as "too much free time." Ladies of Leisure, I salute you. And if any of you loyal readers wants to pay me to travel, read books, write, and watch tv, I will take you up on that offer and make you damned proud. As Big Mama Lou is fond of saying, "You should have married rich." Yep.

So here's a little Wednesday afternoon/evening clearing house for you:

• Is it wrong to say that you have a "girl crush" on someone you're friends with? I looked up "girl crush" on Urban Dictionary and it said: feelings of admiration and adoration which a girl has for another girl, without wanting to shag said girl. a nonsexual attraction, usually based on veneration at some level. Well, at the risk of sounding wonky, I have a girl crush on Michelle from Consuming Louisville. She's at it again, folks: planning cool and caring activities to benefit her fellow Louisvillagers, this time in the form of a bake sale to benefit our poor drowned LFPL. Come get your dessert on at Derby City Espresso next Wednesday, August 26 from 4p-8p. $1 from every drink sold will also benefit the LFPL. I would have offered to bake something, but I am pretty sure that no one would want to eat anything that came out of my kitchen. So, I'll just plan on spending some dough. (bah ha ha ha!)
• And to round out an already awesome Wednesday evening, make sure you hit Waterfront Wednesday. I have heard super duper good things about the Great Lake Swimmers. Also performing will be Cracker-- who had a string of great songs a while ago-- and Will Hoge-- who I know nothing about, but who sure is cute!
• It's Kentucky State Fair time! Just in case you forgot. Mama loves the fair. The fair is the best reminder that you actually DO live in Kentucky without having to leave Louisville. Am all over the free Wallflowers concert next Friday (8/28).
• Alongside IKEA and Trader Joe's, I am adding the Gulu-Gulu Cafe to my list of things I wish were in Louisville. Gulu-Gulu isn't a chain; it's a bar/coffeeshop/restaurant in Salem, Massachussetts that I TOTALLY fell in love with. It's got very reasonable Proof-style food, a fantastic line-up of events and entertainment, a casual and quirky atmosphere... easily the most "Lou-ish" place I've come across outside of New Orleans. Seriously, take a buzz around the website and see if you don't get jealous of Witch City.
• Big Mama Lou spends all of her time and energy during our visits asking me why I don't want to move back to the Northeast. I usually mumble something about loving Louisville and loving Casa Lou and not being able to AFFORD the Northeast. But today I decided that I can give her a definitive reason why there's no Northeast in my future-- one she can't argue with: Nobody in the Northeast serves sweet tea! What is wrong with those people? Tea that you've stirred sugar into ISN'T sweet tea. A total of more than 40 days in the North-- not a single sweet tea to be found. Damn Puritans.
  

Art in the Highlands is the New Ursulines Art Fair

Earlier this year the Ursuline Sisters of Louisville announced that after 22 years the Ursulines Art Fair, which used to draw upwards of 35,000 people in September, was no longer. Enter the Louisville Collegiate School to pick up the art fair baton.

Art in the Highlands will be September 19 and 20 from 10am-5pm on the Louisville Collegiate campus. The event will feature 80 juried artists, including many who used to show at the Ursulines event.

According to the website:

Introducing this event to the community is a way for us to extend our arts education beyond our campus community. All proceeds from the event will support Collegiate students through tuition assistance and scholarships, technology, fine arts, athletics and professional development for faculty and staff.

A list of the artists and craftspeople is available here. This city is just silly for art fairs; here's hoping that this one is as successful as so many others have been!

Wizard of Oz in theaters: Nightmares in Hi-Def

When Lou was a wee lass, she had recurring nightmares about flying monkeys and melting witches. She also had a little friend named Jenny who held her plastic tape recorder against the TV speaker for an entire showing of the Wizard of Oz and used to play the tape in its entirety, commercials and all, during just about every play date she had with Lou. Jenny also had the full-on Dorothy get-up: gingham dress, apron, ruby slippers, basket with a stuffed Toto. I'll give you one guess who got stuck wearing Jenny's mom's oversized black sweatshirt and running around screeching, "I'll get you, my pretty!!"

To celebrate the 70 year anniversary of the release of the Wizard of Oz, theaters nationwide will be presenting the first ever showing of the movie in Hi-Def. Locally, both Tinseltown and Stonybrook will carry the one-night event on September 23 at 7pm.

You can order tickets online, if this is your kind of thing. Me? I think I'll probably skip it. I've been battling insomnia for around two months now and am pretty sure I don't need to bring flying monkeys into the fore of my consciousness right now.

PYRO Gallery Opening: Gatherings, Aug 21-Sep 26

Mixed media PYRO artist, Susan Harrison, will be joined by guest artists JD Schall, Waseem Touma and Annabelle Wilson in an exhibition featuring installations, paintings, and ceramics opening this Friday, August 21. The reception is from 5pm-9pm, and I have it on good word that there will be sangria available. It's always lovely to have a little sangria with your daily dose of culture. The exhibition runs through September 26, and if you can't catch the opening, there will be another reception during the Trolley Hop on September 4, also from 5pm-9pm.

According to the PYRO website:

Susan Harrison will exhibit a new mixed-media wall installation that juxtaposes precious etched copper with discarded waste materials and sentimental keepsakes. The materials she incorporates, such as inked plates and sculpted blocks, reflect her background experience in printmaking and sculpture. However, Harrison chooses to present these same materials in non-traditional ways: the inked plates remain unprinted and sculpted blocks remain two-dimensional wall paintings. Harrison hopes this installation inspires thinking about latent and realized potential, and the nature of order, dysfunction, memory, and attachment. This work is the result of her efforts to limit, re-order, use up, and transform years' worth of accumulated materials. She explains that she is turning the “bits and pieces, the junk and stuff” of her life into art.

Susan rocks, and her art is always surprising and thoughtful. Just another reason to check out great art downtown!

Pyro is at 624 West Main Street.