Geoff "Jeff" Davis Representing the Worst of KY

Remember, Lou moved here from New Orleans, so she's no stranger to deeply embarrassing political leaders. (Thank Jeebus, though, I didn't live in Louisiana when they almost elected a governor who was a Grand Dragon in the KKK). That doesn't mean my head didn't pop off when I heard that KY Representative Geoff Davis said, in reference to Obama:

"I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button. He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country."

Gasp. Choke. At a GOP dinner in KY.

Davis's reps have not denied or tried to explain away what he said, and Davis himself is reported to have hand-delivered an apology to Obama. But interestingly enough, I haven't seen one single report that tells me how the crowd reacted to the comment.

Was it: Gasp? Choke?

Was it?

Because here's the thing, what stuck me as so jaw-dropping about the whole thing is that Geoff Davis is not some withered old Strom Thurman dinosaur. The man's 49 years old! Sure, it's no less offensive when fossils crack open their bigoted big mouths and let some heinous slur spill out, but-- and let's hope lightening doesn't strike me down for saying so-- when a fossil says something assholish, then we can at least comfort ourselves with the knowledge that the fossil, and those who share fossil's archaic beliefs and preferences, will not be long with us. (That's a very bad thing to say, Lou. Do shame!)

This man's not even old enough to be my dad (well, okay, maybe if he was a strapping young just-barely-teen who "really listens and understands," and my mama were a Florida schoolteacher). We've got a good twenty, thirty, maybe even forty years of his brand o' bigotry to endure.

Email Geoff Davis at his website. He's the Rep for Kentucky's 4th District ("the fightin' fourth!") which includes the area right around Cincinnati (which, yes, I know is NOT in Kentucky, but it kinda feels like it is). Davis sits on the board of CASA, the Court Appointed Special Advocates, working with juveniles who have been abused and neglected. He and his daughter have mentored in inner-city schools. I'm thinking the folks in charge of having Davis work with these kids might want to think about how being called a "boy" by this big rich white man may effect of a young black inner city youth.

(Note: I say Davis is rich because, seriously, who can afford to have SIX kids these days except rich people? Well, except Jon and Kate from TLC and that fundamentalist family with 17 kids on the Discovery Channel. Huh. I didn't realize that Jon & Kate are super religious. Never would have guessed from the couple of shows that I've seen. Now see, this is how the religious right is going to take over the world-- by breeding!! Oh, now, Lou's taken quite the side trip here).

(Isn't Jeff Davis the Garfield guy? Oh no, no, that's Jim Davis. No, Jeff Davis was the President of the Confederacy... well, now, that's awkward!)

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

A teaser for all my loyal readers... today, Lou followed her quirk and let her freak flag fly and, as a result landed a part-time job. Although she signed a few bits of paper and pledged her allegiance, she won't be making the big announcement until after Derby.

Until then, here's a little hint: Mama's gonna get to play with some high tech gadgets, officially be an ambassador to her favorite unsung city, and make use of her exceptional "spooky" voice.

Stay tuned, ghouls and ghouliettes!

Louisville's Long Lost Sibling

The results have been tallied, and Louisville has been announced as the winner of Bushmills' "Twin City in America" contest!

According to today's Business First: "Bushmills chose Louisville because the city celebrates its history and heritage with festivals like Octoberfest, Irish Fest and Worldfest, and by giving its neighborhoods names like Germantown and Irish Hill. Louisville also demonstrates its craftsmanship by producing bourbon and Louisville Slugger bats and its hospitality by welcoming thousands for the Kentucky Derby every year, the company said."

Louisville is the proud recipient of not only a twin that she never knew she had but also a big, happy $40,000 check, "which must be used for preservation and advancement of the city's traditions and culture, and for programs that promote responsible drinking."

As Bushmills' contest was meant to celebrate it's 400th anniversary, if Louisville is Bushmills' twin ,that means Louisville, purported to be a mere 230 years old, has some serious 'splaining to do about those lost 170 years. That's a lot of fuzzy nights after one too many at Ye Olde Taproom or something.

Once you go Woolly, you never go back...

An unscrupulous co-worker recently introduced me to the ludicrously addictive canceled television series Veronica Mars.

Oh my gosh, she's so cute! She's so Nancy Drew! She's so hardcore! Kristen Bell can fake cry like nobody's business! That Logan... so dastardly, so kind of homely, but so oddly hubba hubba. Who killed Lilly? OMG, HE killed Lilly! That's good. I hated him! Keith Mars is, like, the best dad in the world. Back Up makes me want to buy a pit bull. My high school experience was just like Veronica's, but without the PI stuff, the high drama, the rich friends, the hot boyfriends, the great wardrobe, the perfect hair, the proximity to tropical beaches, and the convertible. Basically I was a misunderstood, outsider smart chick. I was blonde. My Wallace was an Italian boy who was also good at basketball. And my principal hated me. Ummm... yeah, that kind of wraps up the similarities. But still...

So, I mainlined Season One in a matter of days, but my co-worker/dealer connection ended there. Season One ends with VM opening the door to her apartment after the worst night of her life, busting a huge smile, and saying, "I was hoping it was you...." Who? Logan? Wallace? Eli? Please not icky Duncan!! Obviously, to quell my VM DTs, I had to get me a Season Two fix ASAP.

I'm a big fan of buying local, but I have to admit that even though just about everything points to me renting local when it comes to DVDs, I've always been sucked into the convenience of Ye Olde Blockbuster. And today was no different. It was pouring rain, and I knew that Blockbuster was a good zip-in/zip-out option. And so I hit the Big Blue Box renter after work to pick up my drug of choice.

But no dice! While Blockbuster had a whole wall full of Losts and Sopranos, there was not a VM to be had. So I bit the bullet and hopped in the ol' jalopy and drove over to the store that I should have gone to in the first place: Wild and Woolly Video on Bardstown Road.

This experience at W&W has clinched the deal. Inconvenience aside, everything else about W&W is so far superior to Blockbuster that I can't believe it took me this long to convert. The bitch is the lack of parking, and on a day like today it was a rather miserable walk in the rain to get there.

First of all, the collection at W&W has to rival the collections at some of the best DVD stores in the country. It's massive, expertly catalogued, and wildly diverse. It never crossed my mind that they wouldn't have my VM; I was only worried that it might be checked out.

Recently, I've once again become a big fan of TV. And watching TV on DVD is the way to go. The second, and probably biggest, selling point for W&W is that, unlike Blockbuster who rents TV DVDs by the individual DVD, at W&W when you rent a TV DVD, you get the whole season for one price. At Blockbuster, it would have cost me around $24 to rent the 6 DVDs for Veronica Mars' Season Two. At Wild and Woolly, I got the whole shebang for a mere $4.65!

But wait! That's not all...

Wednesday night is "Ladies' Night" and all ladies get their DVDs rent one, get one free. So I got a whopping SEVEN DVDs (and the promise of a week that's going to turn my eyeballs square) for just under $5. You can't beat that with a stick, my friends.

So, open the door, Veronica. I'm just warning you, if it's Duncan you've been hoping for, I may just skip it. After all, I only spent $5.

Louisville: Many Green Miles

Prevention Magazine has released its list of the 100 most walkable cities in the US. While Louisville didn't make the top 100, it was cited as #3 on the list of "greatest number of parks per square mile."

Kentuckiana Cluster All-Breed Dog Show 2008: Bitches, man! Bitches.*

There is a place where dapper gentlemen dressed in suits and ties stand around and talk openly about their bitches. And it isn’t the lobby of the Mayflower Hotel. The 2008 Kentuckiana Cluster All-Breed Dog Show featured thousands of dogs from May 15-18 at the Kentucky Fair and Expo Center.

Of course, I went expecting to be transported to the Mayflower (yes) Dog Show from the 2000 Christopher Guest movie, Best in Show. And while the Kentuckiana Show lacks the pomp and spectacle of the show in the movie, for the most part the movie was dead on. There were the strung-out Parker Posey types and the flamboyant Michael McKeans. The second judging group I caught was the terrier group, so I couldn’t get “God Loves a Terrier” out of my head. But, truth be told, the show just wasn’t as fun or funny without Fred Willard’s commentating.

Some observations:

There’s a lot of dog-butt touching going on at dog shows. Apparently the appearance of a dog’s tail is of great significance in judging a dog, so the handlers spend a lot of brushing, stroking, and tweaking dog butt. It can be obscene and strangely intimate. At times I had to avert my eyes.

For a small dog, the tail does double-duty and serves as a handle. In order to place the dog on the judging table, handlers lift the dog by the neck and tail. I assume that this is to prevent squishing the dog’s fur. I know that it is okay lift a cat by the scruff of its neck, but it still makes me uncomfortable to watch. Likewise this means of lifting the dog.

