Editor's Note: Our formidable and fabulous Filthy Fashionista (aka Jesica Hill) recently graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. (Congrats!) With diploma in hand, FF did what any fashion-forward girl would do — board a plane and head for Europe. (Hello?) Girlfriend will be sharing her anglo experiences for the next few weeks. Following is FF's first installment from the land of Kate Moss:
London is, indisputably, one of the world’s main fashion capitols. Women in this city put on stiletto heels just to run out and get a loaf of bread. After nightfall, though, is when they really pull out all the stops. Hair, makeup, manicured nails and a dress that costs twice as much as my rent. Everywhere I look, fashion perfection. As a style enthusiast I know I should be basking in the glory of all this. It’s like label-whore heaven out here. But if I’m honest, I just kind of feel like I’m drowning in a sea of Burberry trench coats. Other people’s Burberry trench coats. Trench coats I can’t afford.
My month long post college sabbatical is serving as a rude awakening. It costs a shit ton of money to look fabulous. Especially in Europe. And while 10 plus years of scouring Vogue first instilled that knowledge in me, said knowledge was never applicable to my daily life. Until now. In Omaha it’s pretty easy to dress well on a budget. Here, it’s next to impossible. Sure London has H&M and Topshop but once you factor in the exchange rate that “cheap” cotton halter top from the sale rack ends up costing you more than a brand new strapless sundress from Von Maur. To be perfectly frank: it’s depressing.
The graduation money I received from my grandmother felt like a fairly large lump sum while I was cashing the check. $500. Not a bad little chunk of change. $500 to spend any way my little heart desires. Well, not quite. More like 300 British pounds, 100 of which I spent in the first week on “personality drinks." Three weeks of vacation left and only 200 pounds of spending money remains. Uh oh. As I scour the shops on Regent Street, a feeling of impeding doom begins to creep up in my stomach. How am I supposed to shop on a budget of 200 pounds? Especially when I’ll need at least half that much for next week's cocktail fund? I do the math in my head. Correction: I do the math on my iPhone. Damn. After I subtract the money I plan on spending at the bar, I can buy…. a pair of socks and maybe some lip gloss. This is not how I had imagined things going on the plane ride over here. The whole situation is turning out to be highly problematic because I plan on making an appearance at Chinawhite, one of London’s most prestigious night clubs, in less than 3 days time.
Like every normal healthy minded American girl, I wouldn’t dream of going to the club (especially a club that requires you to be on a list) in anything I’ve owned for over a month. I find the nearest pub and order a glass of white wine to settle my nerves. Then, a sudden glorious realization. I don’t know anyone here. To these people, the wardrobe I brought from home IS new. Problem solved.
So my lovely little darlings, my shopping advice to anyone who’s planning on supplementing their wardrobe while in London? Don’t. Shopping at home in Omaha before your trip is money well saved. Seeing the sights, expensive dinners, frequenting the pubs and clubs, meeting people and creating memories - that’s money well spent.
The Omaha singer-songwriter’s distinctive voice shines through on new CD.
by Tim McMahan
Matt Whipkey takes compliments with suspicion.
When told that the new Whipkey Three album, Two Truths, sounds like “a Whipkey record,” he immediately raised an eyebrow.
“Is that a negative thing? Does that mean it’s stagnate? That there’s been no development?” he said over Sunday morning coffee at Caffeine Dreams.
It’s only after it’s been explained that having a distinctive style -- like Springsteen or The Rolling Stones or Tom Petty -- is a good thing that he begins to get the gist of the comment.
“My girlfriend was digging on me last night about how I take criticism,” Whipkey said, “but I think it’s different for musicians.”
He better get used to it. Very few Nebraska artists have such a well-defined musical style and unique voice as Whipkey. Within a few measures of any song, those familiar with his material instantly recognize the booming, golden-hearted power chords touched with a hint of twang, and Whipkey’s Nashville-by-way-of-Benson “southern” drawl that injects each phrase with his big-sky, Heartland roots.
It’s a style that he’s been defining for more than a decade as a solo artist and leading man in a handful of bands including The Movies, Anonymous American and now The Whipkey Three, a band whose name is more of a misnomer. Defined as Whipkey on guitar, vocals and harmonica along with veteran drummer Scott “Zip” Zimmerman and bassist Travis Sing, the new record also features producer J. Scott Gaeta on Hammond B3, piano and keyboards on almost every track. So when The Whipkey Three takes the stage for their CD release show Saturday night at Stir in Council Bluffs, skip the head count.
“If it was up to me, I’d have six guys on stage,” Whipkey said. “The songs work well as a three piece, but in the studio I felt free to indulge, and that can be your own worst enemy. There’s no more than 24 tracks on any given song. We didn’t bring in a Baptist choir.”
But most of the album simply highlights the trio, with Gaeta’s whirling Springsteen-esque Hammond glowing in the background on songs like high-flying rocker “Wasn’t Thinking” and CD-closing back-beat ballad “Reagan Era.” Always at the center is Whipkey’s pure rock sensibility distilled from years of listening to American FM radio. He may be a true indie artist (the album is being self-released), but there’s nothing indie about his style. Whipkey’s songwriting is unapologetically straightforward, un-ironic and ultimately familiar to anyone who grew up listening to arena rock.
At age 31, he says his career goals haven’t changed since his early solo days. He’s managed to make a sizable mark on the local music scene, but has only rarely strayed outside the state lines, despite his efforts to break through to a bigger market.
“I’ve done the college radio thing. It’s a joke,” Whipkey said. “But what else do you do? I wish someone could tell me. I’m back to handing flyers to people I meet. Maybe that’s the best thing you can do. Is it all about who you hang out with? I think it is. I don’t know. Someone tell me. I know how to write songs and perform them, and we do it very well.”
He also knows how to teach, augmenting his income with a day job giving private guitar lessons at Dietz Music. When asked if he still harbors dreams of being as big as Ryan Adams he says, “You have to,” but quickly adds, “You can let those ideas destroy you, because they can make you feel like a failure."
Instead, Whipkey's content letting it all hang out on stage and making his own records, right down to meticulously hand-stamping and constructing the cardboard holders for his new CD. “If I give you one, you better listen to it,” he said. “We’re not getting 1,000 jewel-case copies. We pressed 300, and we’ll sell them all.
“This is what I do, it’s who I am,” he said. “Between teaching and playing and performing, it’s my livelihood, my career, and I take it very seriously. I get more out of making music now than I ever did.”
The Whipkey Three plays with The Big Deep Saturday, May 12, at Stir Live and Loud, 1 Harrah’s Blvd., Council Bluffs, Iowa. Showtime is 9 p.m. Admission is $7. For more information, call (712) 328-6499 or visit harrahscouncilbluffs.com.
Bill Cosby to perform May 6 comedy concert at the Orpheum
Enduring comic talks about the turning point that set him on his way
by Leo Adam Biga
Slow ticket sales are prompting legendary comedian Bill Cosby to do a media blitz promoting his 2 p.m. May 6 Orpheum Theater concert. It just wouldn't do for the 74-year-old icon to play to empty seats.
Cosby's handler has me call the artist's home directly. The unmistakable voice answering on the other end hastily greets me before excusing himself with, "Hang on a minute." It seems his wife Camille is heading out with the grandkids and he wants to confirm dinner plans before she goes.
"Hey, listen! Is anybody paying attention to what I'm saying? Camille, are you paying attention to what I'm saying?"
He's channeling the exasperated Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show.
He holds the floor a moment before fumbling for a name that eludes him. His family assures him they've got it covered. As they exit, he says, "OK," and returns to the phone.
"Hello, alright, what you got?"
I suggest the overheard exchange is like a scene from his show.
"Well, um, yeah, with grandchildren now who come by and visit and then things show up in their hands and you say, 'Well, where'd you get that?" 'I don't know.' 'Go put that back.' And you have to define to grandchildren what is not a toy.
"Before they're broken we would rather you not pick them up and then put them on the floor and pretend they're something, and then forget you put them down there, which is what I call dementia. While people are picking on old people, kids have dementia too , They put stuff down and then they walk away and leave it."
The riff over, Cosby refocuses to ask. "So where am I going?" I reply, "You're coming to Omaha." "Oh, yeah, listen man, we need help there. Played Lincoln (October 7), did well, did very well. We're sitting there (Omaha) anemically at 30 percent. I think we need to tell the people I'm coming and they will probably have close to an hour and 45 minutes of good old, gee whiz I-forgot-I-could-laugh-that hard-and-that-good fun."
Later, when he repeats his plea for help, citing the 30 percent number, I express surprise he even knows a detail like that.
"Really?" he asks incredulously. "Well, you better erase that. I do know. Look, this is a business. I just want the people to know I am here and they need to go on and get these tickets and quit fooling around."
A personal appeal to his fan base is potentially huge. His audience is sure to include folks "when I used to play Ak-Sar-Ben, when that was a big to-do then," he says, referring to sold-out Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben concerts he performed at the old coliseum, once memorably with Sammy Davis Jr..