Yes, those over-groomed poodles with the Cher hair and the hip pom-poms fair well at dog shows. I watched a white standard poodle won the Non-Working group (as she—Lord, I hope it was a “she” dog—walked by the “Non-Working" sign in the ring, my inner bitch said, “Non-Working? No shit.”). I cannot begin to describe the archness of this dog’s ugliness. Not only was she shaved to her grey-ish skin over most of her body, but her face appeared botoxed. And yet, the crowd loved her.

Dog shows smell like dogs. I don't know why this should have surprised me. I guess I assumed that with all the grooming and blow-drying and whatnot, they'd somehow wash the dog stink away. But I guess when you have hundreds of dogs under the same roof pooing and peeing, you're pretty much stuck with the dog stink. I just hope that the next expo booked in the hall isn't a flower show.

The 2007 Kentuckiana Cluster All-Breed Dog Show was named the 2007 Show of the Year by the AKC, so I guess what we have going on here is good stuff. In this dog show newbie's opinion, though, the show seemed slow and a bit anti-climatic. One way to perk things up a little (besides hiring Fred Willard) would be to mic the judging; that way in addition to the shameless poking and proding, viewers could be treated to choice comments like, "This bitch has a nice butt."

*Big love to anyone who recognizes the title as a quote from the endlessly quotable movie Say Anything.

Bushmills Twin City Vote

Bushmills, Northern Ireland is looking for it's twin city in the US. Sponsored by Bushmills Whisky, the contest has been narrowed to Louisville, Boston, and Portland, ME. And we're losing badly right now at just 14% of the vote.

Vote now at http://www.bushmills.com/. The competition ends on St. Patricks Day. By voting you're also entered to win a 3-day (yeesh, so short) trip to Ireland.

Boston has a strong lead, but we're trailing Maine by 10%. Doesn't Boston have enough drinking/Ireland-related cache?

IU Charity Case?

I'm only a casual fan of college basketball and Indiana University is not high on my list of favorite teams, so the news that Kelvin Sampson has accepted a buyout from IU doesn't rattle me much. What does rattle me, though, is the fact that $500,000 of the $750,000 buyout has come from an anonymous donor.

I appreciate that Sampson's anonymous donor must have had IU's best interest in mind. But seriously? A college basketball coach-- a creep, at that-- is a charity case worthy of someone's $500,000?

In the same section of the Courier Journal that reports on the buyout is a plaintive letter from Victoria Dempsey of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. They're $214,000 short in their budget. Interesting and sad.

Memory Lane Food: decades of sating the rumble down under

I imagine that deep in the woods of the Smoky Mountains all the hibernating bears are thinking about the same thing that this urban hibernator is thinking about: food. Too cold to explore the city, too grouchy to socialize, we're stuck dwelling on one activity that requires minimal exertion and no engagement whatsoever.

Lou recently got back from a too-short visit to St. Petersberg, Florida. Once upon a time, I spent a couple of years living across the bay in Tampa. Next to visiting with friends and generally defrosting, I had a single driving mission: have a meal at the historic Columbia Restaurant.

And it got me thinking, if I were to leave Louisville tomorrow, what food would I miss the most?

But let's take a trip back in the ol' Lou Time Machine and visit some of the past hometown foods I miss most.

We'll skip over the baby days. Let's face it, nostalgia alone renders the homecooked meals of my family far superior than anything we ever ate at restaurants. I'm a sucker for New England Clam Chowder, but no one will ever make it better than my G-pa. I love me some red meat, but my grandmother's grilled steak tips still cause me to put the pedal to the metal in anticipation as I drive to her house. My other grandmother made a kicking Vineyard Herbed Chicken; I have the recipe, but it's never as good. My aunt's Edna's Pot Roast-- she's not Edna; I don't know who Edna is-- and her Yorkshire Pudding... hubba hubba. Ma wasn't much of a cook, although she's gotten better as she's aged; I still make her lasagna and stuffed peppers.

Anyway, first stop NYC. It's been more than a decade since my college days, and some of my favorite joints may be defunct. I haven't been to the city since 2000, so I haven't had a chance to check it out. Let's see what a little web-diddling can produce.

• Distaster in the first click! The West End Gate on Broadway near Columbia closed in April 2006. Opened in 1911, haunt of the Beat generation and members of the Weather Underground, and the site of many a Columbia student's first underaged drink in a bar, the West End also had a killer grilled chicken salad with blanched broccoli. I don't ever think I ate anything else there, and believe me, I ate (and drank) there often.


• Strike Two: there's no listing online for Cafe 112, the pseudo Italian restaurant on 112th and Broadway that offered a cheese raviolli with alfredo sauce, ham, onions, and peas. Again, I don't think I ever ate anything else there. (I'm that kind of diner, by the way. Loyal to dishes.)


• Thank goodness! I finally found a mainstay of my New York City diet that is still in business. Yaffa Cafe on St. Mark's Avenue between 1st and A. And, bless their hearts, they still have the Avacado Melt-- simply an avacado with your choice of melted cheese (muenster!) and a side salad with tahini dressing for (now) only $6.95. The homefries there were also memorable.


• I'm on a roll-- clearly the East Village hangs on to its haunts-- Dojo also on St. Marks near 2nd Avenue. You don't often see burgers served on pita bread. It came with a side salad with tahini dressing (I still have a thing for tahini dressing), and I used to stuff the whole salad into the pita with the burger. Still a deal for $5.95.


• How crazy is this: by my senior year, I was going to Ollie's Noodle Shop at least twice a week for dinner. I have still never had steamed vegetable dumplings that good. But my meal of choice from this noodle restaurant (and-- GASP-- no longer on the menu??!!): Spaghetti. Hey, it's noodles.

Of course, there were other places that tickled my tummy or served as a home away from home. Most notably: the Hungarian Pastry Shop on Amsterdam between 110 & 111. I think I owe them rent for all the many hours I spent there during my four years of college. There was a Chinese restaurant on Amsterdam called the College Inn which had decent food but became a regular date place because the food came with free, cheap white wine. It didn't matter if you were 12, they'd serve you-- and serve you, and serve you, and serve you.

Leaving on a jet plane for Tampa, Florida.

• It's kind of interesting that my all-time most-missed food is a salad, the 1905 Salad at the Columbia Restaurant. Over the past few years, friends from Tampa or friends that have visited Tampa have made it a routine to gift me with a few bottles of the dressing, but somehow it's still not the same. Just about everything on the menu of this 103 year old Cuban establishment is amazing. Swanky without the swanky prices. Pretty much my ideal restaurant.


• Tampa is the city for Cuban food and the first Cuban restaurant I was introduced to was Carmine's, also in Ybor City. I never quite got the taste for it's famous Devil Crab-- kind of a sour (if I remember correctly) deep fried crabcake-- but the Cuban sandwiches and roast chicken are amazing. It's always one of those quandries when you visit: one or the other. Carmine's is open late and also has wonderful Cuban cafe con leche.

This trip down memory lane will have to be continued. My trusty laptop sidekick is hungry too. Coming soon: New Orleans and the Ville!

Lou is hibernating

I know, I know. But like a cute widdle bear cub, soon enough I shall emerge from my cave, stretch, and take on the world, or at least Loueyville, once more.

In the meantime, I've been updating Lou Reads slowly. What else is there to do in a cave?

Loueyville = Safe!

I know I'm coming from a very different perspective than most Loueyvillagers, but I've never been able to keep myself from snorting and snickering a bit any time I hear people talk about how "X neighborhood in Loueyville isn't safe" or "the rise in crime is making me scared."  Safe?  Seriously?  "I feel unsafe walking in downtown after dark because of all the scary panhandlers."  Really?  C'mon, you're kidding right?  "The gang problem in Loueyville is UN-real."  Yeah, unreal.  Like un-real-bad.  You'd think we lived in Compton!  (I'm dating myself.  I think I've heard that Compton is actually quite safe now).

Lou is going to stop mocking Loueyvillagers sense of what's "not safe" right now for fear of jinxing herself.  It would be just her luck to walk out of work in her VERY SAFE neighborhood and get mowed down in a drive-by.

But at least now we have proof that Louisville is indeed safe.  The 8th safest city of over 500,000 people.  We should make a bigger deal out of it.  I think it's interesting to note that most of the top 10 cities are located in places where the weather is so nice that people have better things to do than behave like criminals:  Honolulu is #1.  Duh.  If you live in Honolulu, why risk going to jail where you have to be inside all the time?  San Jose, CA; San Diego, CA; San Antonio, TX; Austin, TX.  I'd rather live in Alaska than ever live in California or Texas, but I have to admit that if I HAD to live in CA or TX, those would be the four cities I'd move to (under duress).  Fort Worth... not so much.

Anyway #8.  Right on, Loueyville!!

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More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail!

Holiday Shopping-- Ho ho ho in the Hometown!

Yesterday, Lou dumped a fairly substantial chunk of change into the local economy in an effort to put her Christmas shopping to bed. (Note: "substantial chunk of change" in Lou-speak just barely tips into three digits, so no one's going to be giving her awards for local altruism.)

First stop: The Mellwood Center's Good Folk Fest. It wasn't til I walked in the door that I realized I'd gone to the GFF last year. I'm a big fan of folk art-- and an occasional folk-artist wannabe (my trip ended with a trip to Artist & Craftsman Supply to refresh my supply of brushes and paint)-- but the problem with folk-art-as-gifts is that folk art is so incredibly subjective. What's cool to me (for example, a seemingly finger-painted and incredibly timely painting of Evel Kneivel jumping a tank of sharks) may not be the taste of my Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn lovinng cousin. That being said, there's a great deal of satisfaction to be had in buying at the GFF. I bought a lovely painted wooden box for a whopping $20, and from the reaction of the artist, you would have thought I was dropping $2000. I just wanted to hug her.

Stop two: I always get turned around leaving the Mellwood, and this time I found myself driving up Brownsboro Road, right past Barbara Lee's Kitchen-- a restaurant that my students have been imploring me to visit for the past few months (somehow it came up that I love diners). And bless their cholesterol-clogged little hearts, but they sure did deliver for me. Barbara Lee's, located at 2410 Brownsboro Road, is open 24 hrs and features just about every diner-staple imaginable. And some unimaginable dishes too. I had a BLT & fried egg sandwich with hashbrowns, and I am a wee bit surprised that I am still alive to type this. But man, it was yummy and cheap-- my whole bill came to less than $7 (they take cash only). Barbara Lee's is a little dark and creepy, and certainly rough around the edges, but what can you expect from a place that has at least five sandwiches on the menu that cost under $4 including fries or hashbrowns? Dark and creepy, yes. Unwelcoming? No. After an elderly couple left five minutes after I got there, I was alone in the joint and the sweet woman behind the counter chatted UK Basketball with me (which I know nothing about and I briefly incurred her wrath when I brought up Tubby Smith. I managed to distract her by talking about the weather.)

Fortfied by my meal-- my friend behind the counter eagle-eyed me until I finished every bite, she looked like she might be the kind to chastise me for not joining the "clean plate club"-- I hopped in the ol' jalopy and decided to go wherever the road would take me. It's been a blue eon since I drove around town for the sake of just driving. And eventually the road lead to the east side of Downtown. That morning I'd read in the newspaper something about the store Scout-- I can't remember what, but I've always liked their logo (I can be such a whore for marketing)-- so I decided to try to hunt it down.

But on the first pass down Market Street, I missed it (or I thought I did-- I actually didn't go far enough), but ended up stopping at Red Tree, which, for some reason, I'd always thought was a restaurant. When it comes to Christmas shopping locally, I always end up spending my hard-earned cash at places with serious charm-- a little flair goes a long way toward putting me in the holiday spirit. Red Tree has charm in spades. Jam-packed with eclectic gifts and furniture, the two-story shop features reasonable-prices in a beautiful and festive atmosphere. I picked up three gifts for three of my hardest-to-shop for relatives for under $70. And the sweet people at Red Tree even wrapped them for me (unfortunately, I realized when I got home that I would probably have to un-wrap them for plane travel-- damned TSA folks).

I eventually did find Scout, which was also oozing with charm and quirk. Unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn't find a damned thing there that I could afford. I'll go back, for sure, but as with some of my favorite shops on Bardstown, I think Scout will remain a browse-only option in the future.

Speaking of Bardstown-- last night was Bardstown Road Aglow! the annual dusk-10pm holiday open house. And this year's Aglow was twice as packed as last year's. I actually had to skip a few shops because of the crowd. These open houses are always a blast, usually featuring free food and wine and sometimes discounts. (Although this year seemed to feature less wine and fewer discounts than last year-- Kudos to Spree who offered hot cocoa with peppermint schnaps; that really warmed the cockles). Why Louisville? and the Book & Music Exchange saw a little of my holiday green, but for the most part I just walked, enjoyed the sights, and browsed. (Note to self: don't wear those high-heeled boots next year, you're still recovering today!)

Black Friday: Kicking off the Season at the Edinburgh Outlets

I've always been a big fan of Adbusters, healthily critical of our conusmer culture. If I ever have kids, I'll probably be one of those "mean parents" who won't pony up the latest trendy toy every Christmas, who'll substitute books for gagets as gifts. Once I became a homeowner, my level of consumption dropped dramatically, and that's a good thing.
That being said, I'm hardly the "dirty hippy" that Roommate claims I am. It's still been too long since my last trip to Disney World. I think Martha Stewart has just about perfect taste. I have "consumption crushes" of my own: sigh... Roomba... some day, you will be mine... oh yes, you will be mine!!

Honestly, though, it wasn't until I spent my first Thanksgiving with Roommates family, back when we were dating, that I was ever introduced to this thing call Black Friday. And I thought it was utter lunacy. And mostly, I still do. And Roommate's family isn't even hardcore-- I think we got up at 5am or so that first year.

But now that I'm in the habit of scouring the Black Friday ads, I realize that "Buy Nothing Day" is all fine and good if you happen to be a rich anti-consumerist. But what if you happen to be on a limited budget? What if your kiddo really, really wants that 5-speed bike for sale at Toys R Us at 6am for $100 off the regular price? On principal, you're going to forgo the $100 saving? Forgo getting the bike entirely or spending $100 more on Saturdays? That's lunacy.

Anyway, so Roommate and I went to Indiana for Turkey Day and the family happened to mention that the Edinburgh Outlet Malls were opening at midnight with all kinds of early bird specials. We joked about it a bit, but 11pm rolled around and found us parked in the lot watching cars flood in.

The Coach outlet was the biggest draw. We were floored that the line at 11p already wrapped around the building. Later we'd heard that some folks waited more than 2 hrs just to get 10% off. I find that hard to believe. Aeropostal, Gap, Nike, and a couple other stores had amassed significant lines before the doors opened.

Roommate and I played it cool, ducked in the stores that were less crowded, got a crappy hot mocha from the chocolate store, and basically treated it like any other trip to an outlet mall. When we walked into our first store-- the Bass Outlet-- Roommate said, "Okay, my brain just reset. It's no longer midnight."

"Why?"

"I'm in a shoe store."

If I was in the practice of giving clothes as gifts, I could have made out like a bandit, but as it was I bought one thing for my mom (and did save close to $50, so yay me!), and a skirt and sweater for myself. Roommate batted zero in the tis-the-season department and came away with just a pair of shoes for himself. In the end, we spent two hours, but it was a goofy, fun way to kick of the Christmas vibe.

That being said, I don't think I'll ever be the kind of person who can wait in line for hours for a store to open. When I saw the line at Coach, I said, "Okay, if Bono were signing the pocketbooks, I might. But otherwise never." Perhaps if I lived in South Florida and could start camping outside of Best Buy at 10pm for their $15.99 DVD player doorbuster in the comfort of 70+ degree weather, my feelings would change... but last night it was in the 20's!!! Lunacy, I tell you!

Happy Thanksgiving! Blethen House Cookies...

Happy Thanksgiving to Loueyvillagers far and wide! (And wider still after Thanksgiving dinner!)

Once upon a time, ages ago, I had a boyfriend who liked to cook. This was lo those many years ago when I was in high school. David was a pro in the kitchen, even when he was fourteen or fifteen, but his true calling was dessert. All of his recipes are lost to me now (Vinegar candy??? PLEASE, someone enlighten me? So far, the web has been of no use! It involved snow, which we have in KY on occasion.), except one.

Blethen House cookies. My mother still has the recipe card in David's handwriting. I have a copied version that I've carried with me for years. It's my best-loved recipe ever. Today, I set about making a double batch to bring to Thanksgiving, and as my computer was open, I decided to check it out. And viola! One person in the blogosphere knows of which I speak. Check out the recipe here: Blethen House Cookies.

Neighborhood Association IV: Still Crazy after All these Months

*DING*

A pretty blonde in a bikini and stilletto heels steps over the ropes and enters the ring. She circles slowly, holding over her head a white sign reading "ROUND..."

...Who knows what round this is at this point, huh?

Last night (11/19) the Original Highlands Neighborhood Association (OHNA) held its November meeting and elections for six of the twelve Board of Directors. Roommate came with me this time; I was glad to have a witness. A full three-quarters of the meeting progressed with civility and sanity. Impressive.