I ask if he considers himself a storyteller or monologist and he interrupts with, "Don't bother with all that stuff. I walk out, there's a chair, a table, a box of Kleenex, a bottle of water and a waste paper basket. Draped over the chair is 'Hello, friend,' which is our late son's favorite saying in greeting people."
Then, in the warm, reflective intonations familiar from his stand-up act and film-TV roles, he launches into, what else?, a story about how it all started for him at school. It's the reason he's taken education as his cause, both as advocate and critic.
He says growing up in a Philadelphia public housing project he was a bright but indifferent student, devoting more time to sports and hanging out than studying. He recalls only two teachers showing real interest in him.
"I wasn't truant, I just didn't care about doing anything. I was just there, man. I was still in the 11th grade at age 19."
He calls what happens next "divine intervention." The high school drop-out joined the U.S. Navy. He hated it. "That was a very rude epiphany." He stuck it out though and obtained his GED. "I spent four years revamping myself."
He marveled a GED could get him into college. Despite awful test scores Temple University accepted him on an athletic scholarship in 1960.
"I was the happiest 23-year-old in the world. They put me in remedial everything and I knew I deserved it and I knew I was ready to work for it. I knew what I wanted to be and do. I wanted to become a school teacher. I wanted to jump those 7th and 8th grade boys who had this same idea I had of just sitting there in class.
"Being in remedial English, with the goal set, that's the thing that began to make who I am now."
I score points when I share I tested into remedial English myself, prompting this, "Hey, we're remedial, man."
Fully engaged in his work, he threw himself into creative writing assignments. He wrote about pulling his own tooth as a kid and the elusive perfect point in sharpening a pencil. He recalls the impact it made when the professor held up his papers as shining examples and read them aloud in class to appreciate laughter.
"That was the kickoff. That's when my mind started to go into another area of, Yes you can do, and I began to think, Gee whiz, I could write for comedians. And all my life from age 23 on, I was born again…in terms of what education and the value is. To study, to do something and be proud of it – an assignment."
Cosby found his voice and passion: humanist storyteller of universal themes.
"That's the whole idea of the writing – everybody identifying with it. I write about the human experience."
From the start he wrote what he knew. "Who told me to do it? Nobody, I just wrote it. Was I trying to be funny? No. Was I reading any authors who inspired me? No."
It wasn't long after enteringTemple he penned famous bits like "Superman" and "Toss of the Coin." Hundreds more followed, mostly about family, fatherhood and growing up.
"I write all and have written everything I have ever performed on stage. So, when you look at a movie, when you look at a TV show when you hear an LP, I am that writer-performer. Everything comes from that. But when you look at the body of the work you will see that school teacher still working it, still talking about the value of education."
His stand-up career exploded so fast, setting the stage for many firsts, that he left college.
"I would imagine it was something brand new for an awful lot of people – to see this black person talking and making a connection and laughing because, 'Yeah, that happened to me.'"
He's well aware his life could have been quite different.
"Had it not been for the positive influence of this professor, without him reading that out loud and my hearing the class laugh, who knows, I may be at this age a retired gym teacher, well loved by some of his students."
Years later he did finish college and added advanced degrees. He's the author of several best-selling books.
Going on 50 years as a comic, he's a familiar "friend" to audiences. "We already have a relationship that's wonderful because they know I'm funny, so there's no guessing there." He walks out with an idea of what he wants to do but, he says, "I keep it wide open." Once he feels out the crowd, he goes where "they are."
"It's very complex," he says, "but because I'm a master at it I think you want me in that driver's seat to turn you on."
Tickets start at $49.50. To order, call 402-345-0606 or visit www.ticketomaha.com.
Read more of Leo Adam Biga's work at leoadambiga.wordpress.com.
Regenerative Medicine Helps the Body to Heal Itself
Medical Futurist Alan Russell Speaks April 11 as part of Holland Lecture Series
by Steve Brewer
Regenerative medicine is a new way of treating injuries and diseases, using specially-grown tissues and cells, along with artificial organs. The goal is helping the body to regenerate itself.
It’s an emerging field with great potential, according to the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
“These approaches can amplify our natural healing process in the places it's needed most, or take over the function of a permanently damaged organ,” according to the Institute’s web site.
Alan Russell is the founder of the McGowan Institute, and a leader in regenerative medicine.
He will speak in Omaha at 7:30 p.m. on April 11 as part of the free Holland Lecture Series at the Holland Center.
Research is also being done locally in regenerative medicine, including work at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Creighton University.
Alan Russell
Russell’s biography calls him a medical futurist and a pioneer in regenerative medicine. Crossing the fields of chemistry, biology, and materials science, Russell’s research lab studies how to help damaged tissues and organs to rebuild themselves.
For example, he is currently developing an artificial ovary so that women with cancer may undergo radiation treatment and still be able to have children.
Russell has also attracted attention beyond the scientific community. Rolling Stone magazine named him one of the “100 People Who are Changing America,” and he spoke at the TED Conference in 2006 on regenerating our bodies.
In that TED talk, Russell said, “Regenerative medicine is an extraordinarily simple concept. It’s simply accelerating the pace at which the body heals itself in a clinically-relevant time scale.”
This work makes Russell a logical choice as speaker for the Holland Lecture Series, according to Steve Hutchinson, chairperson of the Holland Lecture Committee.
“Part of what we want to accomplish is to inform people about where the science is going, and to raise questions about the implications of that science,” he said. “We think he’ll be interesting, and it will increasingly impact people’s lives. It’s time to start getting informed and think about the implications.”
The Holland Lecture Series is free to the public. It is sponsored by the First Unitarian Church of Omaha, and is funded by local philanthropist Dick Holland.
The series has its roots in the Frank R. Hoagland Lectures, which were held at the Unitarian Church between 1954 and 1964.
“When Dick Holland was a young guy, he attended the Hoagland Lectures. They were trying to bring provocative ideas into the community, and he wants to bring that back,” Hutchinson said. “That’s why he decided to sponsor this series.”
The Holland Lecture Series began in 2005, and has since brought to Omaha two well-known speakers annually. According to Hutchinson, these lectures provide open discussion of provocative ideas that are not usually heard in Nebraska.
Tickets are free, but must be reserved through the Holland Center box office. Reservations will become available on March 26. You may reserve up to six tickets, and can make reservations by calling (402)345-0606 or online at omahaperformingarts.org/tickets.
Stem Cells
Hutchinson believes the combination of scientific, economic, and ethical issues presented by regenerative medicine make it worthy of public discussion.
“We had someone speak on stem cells in 2005, but we wanted to go back and touch upon that, because a great deal has happened,” Hutchinson said. “Regenerative medicine does include stem cells, but is much broader than that. The whole field has really come into existence over the last couple of years.”
The McGowan Institute divides regenerative medicine into three areas: medical devices and artificial organs, tissue engineering, and cellular therapies.
Stem cells are the best known aspect of regenerative medicine. According to the National Institutes of Health, stem cells are unspecialized cells capable of developing into many different cell types in the body, such as muscle, red blood, or brain cells.
“In addition, in many tissues they serve as a sort of internal repair system, dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive,” according to the NIH’s stem cell information web site.
The use of stem cells in research has attracted controversy in the past, because some are taken from human embryos. Other stem cells are taken from adults.
In 2006, researchers identified a way to genetically reprogram some cells to assume a stem cell-like state. These new types are called pluripotent stem cells, and may be used in future research.
University of Nebraska Medical Center
The phrase “wouldn’t it be great if…” comes up frequently in conversation with David Crouse.
Crouse is a professor of genetics, cell biology and anatomy at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC).
“Many health problems are related to the loss of function of tissues and organs. These problems persist because something is wrong or missing,” Crouse said. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could solve these problems by replacing those tissues or repairing them?”
About 20 researchers at UNMC dedicate at least part of their work to regenerative medicine, particularly to stem cells.
This work is interdisciplinary. In addition to medicine, researchers come from backgrounds including biomaterials, engineering, and cellular biology.
“This is a regenerative medicine initiative, not a program,” said Crouse. “There are quite a few graduate students working on these projects, including PhD students and postdoctorates.”
Related research has been conducted for years at UNMC, but its formal initiative began in 2008 when Nora Sarvetnick was hired to lead its efforts.
“She has a group of researchers with one floor in Durham Research Tower II,” Crouse said. “Even though they are in different academic departments, they are located together. This kind of science is more driven by concepts than departments.”
The basic ideas of regenerative medicine go back decades. One of its first common applications was the repair of severe burns. Crouse said physicians originally took unburned skin from a healthy part of the body to replace burned skin.
Over time, organ transplantation developed from this basic idea of trading good tissue for bad tissue.
UNMC is now a major force in organ transplantation, but Crouse and his colleagues focus on newer and less developed aspects of RM research.
For example, Crouse said that cell transplantation may one day replace organ transplantation.
“We can transplant livers. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could transplant just liver cells?” Crouse said. “You could just inject them into the blood and they would find their way to the liver and fix the problem. It’s been done in animals, but not yet in humans.”
The liver is a large organ, and obtaining enough liver cells would be a challenge, but Crouse believes the benefits of avoiding surgical trauma will eventually make cell transplantation therapy successful.