The elections appeared to go off without a hitch. There were 9 candidates for the 6 open seats. Each stood up and spoke for 15-30 seconds about how much they loved their neighborhood and wanted to serve for the greater good. They seemed to come from all walks of life, all segments of our fairly diverse neighborhood. I engaged in the process, did my best to make democracy work for me. But to tell the truth, the process felt palpably inauthentic.

Let's face it, folks. For Lord only knows how long this neighborhood-- or at least the OHNA-- has been a hotbed of controversy surrounding one issue and one issue only: the Historic Preservation District. Only ONE of the nine candidates said anything about his or her position on the issue, and he was not elected to fill an open seat. One of the ringleaders of the anti-district movement ran but kept his mouth shut about the issue. Unless you knew he'd been one of the most-- if not the most-- aggressive campaigners on his side of the issue, he would have just come off as another concerned citizen/business owner. I applaud the man who came straight out and declared his horse in this race. At least he was giving us fair warning: a vote for him was a vote for a voice of anti-district on the Board. The rest of them... who knows???

Both the candidates and the OHNA are at fault for this. Yes, it was a democratic election. But would we stand for a government election where we were just given names and bios for the candidates? The election came down to who seemed the most likeable, who had a job that you admired, who gave you a good vibe. I suppose every one of us should take some of the blame-- somebody should have stood up at the meeting and said it was impossible to make an "informed" vote without information. Maybe it should have been me. Mea culpa, too.

The poo hit the windmill when the litter tzar of the neighborhood stood up and gave some details about clean-ups and then implored the incoming Board to review the OHNA Neighborhood Plan. He said, basically, that it was an important document with specific suggestions and that they should look into starting to implementing those suggestions ASAP.

Commence to poo-flinging.

Who drew up this document? It was done in secret! It's a farce! (repeat this last sentence at least ten times) Who is this 'they' of which you speak? Who paid for it? Where did the money come from? Don't you claim to represent the community!... be quiet... sit down.. closed doors... mismanaged... no one wants this... elite minority... the black helicopters are coming for all of us...

Okay, I made up that last little bit. This time, both sides threw the poo. And it wasn't quite as bad as August's meeting. But I left rattled. Call me sensitive, but the level of hostility shown by those who oppose the plan is just plain discomforting.

Keep in mind: this is different from the Historic Preservation District; this is a wide-sweeping plan for the neighborhood in general. I've read it. You should too. It's here.

Roommate said he left his first meeting feeling pretty hopeful about the neighborhood association, despite the outburst. He said that he felt as though the majority of the people were just shaking their heads in disbelief at the insanity. I felt less optimistic. I can't help but feel that we'll get nothing productive done as long as the inmates have such a presence in (and may now be in charge of-- who knows?) the asylum.

First Snow of Winter 2007-2008

Approximately 11:10am, Thursday, November 15, 2007. Near-invisible flurries. But there.

Kynt & Vyxsin: Keeping Louisville Weird in the Eyes of the Rest of America

First of all, I had no idea that the Amazing Race was already up to Season 12! The only person I know who watches the show is my mother, and I keep forgetting to ask her about Kynt and Vyxsin, the first (?) Louisville couple on the show.

Kynt works at Texas Roadhouse and Vyxsin works at Ramsi's, and according to their Amazing Race bios: they both enjoy roadtripping to Sci-Fi conventions across the country where as Kynt puts it, "They feel right at home surrounded by Storm Troopers and Wookies."

Currently these "purveyors of Goth" (as the website calls them... according to my online dictionary "purveyor" means "one who supplies provisions...eh?) are in a very solid fourth place. So cheer them on! Win one for the Ville, Kynt & Vyxsin! Win one for all the proud, weird Villagers!

WHILE I WAS SLEEPING

Here in the Midwest, a certain time of year rolls around, bringing with it a certain change in the weather. And certain Lous, especially those who have spent the past ten-plus years in tropical climes, inadvertantly go into hibernation.

Here's a round-up of things that have been going on in Loueyville since last I wrote....

Bring Out Your Dead!

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Happy Halloween!

Ghost Hunters-- the popular Sci-Fi network-- broadcasts LIVE for 6 hours tonight from Waverly Hills Sanitarium, just outside of Louisville in southwestern Jefferson County.

Waverly Hills, one of the leading tuberculosis centers in America in the 20th century, was the site of some 63,000 deaths.

This is the Ghost Hunters' second visit to Waverly Hills; I happened to catch the first episode before we moved to Loueyville. Spooky stuff, indeed. Ghosts aside, the Sanitarium is moderately dilapidated and cuts a huge and imposing figure in the middle of the woods. Inside, the building is mapped with "death corridors"-- slides through which bodies were transported to the morgue to avoid spreading the disease through the main halls.

According to the Courier-Journal, the Ghost Hunters, it was one of the top places that they've investigated.

Check out the Ghost Hunters Sci-Fi page here, and the actual Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) webpage here.

Personally, I'm hoping for a confirmed sighting... it would really put Louisville on the map with all the Coast-to-Coast with George Noory types. And that's exactly what we need to keep on keeping Louisville weird.

PS. Coast-to-Coast fans-- tonight is the annual "Ghost-to-Ghost" show withe former host Art Bell. Stay safe Art!

Paradise City?

The newest WHY Louisville t-shirt design features a retro-80's-tropics rendering that designates Loueyville as "Paradise City." According to the website:

Legend has it that Axl Rose wrote the song Paradise City about Louisville. Whether that's true or not, you'd have to ask Axl.

In what can only be called a triumphant example of uber-procrastination, Lou just spent W-A-Y too long on the internet trying to get to the bottom of this rumor.

"Paradise City" was ranked #453 on Rolling Stones' list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and #21 on VH-1's Greatest Metal Songs of All Time.

Best that I can tell from the internets, Axl Rose, a Midwest boy from Lafayette, Indiana, has refrained from ever pegging down a true Paradise City. He's said that "the verses are more about being in the jungle; the chorus is like being back in the Midwest or somewhere." In my investigations, it's only been in the comments of websites like songfacts.com and answers.com that well meaning boosters of the city have set forth the idea that Paradise City is Loueyville.

On songfacts.com, Kelly from Louisville writes:

this great song is about louisville, kentucky... only tha greatest city on this
damn planet. Axl was a sensible guy, apparently. I named my dog after him.

Yes, our grass is green and, as far as I can tell, our girls are pretty and Loueyville is only four hours away from Lafayette, Indiana. But that's ALL the evidence that I can dig up on this urban legend.

Still think the shirt is cute though! $17.

Nothing to do with Looueyville #1: GO SOX!!

Welcome to a new series here at Loueyville.com-- the Nothing to Do With Loueyville (NTDWL) post, featuring stuff Lou just can't keep under her Derby Bonnet.

When the Red Sox won the Series in 2004, my four uncles went to my grandfather's grave the next day and adorned it with a commemorative T-shirt, cap, issue of the Boston Globe, and most memorably a note that just said: "They finally did it, Dad!"

Go Sox!

By the way, Lou has been on vacation... sorry for the radio silence.

Gene Expression Changes Related to Endocrine Function and Decline in Reproduction in Fathead Minnow (Pimephales promelas) after Dietary Methylmercury Exposure

... is the name of the first article on the list when I searched for "Hunter S. Thompson" using the Louisville Public Library's remote access to the JSTOR database.

Just thought I'd share.

By the way, I was searching for the cover article of the current issue of Rolling Stone, called "Growing up Gonzo: Portrait of Hunter S. Thompson as a Young Man."

More on that to come...

Not my Scene

Not sure how I feel about the Courier-Journal's new "Scene" section. According to today's newspaper:

Saturday's Scene always has been the place for reviews of restaurants and music. Now we've also got the best fashions, housewares and bargains.

Now sure, all big city newspapers have their Lifestyles sections, and the goods featured in the Style section of the NY Times makes the Courier-Journal's Scene look like "Miss Fannie Brown's Bargain and Swap Weekly." But still, the "deal of the day," for fashion/beauty director Christine Fellingham is a $320 tunic marked down to $75. Bargain?

The "hottest tailgaiting accessories" feature a $92 football jersey that looks like something you'd buy in Wal-Mart's maternity-wear section, layered over a $68 long-sleeved t-shirt. For the math-challenged, that's $160 worth of clothing that's going to end up smelling like stale beer from all those keg stands (which you may be able to avoid if your man is wearing the $44 Reef flip-flops with the bottle opener in the sole, pictured above) and being smeared with grease-paint from the chest-bump salutes of your fellow fans. Or rather, $160 worth of clothing if you don't wear pants, underwear, or shoes. Which, as we know, is a look that only works for Britney Spears.

I get that we're trying to build some Big City cred here in Loueyville, but must we adopt the Big City Bad with the Big City Good?

Friends of Lou?

Heyyyy... wait a doggone minute!!!

Lou, ever-aware of her status as unpaid and underappreciated cheerleader for her adopted city, decided to blog about Louisville's new civic relocation campaign: "Save a Life: Share Louisville." And when she pulled up the new website ShareLouisville, what should she find???

Join the Friends of Lou mailing list!

Buy a Friend of Lou t-shirt!

I am totally on board for selling the "Lou-ness" of Loueyville to anyone who will listen, but who's this other Lou person and why do they need friends? This Lou needs friends! There's only one Lou and she's writing this...

I'm deeply disturbed (and feel like I deserve a free, adorable "I [heart] Louisville... and that's not the bourbon talking" t-shirt -- size small-- and a link on the website, at the very least).

Loueyville readers, don't let me down. We all [heart] Louisville and believe in sharing the wealth, but let the Share Louisville folks know that there's only one Lou and she's been loving on the city since May (longer if you count the old blog). Email them at: info@sharelouisville.org

SDF: Airport Insecurity?

A few days ago, the crack TSA folks at Logan International Airport in Boston arrested at gunpoint a 19 year old MIT student for coming to the airport to pick up her boyfriend while wearing a t-shirt with a blinking computer panel on it. Note that she was not trying to get on a plane, just trying to pick up her man; she was, in fact, outside the terminal.

Star Simpson had come to the airport before school. She'd worn the shirt to show off her talents with circuitry because it was Career Day. On the back of the shirt it read: "Socket to Me" and "Course VI," MIT shorthand for the electrical engineering/comp sci combined major-- so basically her resume. She's an electronics expert, and she's even received a Congressional citation for her work in robotics. Did I mention that she is 19?

While she was standing outside the terminal, Simpson was approached by an armed trooper who was later joined by another trooper armed with a submachine gun. State Police Major Scott Pare, the airport's commanding officer said after she was arrested, "She’s lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue."

In response to folks who insisted that the troopers did the right thing and that we should all feel lucky to have these hyper-vigilant security guys on the public payroll, Will Femia says in his Clicked column: "I might feel luckier if I thought they had the ability to recognize an actual bomb and not just freak out over everything that looks like a red wire/blue wire suspense scene from a Die Hard movie. God forbid another Shoey Shoebomber strolls through while everyone is dazzled by blinking lights."

In Loueyville news, Roommate has returned from nearly three weeks away and on Monday I helped him take back his rental car to the Louisville International Airport (SDF). I told him I'd wait in the passenger pick-up area (too cheap to pay the $1 parking fee), and if the security dudes came by and asked me to move on, I'd just keep "making the loop" until Roommate was ready.

Venerable Old Jalopy has been giving me some headaches lately. And while I idled in park right outside of baggage claim, Jalopy decided to act up. When Roommate finally showed up after 15 minutes or so (no security telling me to move on), I went to slip the shift into drive... and couldn't. He started up just fine, but no budging the shift from park.

Start it up-- mash the break-- try to shift. Nope. Over and over.

After some time, Roommate reasoned that if he disconnected the battery, the car may "reset" and forget that it hated me. So as I'm making phone calls to various VW help lines, Roommate is using my big Roadside Assistance Tool Kit to fiddle around with wires and plugs under the hood.

Finally, after three different calls to three different Volkswagen entities, a kind woman at the roadside assistance center informed me that, essentially, Jalopy has a “cheat code” to bypass whatever weird virus is causing his refusal to shift out of park. (Why is my car like an xBox game??) After two tries, Jalopy concedes, and we hit the road around an hour or so after I’d arrived at SDF.

I’m not complaining, necessarily; in my fragile, annoyed, and panicky state the last thing I needed was to be harassed by the Airport Fuzz. At Louis Armstrong International in New Orleans, even before 9/11, if you so much as shifted your car into park while you were waiting for an arriving passenger, you’d be visited by airport security and treated to a rap on the window and the admonition to “move along.”

A Louisville International? Bupkus.

Should it concern me that in the hour or so that the Jalopy vs. Lou & Roommate war raged on in the arrivals lane, a casual observer would have noted:

• A visibly disturbed woman behaving erratically.


• Aforementioned visibly disturbed woman speaking with animated frustration on her cell phone.


• The accomplice to the woman removing a black box from the trunk of the car; a box, that when opened, revealed a tangle of wires and tools.


• The accomplice tinkering around under the hood of the car and sparks flying on one occasion.
  

Methinks yes. It should concern me.

For all you VW Bug drivers, the cheat code is: Press the break 5 times, and on the fifth time hold it down. Turn the key ¼ turn and drag the gear shift to some phantom place between Neutral and Drive (this is hard to do). Then turn the key all the way and shift immediately into Drive. It works. It’s just hard.

O'Reilly's Sole Food: the Louisville Factor

If anyone ever asked me (so far they haven't) whose public scorn would I most welcome, Bill O'Reilly would be right near the top of that list. O'Reilly, Ann "Waaa! Why doesn't anyone declare a fatwa against me?" Coulter (answer: because you're irrelevant), Rush Limbaugh, the big W, Karl Rove (although that might make me piss my pants too), etc.

So I would like to extend a big, enthusiastic, Loueyville YOU GO GIRL! to Tamara Ikenberg of the Courier-Journal who was, according to this MSNBC.com article singled out for derision by O'Reilly for reporting on his recent bout with foot-in-mouth. I don't think he mentioned her by name (next time, Tamara! it's good to have goals!!), but he did mention the "Louisville Journal" as one of the many media outlets that have slandered him. Apparently everyone has taken out of context his words about the surprisingly good table manners and lack of "craziness" of the black guests at Sylvia's restaurant in NYC.

For the context, visit Media Matters (whom O'Reilly has likened to the Ku Klux Klan-- that's so cool!).

Loueyville in Malibu

Why Louisville?, the fun and funky HQ of the "Fan Club for the City" (of which I should be a platinum member!), reports that Adrien Brody was spotted in Malibu last week sporting one of their lovely 502-tshirts. Brody, star of the upcoming movie Darjeeling Limited (whose release I was salivating over long before Owen Wilson's meltdown) and Oscar-winner for The Pianist is probably best known for his hilarious and swoon-enducingly smooth smooching of Halle Berry upon accepting said Oscar.

He's kinda funny looking, but he can hang in my area code whenever he wants.

Shop WhyLouisville's Brody Bargain Sale where you can get the 502-fleur de lis shirt for just $10 bucks! What a bargain! The store is located at 1609 1/2 Bardstown Road.

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007-- Michio Kaku

Apparently, Dr. Michio Kaku is everywhere and somehow I've missed it. Or at least that's what the presenter led me to believe. He's on the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel... and here I was thinking that I was somehow tuned into those sort of pop-science things. After all, once upon a lifetime ago, I led the charge to compel Columbus, Indiana to erect a "Home Of" sign celebrating hometown hero Jamie Hyneman. To, of course, no avail.


In the introduction, it's mentioned that Kaku has been recently named one of the 100 smartest people in NYC. When he starts to speak, he says that Madonna is also on the list, so we shouldn't be too impressed.



When Kaku, who looks like a cross between Mr. Miyagi and a lion, took the stage for his sold-out speech, called "Parallel Worlds, Higher Dimensions, Time Warps, and More," Kaku, a theoretical physicist from the City University of New York, was greeted like a rock star. And he handled the crowd like a seasoned politician, preceding his remarks with a joke and sprinkling jokes and one-liners throughout. To paraphrase his first joke:


A theoretical physicist, a priest, and a lawyer are set to be executed by
guillotine. The priest is first. He's asked for his last words and he says that
faith will save him, and sure enough the guillotine falls and it stops just
inches from his neck. The crowd is amazed and he is set free. The lawyer is next
and his last words are "Justice will have Her way!" And again, the guillotine
stops just inches from his neck, and he's set free. The theoretical physicist
takes his place on the guillotine and says, "You know, the rope is hung up on
that pulley over there..."



When Kaku was a teenager, he built an atom-smasher in his garage whose magnetic pull was strong enough to pull out the fillings of anyone nearby. I have no idea what that means, but it's frigging impressive. Next year, an atom smasher with a 27km circumference will be activated just outside of Geneva. According to Kaku, this atom smasher will be so powerful that it will give us further insight into the Big Bang, and be able to, somehow create what he calls "tiny universes."

Kaku is a devotee of string theory and the idea that there are many more dimensions than we perceive in our lives on earth. He compared our lives to the lives of carp in a pond. They perceive forward and backward and left and right, but they only understand "up" to a certain point-- pull a carp UP out of the water and he is seeing the world from a dimension that was unimaginable to him while he was IN the water.

Picasso and Dali painted using the fourth dimension as a mode. Picasso's portraits relayed all dimensions of a person at once-- which is why said portraits look hopelessly messy to us; he tried to convey the idea of seeing all dimensions simultaneously. Dali, an endlessly more "realistic" painter than Picasso, still allowed for the dimension of "time" to be present in his artwork. The melting clocks. His hyper-cube Crucifixions.