In the same way, cells from other major organs and tissues could be transplanted and allowed to heal the unhealthy part of the body.
One group at UNMC is currently researching the regeneration of retina tissue related to sight damage, and another is studying the possibilities of using cells on Parkinson’s and other neurological diseases.
The U.S. military is now funding RM research, and UNMC is in early stages of getting involved.
“There is horrible damage caused in military actions,” Crouse said. “The military can now get people to survive this damage, but they have missing or nonfunctional limbs or organs. The military is investing money and effort into recruiting scientists who can find solutions to these kinds of problems.”
The hope is that regenerative medicine might be able to help those suffering from crushing or other trauma, including military actions, auto accidents, and sports injuries.
“Wouldn't it be great to treat that? We are just beginning in this area,” Crouse said.
Creighton University
A number of researchers at Creighton University are also studying regenerative medicine, across several departments.
One of these is researchers is David He, a professor of biomedical science, who is studying the possibilities of regenerating hearing.
According to the National Institutes of Health, our ability to hear depends on bundles of hair cells in the inner ear. These hair bundles convert sound vibrations into electrical signals, which travel to the brain by way of the auditory nerve. When hair cells are damaged by disease or injury, people experience hearing loss.
Although fish and birds are able to grow new hair cells, mammals typically cannot.
“Our hair cells are vulnerable to noise. Teenagers use iPods. Military people are exposed to noise. Chemotherapy kills these cells,” He said. “Before this happens, we can prevent the cells from becoming damaged.”
He’s work focuses on regenerating hair cells, helping the body to repair them and possibly restore hearing loss.
While stem cells are instrumental in many types of RM research, He does not believe they are the best choice for the auditory system.
“The inner ear is a unique structure. Stem cells are unable to regenerate themselves. You have to introduce new cells,” He said. “I am focusing on repairing your existing cells through gene therapy.”
Damaged auditory cells will eventually lose their function and die, but it might be possible to spur a regenerative process and reverse the damage. He said that cells need a genetic signal to regenerate themselves, and his goal is to introduce that signal where needed.
“We can put the gene into a virus,” He said. “When the virus is introduced into living tissue, it will integrate its genetic materials with host genetic materials. These code genes will eventually trigger cell repair or stabilize cells when they are injured. You are putting a new gene into tissue, and those new genes help the injured cells.”
One obvious side effect of this method is that it requires the use of a virus. People normally think of a virus in negative terms, because of the direct and indirect effects it introduces into the body.
“A virus is scary,” He said. “We would have to modify the virus to reduce any toxic effect. The major problem is that the virus will continue to reproduce itself, and that would cause damage. If you can prevent that problem, this can work. We still have to modify the virus to make it safe.”
It might eventually be possible to use nanotechnology devices to carry the genetic signal into the damaged cells, without using a virus.
This kind of RM research on auditory cells has been done in animals, but not yet in humans.
When the auditory cells of guinea pigs were damaged, they lost their hearing, according to He. When gene therapy was introduced, partial hearing was regained by most of the guinea pigs within about one month.
“Maybe in five years this can be used in humans,” He said.
A Hot Topic
David Crouse at UNMC calls regenerative medicine a hot topic in health care. New journals and books are being published regularly, and new research departments are starting up nationwide because of available funding.
“If you do a web search with the words ‘regenerative medicine,’ you will get a lot of hits,” Crouse said. “People are living longer and therefore having more degenerative issues consistent with older age. People are getting into accidents more than in the past.
“As long as you have young people doing things that hurt them and old people aging, regenerative medicine will be needed.”
posted at 11:51 am on Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
Green solutions may lie buried in the sludge of a century-old sewer system
by Brandon Vogel
When it rains in Omaha, it pours raw sewage, industrial waste and toxic chemicals into nearby waterways. The city’s century-old sewer system is designed to either put it there or into your basement. Neither is an inviting option.
But that design is changing thanks to a federal mandate from the Environmental Protection Agency. The oldest part of the city — nearly everything east of 72nd St. — currently works on a combined sewer system (CSS) where one pipe handles both storm water and sewage. During dry conditions it works great. Sewage is carried away from homes and businesses to one of two treatment plants where it is treated and then safely released into the Missouri River and Papillion Creek.
If it rains heavily enough, however, the storm water rushing down drains in the street mixes with the raw sewage in the same pipe and frequently overwhelms the system in what the EPA calls a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO)event. The combined runoff – typically 85 percent storm water, 15 percent sewage, according to the city – then flows directly to the Missouri River and its tributaries throughout the area.
Omaha isn’t alone. Nearly 800 other communities are undergoing similarly massive sewer separation projects as part of the EPA's CSO Control Policy. Since 2002, Omaha has averaged 86 overflows a year, pumping 3.5 billion gallons of sewage and storm water annually into receiving streams. The goal is to reduce that number to about four a year by 2024.
No matter where you look, it’s a big and expensive project. Atlanta is spending $3 billion to control its CSOs. Cleveland is protecting the Cuyahoga River with a $1.6 billion project. Omaha officials estimate the city will spend nearly $1.7 billion over the next 15 years to address 51 square miles of aging sewer lines in East Omaha. The Sewer Maintenance Division of the Public Works Department, with a staff of 64 employees and a $2.9 million budget in 2011, is in charge of making the change happen.
“I believe it’s probably the biggest public works project we’ve ever undertaken,” says Marty Grate, the city’s environmental services manager. “This is like building the West Dodge Expressway, a $100 million project, every year for 15 years.”
Just like that expressway, the sewer project will disrupt daily life. Streets will be torn up. Traffic will be diverted. But Grate says the project will ultimately improve more than just the city’s water quality. Omaha’s CSO Control Project is an opportunity for the city to get a little bit greener as well.
Old Omaha
There was a time in Omaha's history when raw sewage flowed through the streets — not by accident, but by design. Or, rather, lack thereof.
For the first few decades of the city’s existence, Omahans simply emptied their outhouses and privies through trenches that poured directly into the street. Human waste pooled in wagon ruts during rainy weather and baked in alleyway cesspools during the hot summer months. Faced with a calamity of unsanitary conditions and citizen complaints, the City Council proposed Omaha’s first sewer system in 1878, according to city records.
The city tried to do it right. The original plan called for separate sewer systems for storm water and sewage at a cost of nearly $1 million dollars, a $20 million project today. But with Omaha’s explosive growth in the early 20th Century, the plan was abandoned in favor of a much quicker and more common solution – the combined sewer system.
Until the mid-1960s, all of Omaha’s wastewater emptied directly into the Missouri River without treatment. The city began to build separate sewer systems in developing West Omaha and constructed two treatment plants that sterilized all of the city’s wastewater prior to release into the waterways to service East Omaha under normal conditions.
Combined sewers were the exception, and the City of Omaha, along with the other cities, operated under special permits from the EPA and state regulators due to the limitations of their antiquated system.
But as concrete replaces grass and cities continue to grow, so does the amount of storm water runoff. By 1994, the EPA had developed its first control plan to address the growing dangers of combined-sewer overflow and had set a series of minimum controls for cities to meet by 1997. Omaha met that deadline, but a new one emerged in 2005. Because of increased federal requirements in the Clean Water Act, the EPA gave Omaha two years to have a draft of its longterm plan to address overflow issues in place. In 2009, the city submitted its completed plan to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, the state organization charged with monitoring the project.
The Health Factor
Pat Nelson doesn’t look at a rainstorm the way most people do. She’s been working with storm water for more than 20 years, and as the compliance team lead with Clean Solutions Omaha, it’s her job to ensure the city meets all of its state and federal water-quality requirements.
“The perfect place for storm water to go is into the surrounding natural bodies of water,” she says. “That’s just part of the natural hydrological cycle.”
But when storm water and sewage mix you introduce a potentially potent cocktail of pollutants into the water system. Rain water can pick up pollutants from a variety of sources as it washes over yards and streets, gathering industrial waste particles from the air, car fluids, fertilizers, pesticides, and pet and animal waste. Raw sewage is a breeding ground for the E. coli virus, the most common pollutant found in overflow material. Combined is a filthy mix of heavy metals, chemicals and bacteria in our lakes and rivers.
The National Resources Defense Council reports that combined-sewer overflows contain more than 100 times the concentration of fecal coliform colonies than treated waste water. At its worst, high fecal coliform concentrations can lead to a variety of human health risks from ear infections to food poisoning, and can endanger fish and other aquatic life.
The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality maintains a biennial list of impaired waterways that do not meet state water quality standards when tested for pollutants. In 2006 and 2008, Omaha’s segment of the Missouri River and Papillion Creek — the two major waterways receiving CSO runoff — were listed as Category 5 waterways, the EPA’s most severe pollution ranking, due to elevated levels of E. Coli. In 2010, both waterways were upgraded to Category 4 for E. Coli levels, but remained on the Impaired Waterways list because they contained other chemical pollutants.
Based on those risks, the backbone of Omaha’s CSO control plan is to keep storm water and sewage separate through a variety of control mechanisms. In addition to sewer separation — approximately $700 million of the total $1.7 billion cost according to Grate — the city will also install a 5-mile long underground concrete tunnel along the Missouri River to accept CSO runoff.