He talked about Civilizations and how we are a type 0 civilization that is moving toward being a type I. Type 0 refers to a civilization that controls the power of particular geo-political regions. Type I controls the power of an entire planet. Type II controls the power of an entire star (solar system, I guess?). Type III controls the power of an entire galaxy. We are moving from 0 to I though the ubiquitousness of the internet, the burgeoning prevalence of English as a language, and the sway that Western culture has over the world. (I'm not sure I buy that... but whatever). Kaku says that earth will be a type I civilization in 100 years.

Kaku also discussed how all this science parlays quite nicely into spirituality. String theory suggests a beginning-- as in Genesis-- but also a timelessness-- as in the Buddhist belief in Nirvana.


Our civilization is threatened by both global warming and the death of the sun-- both problems could be solved by finding a wormhole that would allow us to pass from one plane to another. Like Alice in Wonderland, he said, a novel that dealt with bendy time and space.

For more information visit his website.

Neighborhood Association III: This Time It's Personal

Yes, I recognize that "This Time it's Personal" was the tag line for Jaws II not Jaws III, but...

For those of you who haven't been paying attention to the comments on the blog, there's a raging debate about my OHNA entries going on.

This is entry #1.
This is entry #2.

I started to post the following in the "comments" section, but I changed my mind and decided to make it an independent post.

The picture at the left is a photo of my grandparents' home in Connecticut. My grandfather died a few years ago and my grandmother died a little more than a year ago. My mom and her sister inherited the house, and despite my passionate protests and very vocal expressions of heartbreak, they're selling it. This is relevant to the post, I promise.

Anyway, for those of you who have been keeping track, I am in favor of the Highlands neighborhood pursuing a historic district designation. Those who oppose the historic district designation have-- at least on this blog-- contended that those who favor the designation just don't understand the issue.

I feel like I understand the issue. I may be a newcomer to this particular debate, but I have personal experience with historic neighborhoods. Here was the comment-- a response to an anonymous commenter-- that I was going to make and decided to turn into a traditional blog entry.


Lordy. Can't we all just accept that there are two sides to this issue? And the two sides are not people who have the RIGHT idea and people who don't know what they're talking about?
Anon, since the beginning I have accepted the fact that you've done your research and come to Conclusion X. Please accept that I have ALSO done my research and come to Conclusion Y. I don't need to be "converted." I just want the Xs and Ys to come to a democratic solution where majority-- a REAL majority, a measured and CONCLUSIVE majority- makes the decision.


I do not have "ignorance of fact." I've read the same documents that you have; I just came to a different conclusion. A preservation district suits my own personal interests and fits in with my greater understanding of community. As I mentioned in one post or another, I am willing to abide by certain provisos. I don't see this as "sacrificing rights." I see this as agreeing to enter into a pact with my neighbors to preserve this beautiful, historic neighborhood.

I grew up in such a place. There was a neighborhood in my hometown where 90% of the homes were built in the 1600s and 1700s. It is, indeed, like visiting a museum. The preservation of these homes was for the public benefit (so few places left you can see true colonial architecture), but also to the benefit of the homeowners (property values are obscene). In this neighborhood, there are only a dozen or so "approved" exterior paint colors. You can't add onto a home unless the addition cannot be viewed from the road or the ocean. By car or by boat, a visitor to the town was supposed to "see" the historic footprint of the village. If a homeowner wishes to buck these provisos, it is a very long, very complicated, and very unforgiving appeal process.

In contrast, in the same town but a different neighborhood, my grandparents owned a house that once was also historic (although late 1800's and early 1900's architecture). They bought their home in the 70's and since then the homes around them have been bought by NY and NJ "summer residents" who have torn down the adorable cottages and rebuilt hideous (in my opinion) modern monstrosities. My grandparents are now dead and my family has put the cottage on the market and they are desperate to find a buyer who won't level the home and build a McMansion. And, frankly, it's just not going to happen. It will be sold (in fact, it's in negotiations as I write) and be torn down and a new home will be erected in its place. And a piece of history will be forever lost.

So, I GET this issue. And I get that you, Anon, claim to get this. You've read the same things that I've read and you've just decided that restrictions placed upon historically designated areas don't suit you and your lifestyle. That your plans for your home and your neighborhood do not match mine. Fine. I'm not going to tell you that if you talk to me or to Mr. Riddick that either of us will be able to bring you over to our side of the issue.



Listen, the Highlands ain't a colonial whaling village or my grandparents' summer cottage neighborhood, but the homes here are precious, beautiful, and unique-- I'm appalled that anyone would say that a historic home, however ratty, should be torn down and not rehabilitated. That's just my own experience and my own priorities. But can we just agree to disagree and move forward knowing that there are two equally educated and equally heartfelt positions? Maybe never the twain shall meet...

But that's okay.

The end.

Anyway, seeing as though there is nothing I can do to stop the sale of my grandparents' home-- 3 br, 1.5 bath, one block from Long Island Sound, water views from the porch-- drop me an email if you're interested in purchasing it. So far, three buyers have already fallen through. But don't you dare email me if you're planning to tear down this sweet little house to build a goliath. This is the home where I first learned to read. This is the home where my dying father had his last vacation. This is the home that my grandparents retired too-- their dream home. This is the home where I spent my summers fishing for crabs all day and reading all night. This is the home where both of my grandparents spent their last days.

Because the neighborhood has become one of elite summer homes and rental properties, this home's empirical history has no value in the real estate market anymore. This devaluation could have been halted had the neighborhood protected itself years ago. Now the house is just a plot of land with a disposable cottage. But not to me.

My 101 year old Louisville home is not disposable. It is a concrete representation of the history of this remarkable city. I have no emotional history in this place, like I do in my grandparents' home, but I sure intended to make my own history here.

Woes of a Wanna-be Geek

See, the thing with being a wanna-be is that you have Big Ideas but you don't have the knowledge to actually implement them. My webpage Loueyville is evidence of that. The program I'm using-- free program... again, how much can you really complain about free stuff?-- has lost its mind, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to help it FIND its mind again.

As a result, it looks like poo.

Sorry, folks. I think this is going to be an omlette situation. Going to have to break the egg and start from scratch. (That was a very poor metaphor-- it's Friday. Forgive.)

If any of you fair readers know of good (free) web design programs that don't require a knowledge of HTML, let me know. I'd say that my web design program was a piece of crap, if I didn't have a sneaking suspicion that the piece of crap may be me.

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007-- Woz

The caveat with not posting immediately after events is that notes and memories cease to make perfect sense. So throughout this post I will regale you with my nonsensical notes in italics-- maybe you can decipher them. This will be, I'm sorry, the most disjointed entry. In the end, what's important to note, is that I came away feeling totally jazzed by his enthusiasm and charmed by his stories.

Steve Wozniak, iconic co-founder of Apple, was Friday's keynote speaker. I'd be remiss not to mention the fact that the food was fantastic. Going alone was, however, a bit like going to a wedding where you don't even know the bride and groom-- I milled around for a good half hour before finally finding an unassuming-looking couple whose table was empty.

I have to admit that the name "Woz" didn't resonate with me the same way Steve Jobs or Bill Gates might have. Sure, I knew who he was, and afterwards I was very happy that I had gone, but I get the feeling that Woz is a geek's geek. And while I proudly admit to being a nerd, and I am enamored with geeks in general, I'm clearly just not that kind of geek.

Wozniak was introduced by Phoebe Wood, the CFO of Brown Foreman, who cited his many accomplishments, but I definitely got the feeling that she just wasn't that kind of geek either.

Woz insists that he wasn't a college drop-out; he just left because he didn't have the money to stay. After he founded Apple and then left the company (and survived an aircraft crash) he returned to school and finally earned his undergrad degree from UC Berkley under the name Rocky Raccoon Clark.

Odd note #3: Is he gay? He looks like [my childhood dance teacher]. (Who was gay, although I didn't know what that meant at the time. I thought my childhood dance teacher had adopted the young, hot male dancer who lived with him. When my mom said he was gay-- that he liked men-- I just thought that mean that my dance teacher was happy... and he liked men. Big deal.)

Answer: No, Woz is not gay.

When he was a teenager, he told his dad that he wanted to be an engineer first and then a fifth grade teacher after that. And he ended up doing just that. He taught fifth grade for eight years. Imagine being taught by a man with his experience?

Odd note #8: Compared building a computer to playing a prank.

Wozniak had a hand in creating: the first scientific calculator, the first VCR, the first sattelite TV dish, the first hotel movie delivery system (yay-- porn away from home), the first dial-a-joke service (which got him sued by the Polish American Congress)... he met his wife through dial-a-joke.