That’s the gray part of the equation, but Nelson says a large part of cleaning up Omaha’s waterways happens before storm water even reaches the sewer system.
And that’s where Omaha becomes more environmentally sustainable.
More Grass, More Green
A number of institutional and individual solutions can help reduce a city’s storm water runoff, but they all primarily focus on soaking up as much water as possible before it reaches the storm drains. Few things do this better than vegetation.
But that presents a challenge for city engineers facing firm regulatory requirements and deadlines. Everyone wants green solutions where possible, Grates says, but those efforts must be supported by structural controls that can deliver precise results. Like most cities, Grate says Omaha is working to the balance the gray solutions already in place with constantly evolving, and perhaps cost-cutting green solutions.
Emily Holtzclaw is one of the engineers making that happen. As a water resources engineer and project manager with environmental engineering firm CH2M HILL, Holtzclaw does everything from work with computer models of the Omaha sewer system to conduct field visits as workers are lowered 50-feet underground to check the condition of century-old pipes. The solutions she comes up with might be multi-million-dollar projects or they may be as simple as making sure the city doesn’t have any manhole covers with holes in them. But the connecting thread, she says, is a devotion to become more environmentally sustainable.
“We’re working to find other ways to deal with storm water. And one of our first tasks is always to identify and, if possible, use the green solution,” Holtzclaw says. “We’re always looking to save space and save cost and do something that’s more environmentally supportive.”
In the first phase of the longterm control plan, the city is undertaking three major projects based on environmental sustainability. Last summer, Omaha received a $200,000 grant from the Nebraska Environmental Trust to restore ponds that were drained in 1931 at Spring Lake Park in South Omaha and to add a planned wetlands area to the site. Native plants with deep root systems are better equipped to soak up water, and Grate says the plan “lets nature reduce the runoff we have to deal with.” The city estimates the four-year, $1.5 million project could eventually save $2 million in overall CSO project costs.
Nature is doing part of the work in sewer separations near Aksarben Village and Saddle Creek Road, as well. Rather than build an entirely new, separate sewer system, engineers are using the natural landscape to direct storm water to the waterways.
Three dry detention areas in Elmwood Park will collect storm water, reducing peak-time runoff and safely depositing solids in the water before it reaches the Elmwood Park Creek. The city estimates the project will save $1 million.
An above-ground, open channel will work similarly west of Saddle Creek Road, allowing soil and vegetation to clean the storm water naturally prior to its entry into Little Papillion Creek. The Saddle Creek extension is estimated to save $2 million in infrastructure costs.
But the bill for Omaha’s CSO project is still potentially enormous and how the city will pay for it is debatable. The federal mandate to fix the system was unfunded, leaving the city and its citizens to pick up all of the cost.
For now, the plan is to gradually increase the city’s sewage fees for residents. The average residential rate in Omaha in 2010 was approximately $15 per month. By 2017, the city estimates sewer fees could reach $50 per month — more than a 200 percent increase over the next seven years.
Some local politicians are fighting to reduce that cost. In late March, Mayor Jim Suttle traveled to Washington D.C. to lobby for federal funding for the project. On March 22, the City Council approved a resolution asking Nebraska’s Congressional delegation to lobby for a 50-50 federal cost share for the project.
Omaha State Sen. Heath Mello has a proposal before the Nebraska Legislature that would return state sales taxes associated with the increase — a windfall of about $48 million over the next 15 years — to the city of Omaha to help defray costs.
But for now, the only certain cost-cutting measure is to go green whenever and wherever the city can. The key to cleaner, safer, more modern Omaha may lie in the mud and sludge of a century-old sewer system.
“We’re not putting in green solutions because they’re cool but because they improve the project, they benefit the city and they’re cost effective,” Nelson says. “We’re going to see more and more of these solutions as time goes on.”
The 33rd Annual Blues Music Awards were handed out in Memphis Thursday, May 10. Multiple awards went to Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi and their Tedeschi Trucks Band. Another multiple-award winner is Tab Benoit, whose honors included the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award. See blues.org for the complete list of winners. Curtis Salgado took home the Soul Blues Male Artist award and appears in the metro Sunday, August 5, as part of the second annual Hullabaloo festival. See hullabaloomusicfestival.com. Multiple BMA nominee Tommy Castro rocks Lincoln's Zoo Bar Monday, June 4, 6-9 p.m.
Nebraska Blues Challenge
The Blues Society of Omaha presents the finals of the Nebraska Blues Challenge Sunday, May 20, 5 p.m. at The 21st Saloon. Performing are Lil' Slim Blues Band (5 p.m.), Levi William (6:10 p.m.) and Brad Cordle Band (7:20 p.m.)
Ten bands participated in three preliminary rounds. The bands receiving the most points from judges in each round advance to the final. The winner of the Nebraska Blues Challenge will represent the Blues Society of Omaha in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis early in 2013. See blues.org.
Zoo Bar
Friday, May 18, Tijuana Gigolos play 5-7 p.m. and Lil' Slim Blues Band performs after 9 p.m. Youth band Cold in Hand plugs in Saturday, May 19, 6-9 p.m. This band has some incredibly talented young musicians, check them out. The rockabilly of The Red Elvises takes the Zoo stage Sunday, May 20, 6-9 p.m. Sons of 76 plays Wednesday, May 23, 6-9 p.m.
Hot Notes
The fundraising campaign for restoration of the Benson Theatre held its final brunch Sunday, May 12, raising over $6000 toward the project. Donations are still needed to make this dream a reality. See bensontheatre.org for information.
21st Saloon 5:30 p.m. Thursday shows feature Chicago's Sarah & The Tallboys with blues & Americana Thursday, May 17. Brad Cordle Band appears next Thursday, May 24.
Sioux City Live Music Club presents Alejandro Escovedo in an acoustic duo concert Friday, May 18. See siouxcitylive.com. Matt Cox and Josh Hoyer play at Mojo's in AkSarBen Village Friday, May 18, 9 p.m. Kris Lager Band and Funk Trek gig at The Waiting Room Friday, May 18. Also Friday, May 18, Kansas' Terry Quiett Band plays Harrah's Stir Bar and Big Sam's Funky Nation is at the Holland's 1200 Club.
New Orleans' Anders Osborne gigs at The Waiting Room Tuesday, May 22, 9 p.m.
This week, put it into fertile soil before the invisible, divisible, duality reality of Gemini; id est, the “breath of spring,” blows you/it away with wordplay. Time to communicate. I’ll start… MOJOPOPlanetPower.com
b TAURUS (4.21-5.20) Thus concludes your best week in your best month of your best year in 12. This weekend is a superlative time for following through on projects. Who needs sleep? Wait ’til Sunday at sunset to communicate your new (moneymaking?) ideas. Implement your dream on Moonday after 4:17 p.m. (Omax time), and don’t let it go for the rest of the week — ’til next we speak.
c GEMINI (5.21-6.21) Yes, you’re a BIG part of this BIG weekend’s doings (amidst the 1st of 2 Gemini New Moons) this Sunday evening. You know your friends can’t party without YOU, right? Who’s gonna be the gopher? You’re there — as a relater, a translator, a negotiator, an instigator, a “recapitulater” and a prestidigitator. Without your magic, it’s tragic. This weekend can create “creds” for your entire next year (Jupiter in Gemini), starting on your birthday.
d CANCER (6.22-7.22) Put up your party radar. Give it the whole weekend to see what you can find and what you want to be. There are some good-lookin’ soon-to-be-friends out there just lookin’ for you to partEEE! The New Moon, Jupiter and Mercury create a transiting stellium, partying like dogs and exploding into your 11th House of the unexpected!
e LEO (7.23-8.22) This is the Year of the Dragon. The Oriental dragon relates to Leo. Dragons know what they want — and then go for and get it. After sunset on Sunday the winds of change (Gemini) rearrange and blow through your home on the range. Buffalos are the dragons of the plains. Give me a home where the buffalo roam…and I’ll show you a home that needs a lot of cleaning and fixing up!
f VIRGO (8.23-9.22) Please read Gemini and expand your career (10th House) for this coming year.
g LIBRA (9.23-10.22) You’ve got 2 loves/lovers… (How does the MOJO know?) If you “decide” before the end of June, it would/will be too soon. I’d say that the money’s due to come your way on Moonday. Meditate on the Evening Star. That’s who you are! Let Venus come between us.
h SCORPIO (10.23-11.22) Relax and let the power flow through you — not “to” you. Be an empty temple. Pyramid your body and let the winds of change (Gemini) blow through one opening and out another. You’re in a boat afloat without a rudder. Remain invisible, like the wind. I’ll remind/tell you when to set your sail.
i SAGITTARIUS (11.23-12.21) Wwwooo, wooooo! Party with the “hearties” ’til Sunday night, and then methinks it’ll be alright for “youse” to hang loose in your caboose. Your love interest is acting awfully strange, due to Venus starting to go retrograde in your opposite sign of Gemini ’til the end of June. Duality is the problem and/or the key; whatever that means to/for thee…
j CAPRICORN (12.22-1.20) Hang in there ’til the last week in June. Hey, you’re supposed to rule patience, right? You know; the long haul? Have you done your yoga lately (whatever that means to you)? What’s your excuse this time? It’s raining, it’s too cold, it’s too hot, it’s too nice… How about (your) life is too short?
k AQUARIUS (1.21-2.19) House renovation? How does the MOJO know (the New Moon in your 10th house?) that it’s an ordered universe and that there are no mistakes — if you do what you do for the experience. It’s all too beautiful for us to come through just one time. You all know what I’m saying. All is holy to the holy. All is divine to the divine. AUM…
l PISCES (2.20-3.20) Time to visit (with) your brothers and sisters, due to the New Moon in your 3rd House. They(’ll) have something to say to you, if you’ll just listen to your kissin’ cousin. You’ve been missin’ all the familiar buzzin’. Hey, Honeybee, everything else lives and dies. Only the family survivezzz in the hivezzz…
a ARIES (3.21-4.20) Quick fix? A fair Thursday. A hot midnight on Friday! Saturday at 1:30! Hide (your moneymaking plan) on Sunday. Two girls at 4:17 p.m. on Moonday, and then back to hiding for the rest of the week — ’til next we speak.
Last Monday night was the fourth time that I’ve seen indie rock band St. Vincent a.k.a. Annie Clark play a show in Omaha.
The first time was nearly five years ago at The Waiting Room. St. Vincent was just beginning to get a name for themselves releasing their debut album, Marry Me, after Clark had completed tours of duty as members of stellar indie rock choir The Polyphonic Spree and singer/songwriter Sufjan Stevens’ band. If I remember correctly, around 100 were there to see her band, consisting of a violinist, keyboardist and drummer, perform a short set of rather unfamiliar, though gorgeous, music. At the center of it was Clark’s electric guitar howling with a tone reminiscent of The White Stripes'' Jack White, ripping and tearing the room asunder.
I concluded a review of that show predicting that Clark was “going to be as big PJ Harvey. Maybe bigger.” Who is PJ Harvey? She's sort of the black queen of indie rock, a breakthrough U.K. artist and an acknowledged groundbreaker who attracks crowds in the thousands -- massive by indie rock standards.
St. Vincent returned to Omaha two months later to open for The National at Slowdown, but this time it was just Clark alone with only her electric guitars, her duo microphones, and a cabinet of sampled beats and noises; and no, it wasn’t as stellar a performance as that previous show at The Waiting Room, but it was still pretty durn good, and at times, great.
It would be almost two years until Clark would return to Omaha, this time in support of her first release on “important” mid-sized indie label 4AD, called Actor. Instead of Slowdown’s big stage, Clark and a band that included a violin, bass, drums and a guy on woodwinds (flute, saxophone, clarinet), played Slowdown Jr., the bar’s smaller front room. The show wasn’t a sell out, but it was close, with a few hundred people mesmerized by St. Vincent’s dreamy, theatric and funky music.
Then came this past Monday night, again at Slowdown but this time on the big stage.
In some ways, Clark is both a traditionalist and a curiosity. Her career progression -- starting as a sideman, then striking out on her own, opening for larger bands before a breakthrough album and then onto a larger solo tour, was standard operating procedure for the indie rock game. But lately that model has become abbreviated. Bands these days seem to only get one massive hit record (or at least "massive" for indie standards), one big-stage tour and then... the inevitable downfall. There rarely is a second act for indie bands. The iPod-in-shuffle-mode and the Internet have all but killed this generation's attention span. We live in an era of one-hit wonders, where what's hot today is passe tomorrow and forgotten next week. Somehow Clark has avoided all of that.
At 10:30 Monday night, she walked onto Slowdown’s big stage to a sea of upturned faces, a capacity crowd come to see the sexy conquering hero, clad in leather hot pants and black hose, sleeveless black shirt (thankfully no ink marred her ivory shoulders), her tiny frame propped tall on 4-inch high-heeled black shoes (not boots).
Around her neck, a black electric guitar.
Surrounded by white-hot strobe lights and a band consisting of two keyboard players (one playing a mini Moog) and an amazing percussionist, Clark become the female embodiment of Prince circa 1983 when the wunderkind could do no wrong, when he was at the height of his powers. Monday night I had a feeling that I was seeing Clark at the height of her powers. Strong, ingenious, locked-in and groovy, lost in the music and the moment, she would lean forward and coo her sweet soprano all innocent before tip-toeing backwards while viciously, relentlessly torturing her guitar. Because first and foremost Clark is a guitarist, weirdly talented at pulling dark, fuzzy growls from her lacquered instrument.
I cannot tell you the names of the songs she sang, despite having all of her albums. Strike that, I do remember that she sang “Cruel,” from her last album, 2011’s Strange Mercy (4AD), her highest charting (peaking at No. 19 on Billboard) and arguably best record of her career. Oh, I recognized the songs, I just can’t tell you what they’re called, and these days it doesn’t really matter. There are no “radio hits” in the indie world, and won’t be again.
Though her stage presence recalled Prince, her music had more in common with arch New Wave composers such as Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson and Talking Heads, while her voice was Joni and Aimee and Souxsie Sioux. But it was nothing compared to those hot-bitch guitar licks that could rattle your teeth with its staccato fists or pull you under the covers with waves of luscious, tonal phrasing.
The crowd, as they say, ate it up. And in the end, she ate them up, meeting them one-on-one first with a stage dive, followed by another stage dive and then a chaotic stroll within the melee, her head of black curls lost in the sea of sweaty bodies reaching out for a touch, her presence a moving mosh pit, before she crawled back on stage; exhausted, spent.
She returned for a two-song encore that peaked with another thick slab of guitar, before exiting stage right.
I left Slowdown thinking that, despite pulling off one of the best shows this year (and the best she's ever performed on an Omaha stage), my prediction never came true. Clark still isn't as big as PJ Harvey. At least not yet.
Beyond Lazy-i is a weekly column by Reader senior contributing writer Tim McMahan focused on arts, culture, society and the media. Email Tim at tim.mcmahan@gmail.com.
May 17 Grouplove w/ Reptar
Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St.
8 p.m., $15, onepercentproductions.com
Chances are "Tongue Tied" has found its way into your ears by now. Grouplove's signature song has traveled across the country in commercials and television shows. But that song's ubiquity shouldn't overshadow the strength of their debut album, Never Trust a Happy Song. The album jumps with energy, though they know how to pull back in the middle of a song like "Colours" in order to built back up to a big moment. The indie-pop gems are powerful, while never stepping too far into power-pop territory. It's a danceable mix of current indie rock touchstones that never strays too close to a contemporary to suggest that they haven't tapped into their own hook-filled originality.
May 21 Xiu Xiu w/ Dirty Beaches
Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St.
9 p.m., $10 in advance/$12 day-of-show, onepercentproductions.com
Jamie Stewart continually bends, shapes and reforms Xiu Xiu at his in-the-moment stylistic whims, always keeping a foot in his experimental indie rock wheelhouse, but always seeming on the brink of letting his running-wild ideas run completely away. That makes each of his records an intriguing puzzle. Polyrhythmic textures, computer programming and scattered synth sounds are often featured in Xiu Xiu's work, though like the band's membership, none of those elements are constant. Opener Dirty Beaches have attracted their own following, culling from '50s rock, shoegaze and synth-punk pioneers Suicide.
May 20 Deer Tick w/ Turbo Fruits
Waiting Room Lounge, 6212 Maple St.
9 p.m., $13 in advance/$15 day-of-show, onepercentproductions.com
On Divine Providence, 2011's booziest batch of rock 'n' roll, Rhode Island's Deer Tick shambled beautifully and blurry through songs that went from barroom rally cries to overly-creepy first-person imaginings of John Wayne Gacy. What pulls it all together is the band's confident approach to roots rock that steers away from faked twang, but keeps in a decidedly rowdy human touch. Led by John J. McCauley III, Deer Tick's live shows have taken on a vibe not too different from their latest album. They rock loose-limbed, but like in the throes of a drunkenly religious conviction. They stretch out ballads until tear meets beer and then they cap it off with an ever-evolving list of covers, which are served as a funny wink, a knowing nod and a sly smile.
* Fresh off the release of their third album Contextual Doom, Capgun Coup will be heading to Los Angeles for a month at the beginning of June. The local indie-rock band will sublet a space, while setting up shows in southern California. The residency was organized by the band and their new record label, Org Music.
* Love Fest in the Midwest is scheduled for Friday, June 29 through Sunday, July 1st at RiverWest Park, 23101 West Maple Road. The three day overnight camping festival will include performances by Cornmeal, Wookiefoot and Kdubalicious with Keller Williams. Tickets are $60 for a three-day pass. For more information, visit lovefestinthemidwest.com.
* The Mynabirds will celebrate their latest album, Generals, with an album release show Friday, June 8th at the Slowdown, 729 North 14th St. The show will come with a bargain price tag of $5, so re-invest those funds that would go towards modern show prices into picking up the new disc. The album will be out on Saddle Creek Records earlier that week on Tuesday, June 5th.