He also created Breakout-- the Atari time-sucker of my youth.

Odd note #15: Remember Scott [a former employee of mine] from [my old place of business] and his favorite story about me-- the Windows transfer folders flying through the air???

I can only sort of explain what that note means... it's the last note I have on Woz's speech (in my defense, I was listening pretty carefully). Lo these many years ago, when computers were still new and charming, we got new computers with Windows installed in them in the office that I ran. And when I was transferring files from the old computers to the new ones, I observed the animation of little documents flying from one folder to another folder on the screen and grabbed Scott and pulled him over and made him watch. And I said something like, "Isn't it amazing that some computer geek somewhere cared enought to create this little cartoon? It's such incredible attention to detail!" And for years afterward, Scott retold that story to anyone who would listen. I have to say, Scott was the best kind of employee that anyone could ever hope to have-- enthusiastic and utterly devoted to me and to the business. Even when I was promoted and Scott was promoted to fill my position, when we would meet at manager's meetings in Los Angeles, he'd cite that story as being one of the reasons he liked working with me-- because I appreciated even the silly small stuff that people did to make other people's lives better.

That's a long winded way of getting to this point: although my recollections and notes are muddy and disjointed, the feelings and message I got from Steve Wozniak's speech basically amounted to this: God is in the details. The little things are the most precious things. If it's not fun, in some way, it's not worth doing.

Avast ye Mateys!

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! 

---

See what's new at AOL.com and Make AOL Your Homepage.

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007-- James McLurkin

I have to admit, I'm a sucker for geeks. I know nothing about James McLurkin, except what he told us during his "Robot Swarms" speech at IdeaFestival, but I spent the rest of the festival looking for him, hoping to have the chance just to say hi and to tell him how much I loved his demonstration. The whole time he was speaking, I thought: "I just want to be friends with this guy..." Or maybe I'm censoring myself a bit; maybe I was really thinking: "Is he married? Does he have a girlfriend? How hard would it be to have a long distance relationship with someone in Boston? My family lives just outside of Boston..." You get the idea.

McLurkin's speech was entitled: "Dances with Robots-- The Story of one Engineer, 112 Little Robots, and the Toys, Insects, and Star Wars Movies that Made it all Possible."

First of all, the man worked at iRobot for years, the people who invented the Roomba-- a machine I've become obsessed with and yet do not own. I just can't fathom spending $200+ (I really want the Scooba because of my plethora of hardwood floors) on something that I'm just too plain lazy to do... but holy cow, if I ever win the lottery...

Anyway, back to the event: McLurkin works on distributive algorithms for swarm robots. In pedestrian terms, that means that he teaches a bunch of robots to work together to solve problems. An article in our local Velocity Weekly about McLurkin gave me a heads up on his research. He explained one of the practical applications of studying robot swarms as follows, using robot swarms to help with post-earthquake rescue missions:

that's a job that humans are either too big or too weak to perform. So (we could
have) a bunch of cockroach-sized robots that can look for signs of life and then
relay their findings to maybe rat-sized robots. They would analyze the structure
and figure out the right way to remove the debris, and then they relay their
instructions to a bunch of brontosaurus-sized robots who would then do the hard
work and heavy lifting.

During his presentation, he gave two small-scale exhibitions of what a couple dozen mini-robots could do. Programs that made them follow the leader compelled the mini-robots to sing "Hi-ho-hi-ho It's Off to Work we Go;" those that made them disperse across a plane called for them to sing "Into the Wild Blue Yonder." These tiny, stapler-sized robots had not just a command of obedience, but also, dare I say personality (albeit McLurkin's?). At the end of the presentation, they aligned in groups to perform a melodic and accurate marching band rendition of the Star Wars theme song.

McLurkin cited bees and ants (he has a huge ant farm at home) as inspiring his research into distributed algorithms. Essentiallly it is the act of dividing a big math/physics/science problem among a huge group of problem-solvers. It's hard to program one robot, he said, but he's facing the challenge of programming hundreds if not thousands of robots. Robot swarm technology could be the future of planetary exploration or even nano-bio technology.
My photos of his demonstration came out badly. So I went to his website to grab a photo. He showed this photo during his presentation saying: "Like all good engineers I was hatched from a cardboard box." It made me laugh. Ahhh Geek humor

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007: Karen Walker

It’s worth noting that, bored, two nights before Karen Walker’s event, I watched the last two episodes of last year’s “America’s Top Model” back-to-back. I’d never seen it before. Actually, I watched the first episode and during the second episode when my favorite, Renee was disqualified for looking “too old,” (SERIOUSLY? She’s 20 years old!! She can’t even drink!! Yes, she’s a mom, but holy cow…) I let TiVo do its thing and only watched to see who won (thank goodness it wasn’t Natasha—what did they see in her? Jaslene was a godawful choice too—if she weighed 90 lbs, I’d be surprised, but she was better than the plastic-y Natasha).

I bring this up because after Karen Walker’s talk was over, a journalist who works for Wired Magazine asked her about the growing sentiment in the fashion world that runway models shouldn’t be too thin. And she totally flubbed the answer. I was nuts about her until she was forced to face that issue and the best that she could come up with was: “we hire models that make the clothes look good.” I thought it was a daring question—frankly one of the best audience questions I heard during the Idea Festival (where many questions were posed by people who’d clearly not been listening or by folks who had agendas). During her speech, a montage of her fashion shows played on screens behind her, and what made me nuts about her was the fact that she designed clothes that even I would be interested in wearing. But those clothes that I—short and less-than-svelte—could wear were on decidedly scrawny girls.

Karen Walker got her start eighteen years ago with $70 by designing a shirt and consigning it at a local boutique in New Zealand. Now she’s showing her collections at NY’s Fashion Week and at Fashion Weeks in London and Paris and Milan. She has a line of eyewear, jewelry, paint colors, and a lifestyle line. And her speech focused on the Karen Walker brand, and how despite the volatile nature of the fashion industry, she’s managed to build her brand and stay true to her vision. She was, in short, (and despite my feelings about her lack of answer to the model question) an ideal model for any entrepreneur.

Her speech outlined, basically, her secrets to success. The eight points were:

1. Embrace volatility. Diversify; build your brand so it represents more than one thing, but don’t dilute your brand by offering it up to sub-quality knockoffs. In the 80’s and 90’s Gucci licensed its name to more than 200 different vendors and designers and lost control of its image. Brand-building is all about control.


2. Ignore the rules; try not to learn them in the first place. She cited the NZ slang term “number eight wire” as being critical for her creativity. The term refers to a type of fencing wire that was readily available in colonial NZ, when it was cut off from most of the world—a sort of duct-tape like wire that allowed New Zealanders to cobble together all sorts of thing McGuyver-like. Make do with what you have, she said. It never occurred to her that she should have a design degree, she said, or a business degree before starting a business. Just go with what you have.


3. Everything Inspires. This is a quote from Paul Smith, a British designer. And to illustrate this idea, she showed a slideshow of the random things that had inspired her last ten collections—everything from the eyewear of dictators around the world to Alice in Wonderland to B-movies from the 50’s.


4. Look for the scary stuff. All design should make you border-line uncomfortable.


5. Know your style. Coupled with the “scary stuff” she said this meant knowing “the right amount of wrong.”


6. Know your customers. Walker has never done market research. She said to cater to the “same singular voices in everything you do.” She calls her market “PLU”—“people like us.” Her designs have been worn by celebrities as diverse as Bjork, Madonna, and Claire Danes, and she says she doesn’t design for a market, but designs what she likes and people who are like her will like what she does.


7. Surround yourself with people who support you. A few years ago, she approached the makers of 42 degrees below vodka to cosponsor an event; they liked her designs so much they put her on the board. It’s since been sold to Bacardi (I think) and the mutual love-fest propelled both their brands.


8. Brand building is like building coral. It’s slow and tedious and over the short-term, it’s hard to see. But take a step back and the growth is very clear.

Loueyville SE: IdeaFestival 2007-- Thursday Night "Taste of Innovation" and "It Never Got Weird Enough for Me"

Thursday was fairly low key. I hightailed it down to the convention center to hit my first event, which was the Taste of Innovation featuring sampling booths from most of Louisville’s best restaurants. This gets a “Cheap Eats” rating because for $10 you could eat and drink to your heart’s content—sampling food that would be $20+ a plate at nearly all of the restaurants. A chefs and a bartender gave demonstrations. Everything I had was extraordinary (with the exception of an uneatably weird sushi-tuna-steak thing from, surprisingly Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse—he of “refused service to OJ Simpson” fame).

Leave it to me, however, to have preferred the booze to all else—Woodford Reserve’s Liquid Bourbon Ball was a drink that I will no doubt add to my repertoire—seems like a great winter drink. You can find the recipe here.