* Brad Hoshaw has surfaced on American Public Media once again, contributing a song to the program "Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal". After being asked to contribute an original song based on what Hoshaw felt was the most important issue leading up to this year's federal elections, he penned "The Health Care Song". The slow-build acoustic song is centered on Hoshaw's voice and a message that implores the listener to help "bring healt care through." The song can be found online at marketplace.org.
* Iconic Lincoln punk zine Capitol Punishment will host a show Sunday, May 27th at the Joyo Theatre, 6102 Havelock Ave. in Lincoln. The free show starts at 4 p.m. The fanzine published from 1980 to 1984, covering Lincoln's punk and post-punk scenes. The show will feature reunions by Pogrom/Ex-Machina, The Spastic Apes, Omaha-based Rebates and Sacred Cows from Kearney. Event organizers say several of these bands have not played since Capitol Punishment's hey day thirty years ago. Lincoln bands Informed Dissent, Lon’s Garden, and Battle Ship Gray round out the bill.
* Bank of the West is looking for an unsigned, but up-and-coming local band to open up its yearly Bank of the West Celebrates America concert Friday, June 29th at Memorial Park. Huey Lewis & the News headline the event, which also includes Mockingbird Sun. Finalists will be put up to a public vote on Bank of the West's Facebook page starting June 15th.
Village Pointe Wine Festival, The Boiler Room, Brunch for Books at Cantina Laredo
by Krista O'Malley
Tickets are now available for the 2nd Annual Village Pointe Wine Festival, which is being held Friday June 8 from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday June 9 from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Main Street at Village Pointe. Tickets are available at Brix and are $45 a person with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Food Bank for the Heartland. Samples of over 100 wines, a Riedel tasting glass and small plates from Village Pointe Restaurants; Brix, Kona Grill, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill and Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse are all included in the ticket cost. In addition, Vibes at Village Pointe Concert Series will have the Finest Hour on Friday night June 8 and The Innocence on Saturday Night June 9 at the Alegent Health Amphitheatre Stage to accompany the Wine Festival. Village Pointe Shopping Center is located at 168th and Dodge. For more information, you can call or search Brix at 402.991.9463 or www.brixomaha.com.
If good wine makes your heart skip a beat, you may want to reserve a spot at the table on Tuesday May 22, when The Boiler Room welcomes Master Sommelier Bobby Stuckey and Lachlan Patterson from Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder as they present their Scarpetta line of wines. From a sparkling rose to the flagship Pinot Grigio, Lachlan and Bobby will also pour a special anniversary cuvee. The menu for the evening is in true Broiler Room fashion and offers; smoked guanciale, farm fresh aracauna chicken eggs, savoy cabbage, wellfleet oysters, grass fed piedmontese beef and mulefoot pork. Per person price is $80 plus tax and gratuity. Call 402.916.9274 for reservations.
Cantina Laredo is having a “Brunch for Books” on Sunday, May 20, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Twenty percent of all proceeds will be donated to Saint Cecilia Elementary School’s reading program. Brunch includes either a free mimosa or Bloody Maria. “We’re excited about this opportunity for everyone to get together before we all go our separate ways for summer,” Principal Paulette Rourke said. For more information or to make reservations, call Cantina Laredo at 402.345.6000.
‘Out of In Focus’ no ordinary two-person exhibit at Bemis Underground
by Michael J. Krainak
If you enter the Bemis Underground in May “expecting the unexpected,” you are forgiven the cliché. This alternative venue’s current exhibit, Out of In Focus is no exception. Even its paradoxical title warns the viewer of preconceptions. How can one keep something out of/in focus, let alone appreciate the process and the results.
There is much to appreciate in this challenging exhibit which features large panel paintings from Lincoln artist Alex Borovski and several dozen reductive, miniature collages of Omaha’s Lonnie Potter. Visually, it’s an odd coupling that first drew the attention of Underground curator Joel Damon who hung the artists side-by-side in Bemis’ impressive inaugural juried exhibition in 2011.
Juried winners were promised their own solo shows in the Underground which explains Borovski’s presence in Out of In Focus. But Damon was so impressed with Potter’s series of abstract miniatures that complemented the former’s imposing “Mt. Massive,” the latter was included here for similar effect.
“Something magical happened being side-by-side in the juried exhibit,” Damon said prior to their artist talk. “It wasn’t just a matter of a similar palette. They share a similar sensibility best understood within their individual differences. I saw their connections which place special demands on their viewer.”
In order to capitalize on different points of view, content and tone, Damon organized the show by alternating Borovski’s large paintings with multiple sets of Potter’s “collages,” four to a set. Visually the show makes a nice first impression as her work takes advantage of the venue’s quirky sightlines. Yet even as they direct traffic and attention the smaller work draws you in before you turn a corner and the “in and out” process is repeated.
Though the process of engagement for the viewer requires a certain push-pull, the work has other opposite demands as well. Borovski’s busy abstract expressionist paintings, some of which hide figures or reveal narratives such as “The First Highway” or “Energy Capsules/Early Disconnect” are in macrocosm. Her all-encompassing imagery must be deciphered within its many details even as you pull back to absorb it all.
Instead of being an editor/interpreter, one has to approach Potter’s minimalist, conceptual designs as a reconstructionist. The artist has literally culled and reduced major works of art from contemporary art publications and mounted each re-creation in microcosm on card stock. It’s up to the viewer to come face-to-face with each work and then re-imagine each more expansively and within the context of others in its set and throughout the show. As with Borovski’s imagery, a visual language will emerge as his work too comes in and out of focus.
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing viewers in this show is reconciling that there aren’t three separate artists in this two-person show, a first impression that even some Bemis staff acknowledged. Along with her now familiar abstract and expressionistic paintings, Borovski has included here a series of even more impressive figure studies within nature that suggest the presence of a third artist. Not only does this addition raise the bar in her career while signaling a more mature direction, these four figures dominate the exhibit.
All four works, “Night Bather,” “Back to the Familiar,” “Surprise Landing” and “Gloria,” each strikingly commanding, suggest a figure floating in or emerging from a forbidding verdant pool and jungle. The works beg for interpretation given their specific facial expressions and body language, but unlike her more iconic and multi-layered “mash-ups,” her figure studies offer fewer clues. This is to the artist’s credit.
That these aren’t’ flattering portraits or portrayals reminds one of similar work by Theresa Pfarr in a recent show at Modern Arts Midtown. But the guilt, fear and anxiety raised by Borovski’s bathers aren’t’ motivated by Pfarr’s social satire and commentary. Instead, an apparent loss of innocence on the part of her bathers seems to be, visually and conceptually, more mythical and biblical.
Taking a cue from the nude torso in “Back to the Familiar,” as it rises from the ooze, red with its blood and shame, one imagines that all of Borovski’s protagonists are in a process of “rebirth” from their former Garden of Eden into a world of experience. Whether interpreted in Old Testament terms or those more political and historical, given her Russian past, Borovski paints and composes in broad, gestural strokes within a palette of bold and earthy reds, blues and greens contrasted with fleshy pinks and pale grays on a background of shadowy black.
Though her image-heavy cornucopias and scenarios continue to engage, particularly “Energy Capsules/Early Disconnect” with its mythic, Poseidon figure dominant in his teeming sea, Borovski’s more abstract and experimental work is less impressive. The pixilated or pointillist “Micro-Macro-Map” has merit, but “Frankenfort,” a botanical mix of organic shapes and neon colors flow to nowhere and add little to her oeuvre.
From very humble beginnings as a minimalist painter and installation maker of ordinary, household materials, Potter has narrowed his focus even further. His organic and geometric “cut-outs” on 4 x 6 note cards represent not the gist of a major artwork torn from an Artforum, etc. Instead, the artist says he confronts the original “to see how little I can take away before the whole tumbles or tips over.”
If this seems a little obtuse, imagine a tiger without its stripes, a leopard without its spots or, for that matter, the curl taken from a surfer’s wave and then “made it my own.” Further putting his own stamp on this work, Potter titles his pieces with obscure words, some of which, such as “Eclat” (brilliancy, as in achievement) and “Nimbus” (a rain cloud or radiant figure) can not only be found in Webster’s but might actually shed light on the work itself.
Titles aside, Potter’s pieces succeed on their own providing a visual language that unites each piece whether its source was a Kandinsky, Delaunay or Stella. By isolating on key design elements within larger works, Potter has a knack for making the familiar extraordinary as the eye flows from one visual motif to another.
Though his contribution here seems at times a bit obsessive, one is drawn to his patterns, simple and pure, whether formal and geometric in “Desinence” and “Mithrodate,” with their layering of building blocks and graphic lines, or intuitive and organic as with the lava flow in “Epicene” and the flotilla of floating vessels in “Frondescence.” Other works are more emblematic such as the sergeant stripes of “Canorous,” the musical clef in “Eclat” or Stonehenge appearing in “Hobbledehoy.”
Borovski and Potter may seem an odd mix to some but if this exhibit isn’t exactly what you expected then at least you will know you are out of your comfort zone and in the realm of possibilities.
Out of In Focus continues through May 26, 2012, at Bemis Underground, 724 S. 12th St. For more information go to bemiscenter.org.