The silent auction quickly mounted beyond my price-range, but there were still good deals to be had if you had $500+.

The Hunter Thompson documentary “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride” aired first on the Starz! Network and was part of the IF After Dark series in an event called “It Never Got Weird Enough for Me.” The movie, narrated by Nick Nolte, and all but stolen by Gary Busey in all his addled-wackiness, featured the highlights of Thompson’s life from his childhood in Louisville to his suicide at Owl Creek Ranch in 2005.

In September of 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, I stopped in my exile at a writer’s retreat in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The guest teacher was Tom Corcoran, the writer of the Alex Rutledge mysteries, and he’d just returned from Thompson’s memorial service which had been largely funded by Johnny Depp and during which Thompson’s ashes were blasted out of a two-thumb-fist-topped cannon. Tom’s stories of the event (scroll down to 9-8-05 “Flip Flop” entry) were a nice, brief diversion. I half expected to see him in the movie. I did not expect to see my staid, distinguished, bow-tie-wearing real estate agent (actually, the brother of my real estate agent who stood in for her at my closing) as one of Thompson’s childhood friends.

The University of Louisville is currently trying to get its hands on the Thompson archives. From what I understand, there’s been some double-dealing and weirdness associated with that acquisition, as highlighted by an audience member who directed a question at Thompson’s son, Juan, during the panel discussion. I’ll try to remember to look into that.

The panel featured Juan Thompson, the director Tom Thurman, the writer Tom Marksbury, and childhood friend Ralston Steenrod (not my real estate agent). The film was interesting enough for me to consider moving on to a Thompson read-fest after I finish my Harry Potter read-fest. The panel discussion wasn’t particularly illuminating, although it’s worth noting that Marksbury seemed a bit bitter that the Starz! Network tried to make the film “more about Johnny Depp and Sean Penn” than about Thompson

Loueyville Special Edition: IdeaFestival 2007-- Big Brains Invade Louisville

At the end of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, there’s that wonderful moment when, after witnessing the Whos’ selflessness and love in the face of adversity, the Grinch is reformed. And his little red heart grows and grows (three sizes) and finally bursts the cartoon x-ray screen.

This weekend my cartoon brain (symbolized by a lightbulb or maybe a complicated drawing of gears and bolts) exploded. Or perhaps I should phrase that in the passive voice: my cartoon brain was exploded by the 2007 Idea Festival, a three days of events here in Louisville featuring some of the Biggest Brains from all over the world.

I was like a little kid when I got the email from the Courier-Journal a week or so ago telling me that I’d won a drawing for a free all-access pass to the Idea Festival. I’d (surprise, surprise) put off getting tickets to the events, many of which were free, so long that most of them had sold out. Not to mention that the keynote event, a night with Ray Bradbury, was out of my price range at $75 a pop. I quickly emailed them back and said I wanted a ticket for every event on Saturday, and every event after school on Thursday and Friday. And then I spent the remaining days before the opening of Idea Festival in giggly, nerdy, woo-hoo anticipation of the Festival.

That Louisville is the host of this event (this is its second year in Louisville; it spent its three incarnations in Lexington) is extraordinary. You’d expect this kind of gathering of diverse, cutting-edge thinkers in a “world class” city like NYC, LA, or Chicago. The Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation (a 20 year old institution) nurtured this event and Idea Festival founder Chris Kimmel has grown the event so that this year there were more than 15,000 tickets sold. Most events took place at the Kentucky International Convention Center which looks like crap from the outside, but is well appointed inside.

This year’s title sponsors, the Geek Squad, were ubiquitous in their pocket-protectored, penguin-Beetle driving, cheeky “Agent #”-named glory. Karen Walker, New Zealand fashion designer focused her speech not on “The Meaning of Fashion,” as was advertised, but on the importance of “branding.” I tell you, Geek Squad has it down for their audience. Perhaps not the true techno-geeks, but the wanna-bes like me. (Nice to note that the web page homepage features a photo of a female geek. Seemed like there weren’t many She-Geeks in attendance. Geek Squad had a Geek Squad Beetle on display in the lobby of the convention center—wish I had a picture—and on it you were supposed to post sticky notes with your Big Ideas. I stopped myself from posting “Hire more Girl Geeks!”)

Before I get into individual events, my general thoughts:

• I wish it had been longer. I wish I had taken a day off to do all the Thursday or Friday events. I probably could have gotten a “professional day off” to do it. But come Saturday night, I was genuinely sad to not have any more Ideas to enjoy.
• IdeaFestival sponsored a Middle School Science show on Friday. I didn’t get to attend. I did see a total of six of my students at the Fest, but I wish more had taken advantage of it. Wouldn’t it be great to somehow get more kids involved? I might keep that in the back of my head for next year.
• Events like Ray Bradbury and Dan Gediman and Nicholas Kristoff (who I missed) did a great job opening up the event to Humanities folks; more should have been there. Even the most science-y presenters like Michio Kaku and James McLurkin made their far-out science understandable to the pedestrians.
• I wish I’d bought an Apple laptop when I had to buy a new laptop last summer. Again, it’s that stupid branding thing again, but there were so many anti-PC jokes among the presenters that I felt like a grandma. On a purely practical level (probably the ONLY practical level), my website would have made me happier—Apples web design tools are great. Sorry that the website has gone kablooey, by the way. I’m working on it. I just wanted to be one of the cool kids in on the “in jokes.” No doubt some of the Apple-centricity of the event was because Steve Wozniak was one of the guest speakers.
  
  On to the individual events! (Note: it will probably take me a couple of days to post all of the events, so bear with me!)

Neighborhood Association, Part Deux

I suppose I shouldn't complain... if a blogger blogs at a coffee shop and nobody reads it, is she really blogging? But recently a friend of mine forwarded my blog entry about the OHNA meeting to the OHNA mailing list (which I am STILL not a part of!), and suddenly I'm getting actual readers. Like, folks I don't know. It's a bit unnerving. Especially the fact that I've been "outed" to a co-worker who recognized "me" (and herself, I'm sure) in the entry. I've got to watch myself now-- no more blogging about my bank heists and the weekends I've spent at the North Pole clubbing baby seals.

Anyway, one of the comment-ers on my OHNA entry asked if I'd read the Historic Preservation Ordinance, and in fact I have. It's long. It's boring. It's full of legalese. But I urge everyone who has taken or is planning to take a position on the Ordinance to read it in its entirety here. This debate is too important and has gotten too ugly for people to blindly take sides without understanding the issue.

That being said, I hope readers who turned to the blog for the OHNA entry will read for the fun stuff too. Sure, every once in a while I lapse into "left wing kook" mode, but mostly I eschew politics in favor of exploring all the fantastic things this city has to offer, like cornhole, giant tomatoes, and BirdZerk!

Actor's Theatre: Fire on the Mountain

Once you reach a certain age, it's time to step back and evaluate. Who are you? What do you want? What are you good at? I don't think I've reached that age yet (even though, as of a week ago today, I'm officially older than Jesus ever was, and he had it figured out in spades), but I do know that one thing I'm really good at is procrastination. Many people, if not most, procrastinate the arduous chores, but I'm prone to procrastinate even the good stuff. Like getting a little culture in me.

Recently, I decided not to leave it to chance and signed myself up (using the handy dandy educator's discount) for a 7-play season ticket for Actor's Theatre of Loueyville. The theory goes: I'm much less likely to procrastinate an event that I've already paid for. Roommate got one two, so now I have a partner-in-culture.

Tuesday, we went to see Fire on the Mountain, a musical (bordering on folk-opera) about Appalachian coal miners. According to Actors' website:

Randal Myler and Dan Wheetman culled some thirty songs from the wealth of music
inspired and created by the Americans of Appalachia. Folk music, which includes
traditionals, blues and bluegrass, has been in renaissance in recent years
thanks to the success of movies like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and the release
of several compilations including “Kentucky Mountain Music.” Like most folk
music, every song in Fire on the Mountain tells three stories—the story in the
song, the story behind its creation and the story the performer wants to share.

Both inspiring and tragic, the musical featured outstanding vocal and instrumental performances, and reinvigorated my desire to find somewhere to audit course on the history of Kentucky. The Pamela Brown Auditorium is intimate enough that there isn't a bad seat in the house (that being said, we had terrific, front-row balcony, seats).

If you go on a week-day, don't bother splurging on garage parking ($5 or $4 if you have a season-ticket holder discount coupon). There's ample street parking nearby. We went to pre-theatre drinks at the Pub on 4th Street Live. Happy hour beers are still a bit pricey, but the battered mushroom and onion ring appetizer was excellent.

Coming up next month in the season series: The Underpants by Carl Sternheim, adapted by Steve Martin.