There’s nothing like the blues. Born out of poverty, “the blues” was literally a way to escape the traps of depression, which many blues musicians referred to as the “blue devils.”
Local musician Hector Anchondo gravitated towards the blues at a very young age. The future music junkie quickly became fascinated with the guitar and started taking lessons in Salem, Missouri. It wasn’t clear yet that the blues would be the type of music he would ultimately pursue.
“When I started taking my first guitar lessons my instructor said, ‘hey if you want to learn how to play rock n' roll you have to learn the blues first’ so I immersed myself in blues and listened to everything that I could get my hands on in Salem at a time when you couldn't simply download everything under the sun,” Anchondo explains. “You had to actually hunt for the good stuff, ask friends, read interviews and wait for another artist to mention someone else, beg a record store to order something for you or do the ol' Columbia House trick where you got 20 free CDs for 1 penny and then never pay up. All that led me to Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, John Lee Hooker and many more. I had become a full-fledged blues fan for life.” Ironically, Anchondo’s first musical venture wasn’t a blues band. It was more of a reggae-infused rock band. Simply called Anchondo, the group has been an Omaha staple for the past 10 years. While Hector Anchondo is concentrating on his solo debut, Kickin’ Up Dust, he insists his original project is still very much alive. In fact, they play an anniversary show on May 19 at Slowdown. However, the switch from rock to blues wasn’t a tough one and seemed inevitable.
“I always knew that at some point in my life I would start my blues band. I knew at a young age that it was more acceptable to be older and play blues so I made the choice to play some rock n' roll first. I didn't expect to start my blues band this early on, but times change and people grow up, have kids and aren't able to fight for the same cause any longer,” he explains. “Anchondo is alive and well, but now shows are fewer in number. So the timing of it all was right, I had been playing lead guitar for a local blues/funk band called Burgundy & Gray and learned a lot more about blues and how to groove from the late band leader Milton Spellman. He really got me thinking about starting down my blues journey. Anchondo was slowing down. The time had come. “
Anchondo got to work on his blues material with a renewed sense of self. It’s clear he feels at home playing this type of music. His slide guitar is impeccable and voice, well for a 30-something, it’s mature for a blues singer. While the record is only 5 tracks long, each track is carefully composed and flawlessly executed. It leaves the listener wanting more. He feels this album is a natural progression. The blues have been calling him all along.
“It's so passionate and expressive. The old blues guys would get up there and cut loose and let all out for the world to see, similar to the old Motown artists. I needed an outlet for my past hardships and through discovering blues, I realized that I'd feel so much better after playing for a few hours of it,” he says. “All the old blues artists have soul when they play and that comes though their music and shoots though the crowd like a bolt of lightning. Good old-fashioned soul is lacking in today’s music. When people grade music for competitions, they should factor in soul.
This year, Anchondo is intent on touring all summer and into the fall. His favorite way to spend the day is either playing a show or having band rehearsal. After so many years of experience in the music business, he isn’t deterred. In fact, he’s inspired to keep going despite the decline of major record labels and poor album sales. “My goal is to make it on my own, grow my small business, and spread the music to any who will listen. I'm not interested in signing to a record label, I'd be interested in working with a label, like some sort of partnership, but that's it. I won't ever sell my soul or give anyone full control over what I'm doing. I want to work my butt off like everyone else and earn an honest living, while giving people a memorable musical experience and getting them to shake those behinds”
For now, Anchondo has his sights set on the future and is taking the proper steps to get there. His performance June 8 at The Syndey provides a nice break from the indie-rock pool Omaha is so often drowning in. “In 5 years, I hope to be making an average living only playing music and supporting all my own needs as an artist and touring extensively. Plus, I hope to be doing a lot more blues festivals by then because I love playing festivals,” he concludes. “Lastly, I've always had a dream of touring overseas, so we'll see if I can make it there within 5 years. Keep your fingers crossed for me.”
If you’re anything like me, it feels like you’ve been waiting years for HAUTE CITY to arrive. But don’t fret –it’s almost here!
This Saturday May 19th, grab your husband, mother or partner in crime and head to Omaha’s Midtown Crossingfor a day of shopping and an evening full of surprises.
To break it down, HAUTE CITY is actually 2 separate events.
HAUTE CITY DAY is an interactive shopping event that runs from 12-6 p.m. Pay your $10 entrance fee upon arrival at the Midtown Crossing Promenade and 31st Avenue Circle Drive to visit more than 50 pop-up shops or “Haute Spots” from brands and boutiques like Kevin Murphy, Borrow For Your Bump, Dante’s Pizzeria, Fluff Your Stuffand Rhylan Lang. Visitors will have a hands-on experience full of samples, demonstrations and more.
HAUTE CITY NIGHT is an exclusive rooftop entertainment event featuring a runway fashion production with a performance by Quixotic Fusion, with doors opening at 8 p.m. and the show at 9 p.m. The event will take place on the roof of Midtown Crossing’s parking garage offering a view of the city as the sun sets.
The fashion show will present complete collections carried by local retailers with featured designers such as Rachel Zoe, Mavi Jeans and BCBG/MaxAzria along with other nationally recognized brands. For $75, attendees will receive access to HAUTE CITY DAY and NIGHT, the runway show & Quixotic Fusion performance, 2 complimentary cocktails from Lucky Bucket & Opulent Vodka and entrance to the VIP after-party.
HAUTE CITY is a one day only event produced by STEP Group. For more information and to purchase advance tickets visit hautecity.com.
Sarah Lorsung Tvrdik is a stylist, costumier, wife and freelance writer based in Omaha, Nebraska. Her style blog can be found at fashflood.com.
Holding on to anger is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.
by Michael Braunstein
With all due sympathy for those who find themselves trapped making a living from government grants, corporate funding or university purse strings, so-called scientific research is a wank. Research generally is a hollow, after-the-fact exercise providing data best used to win an argument or acquire more research funding. A friend once said to me, in derision of research, “Give me a million bucks and a university lab and I can prove anything.”
That’s pretty much the way it goes. Research results usually reflect the viewpoint of the person or group funding the project. How else to explain research examining the same issue and coming up with contradictory results? Funnier still is the perception that research somehow leads to original ideas. In fact, research is usually undertaken to “prove” or “disprove” something that has been going on for a long time already. My friend referred to universities now researching the benefits of grass fed beef, something centuries of common knowledge already supported. In one of many examples, after most of his contemporaries were already practicing rotational grazing, a university thought it necessary to spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to research it. Why? To prove that something that was obviously working was obviously working?
Mama said there’d be days like this. One sad reality is that many people find it difficult to observe and think for themselves. We think we need numbers gleaned by academia or think tanks to direct our lives. We give grace to data and analysis more than intuition and common sense.
So it is with anger and forgiveness. Moms often told us not to get mad. They coached us to “Take a deep breath and count to ten.” Most of us grew up knowing anger takes a toll. Yet the contention that it’s sickening to hold on to anger seems airy-fairy or metaphysical unless some science paper proves it to us. Well, if you need the research, it’s there.
Various studies tout that anger or hostility increases risk of stroke, atrial fibrillation, pulmonary dysfunction. Angry young men are three times more likely to develop heart disease later in life. Anger suppresses the immune system, makes cancer more likely and leads to many other health issues.
Another study linked the very act of getting angry to imminent heart attack, that even thinking about getting angry can cause deadly changes in the electrical impulses that control the heart rhythm and lead to sudden cardiac arrest. Ever hear someone caution, “Calm down. You’ll give yourself a heart attack?” Turns out you didn’t need the research done at Yale University after all, did you?
“You keep carrying that anger, it’ll eat you up inside.” — from Heart of the Matter by Don Henley. The word forgive comes from two Anglo-Saxon words meaning “let go of.” The meaning is so deeply associated with a debt that our attention is focused very much on the action, thing or wrongdoing we are asked to forgive. But the most important part is the letting go, itself. And the release that is required for true forgiveness is the release of judgment.
Judgment is a function of the conscious mind, not the subconscious. The conscious mind is the critical, filtering and analytical mind that is always judging. The subconscious accepts without judgment. To forgive is to let go of judgment.
The common idea of forgiveness is mistaken. The way most people look at forgiveness is usually like this: “You did something wrong; you wronged me, but I am going to be magnanimous and ‘forgive’ you. That is the misconception of forgiveness. Actual forgiveness admits no wrongdoing was committed at all. If we are still holding on to a belief that there was a wrong committed, we are not forgiving. Our minds cannot resolve a conflict such as that. If we believe a wrong was committed, the analytical mind requires that we exact revenge. With that as a benchmark of our belief system, the conscious mind can think in no other way.
However, if we realize that who we truly are is a spirit that cannot be harmed by the physical acts of another, forgiveness is natural. And healing can occur at once. Form follows thought, not the other way around.
Forgiveness requires only release of judgment of the action of another. Often, we become discouraged by thinking that we have to come up with an alternative way to look at someone. We don’t. We simply have to be willing to let go of what we’re thinking about them. For example, it’s daunting to try to think of someone who really did, say, steal something from you, as a nice person. We don’t have to think them into an angel; that may be a stretch. We have only to be willing not to hold on to the idea that they are bad. Nature fills a vacuum. When we let go of the feelings of anger and judgment, love will enter automatically. That is healing.
Everyone knows the feeling in the body that is present when we are angry. The heart races. It’s hard to take a deep breath. Our stomach tightens. We can feel our blood pressure rise. And those are merely the gross physiological symptoms that we notice. Consider the subtle changes to body chemistry and the immune system. Everything. None of it’s good. Instead of holding on to a perceived grievance, let go. It’s healthier for you.
Be well.
Heartland Healing examines various alternative forms of healing. It is provided as a source of information, not as medical advice. It is not an endorsement of any particular therapy, either by the writer or The Reader. Access past columns at http://www.HeartlandHealing.com
Need for more bilingual interpreters among topics addressed at racial and ethnic fairness judicial conference
by Sean McCarthy
Last Saturday, a crowd of about 700 packed the Hilton Hotel's Grand Central Ballroom at 10th and Cass to honor Chief Standing Bear and the landmark court decision made in 1879 by Omaha judge Elmer Dundy, recognizing Standing Bear and Native Americans in general as "persons" before the law. Among those in attendance were Omaha mayor Jim Suttle and Nebraska U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, who both issued proclamations honoring Standing Bear in Omaha and Nebraska respectively.
This was the first time the Standing Bear Breakfast was held in Omaha (other years it was held in Lincoln). The breakfast coincided the conclusion of the 24th Annual Conference of the National Consortium on Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts, which was also held in Omaha for the first time. Liz Neeley, who serves on the board of directors of the Consortium, said she was happy to have the conference in Omaha because the conferences have primarily been held on the east or west coast.
"Historically, the East Coast and West Coast have been the first to address these issues (of fairness in the courts)," Neeley said.
For two days, topics like bilingual interrogations, perceived racial bias, and the courts handling of refugees were addressed. Susan Berk-Seligson, professor of Linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Vanderbilt University, hosted a forum titled "Coerced Confessions: The Discourse of Bilingual Police Interrogations", which drew off her 2009 book of the same name.
Berk-Seligson used case studies of persons accused of murder, rape, molestation, and kidnapping. In some of the cases she referenced, police had little to no knowledge of the Spanish language, or the arrestee spoke little or no English. In the past 20 years, police departments in small midwestern towns and some southeastern cities have dealt with sharp increases of Spanish-speaking people, but haven't been able to provide adequate interpreters, Berk-Seligson said in a phone interview from her home in Nashville, Tennessee.
"The police departments are not prepared to meet the needs of the demographically shifting population," Berk-Seligson said.
"Police have been forced to take these crash courses (in Spanish). Some courses are a semester long, some are only 30 hours," she said.
She compared the training some police departments give their officers to receiving a year's worth of high school Spanish. After a year of schooling at that level, people still do not have the necessary Spanish skills to adequately handle a routine arrest, let alone a full interrogation, Berk-Seligson said.
In other cases, Berk-Seligson argues it's sometimes just as detrimental if the officer is fluently bilingual because the officer could use their understanding of the language to coerce a confession out of the accused. In one case Berk-Seligson cited, an officer who spoke fluent Spanish did not speak to the arrestee in Spanish during the interrogation.
"The police have some inherent biases," Berk-Seligson said.
"They often will try to coerce a confession to get a conviction."
The solution to the language gap problem in arrests and confessions is not more Spanish-speaking officers, Berk-Seligson argues, but more independent interpreters. The main reason is that certified translators are ethically bound to be unbiased. The task of serving as interrogator and interpreter should not fall to one person, Berk-Seligson said.
"It's really impossible," she said.
Jeffrey Rachlinski, professor at Cornell Law School, was scheduled to give a talk titled "Implicit Bias and the Justice System." However, due to a family illness, he was unable to attend. Rachlinski co-authored a paper published in the Notre Dame Law Review titled "Does Unconscious Race Affect Trial Judges?", where he argued that while trial judges make concerted efforts to be unbiased, when given negative subliminal messages associated with African-Americans, the results indicated judges gave stricter sentences for the African-American defendant.
In a phone interview, Rachlinski said the trial judges (one-third surveyed were African Americans) were given cases where the race of the defendant was explicitly identified. In those cases, the sentences given to white defendants were the same as those given to African-Americans.
The same judges were then told to stare at the center of a screen while certain words oftentimes associated with African-Americans were subliminally flashed without the judge's knowledge. The judge was then given a misdemeanor case involving a 14-year-old who stole a video game. In the situations where the African-American associated words were flashed before the case was presented, the sentences given by the judges were more severe than when the words were not displayed.
In a similar test, judges were given an image of a white person along with a positive word. They were also given an image of an African-American person and a negative word. Later in the test, the negative words and races were reversed (with negative words displayed with a white person and positive words for an African-American person). The study showed an almost 80 percent quicker response rate for judges who identify "good" words with whites than African-Americans.
"When they're (judges) hurried, that's when we worried that judges may rely on these stereotypes," Rachlinski said.
One of the most often-debated claims of prejudice in the courts is mandatory minimum sentencing, where judges are forced to apply a certain sentence for a crime. Rachlinski said at its worst, racial bias can be applied to minimum sentencing because legislatures can pick out certain crimes to levee punishments (for example, the disparity of sentencing for possession of cocaine as opposed to possession of crack cocaine). However, not having a set minimum or maximum guideline can also have a detrimental effect, allowing a judge's possible bias to play a role in sentencing (either explicitly or implicitly). The best approach, Rachlinski argues, is for a crime to have a maximum and minimum sentence and for the judge to justify the decision.
"Forcing people to explain themselves is the best way to combat racial bias," Rachlinski said.
Yesterday was Election Day, and there have been reports of voters having difficulty accessing their polling places. If you have a story about running intro trouble when voting or not being allowed to vote, report it to Nebraskans for Civic Reform and Nebraska Appleseed here.
Robbie Burns told me there would be weeks like this when the best-laid plans of mice and men would fall victim to the unexpected. And some lesser mortal made the point that the show and the weekly column must go on.
The plan? Review Spring Awakening Thursday at the Blue Barn, then catch Happy Days at the Chanticleer Community Theater in Council Bluffs. Troubled teens, than back to the ‘50s, as the headline promised.
Well, a cast member’s illness knocked out the Thursday performance at the Barn, and instead of catching either musical on Friday, I caught a cold accompanied by a cough that would have ruined the evening for anyone near me. Same problem Saturday, exacerbated by the fact that the Barn didn’t schedule a Sunday performance.
The big beneficiary turned out to be Chanticleer which won a daily review on Saturday instead of the expected review of the Barn musical.
And Cold Cream prospects that would be been pushed aside for reviews of Spring Awakening and Happy Days now make the column. For example, I’d felt some frustration that I wouldn’t have room to again celebrate the 21 and Over series at the Omaha Community Playhouse.
This time resident director Amy Lane turned the Howard Drew space over to Cathy Hirsch and her Candy Project for Homemade Fusion, a song cycle by Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond. I’m writing this on Mother’s Day and that may be the reason that I’m reminded of my mother’s regular amazement that performers could remember all those lines.
In this case, it was my amazement on hearing so many songs I’d never heard before and understanding all the lyrics first time around. Thanks to director-singer Hirsch and 10 other vocalists, all 15 songs, from the opening “I Will Be Me,” to the finale, came across lucidly, allowing full appreciation of both the art and the artists.
It’s a great mix of bawdy humor—especially “To Excess,” with Steve Krambeck as a cheerful stalker, and Homero Vela with the title tune about self-pleasuring, and just plain funny material such as Megan McGuire’s “Oh Henry!” and DeAnna Langabee’s “Random Black Girl.” But the more dramatic songs, from Sam Hartley singing “Lucy’s Laugh” to Roderick Cotton’s “Walking Without You” made even greater impact.
The consistency of this series bodes well for its season finale, Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl on June 18.
Meanwhile, you have more chances to catch the Barn and Chanticleer musicals, and I’ll write about them later. But this Thursday at 8 p.m. will be your only chance to see Skullsketch the Musical, an Andrew McGreevy creation at the Pizza Shoppe in Benson.
Cold Cream looks at theater in the metro area. Email information to coldcream@thereader.com.
Growing Cities, documentary by Dan Susman and Andrew Monbouqette.
Pick: Bemis Center FEA$T
by Sally Deskins
May 19 Bemis Center’s FEA$T
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, 724 S. 12th St.
6:30-9:30pm, $10 bemiscenter.org, 341.7130
It was a quick two-week turnaround when Bemis announced their call for proposals for FEA$T a type of community-driven crowd funding event that will give all proceeds to the most popular arts projected presented that evening. According to Underground curator Joel Damon, they received “over double” the submissions expected for this inaugural event that includes dinner by La Buvette chefs. Among the accepted to present: Mike Bauer and Dustin Bythrow of Omaha proposing a handmade art publication featuring work by area artists; Sam Berner and Gregory Cook proposing a live performance emerging art variety show to be streamed online; The Colonel Mustard Amateur Attic Theatre Company of Lincoln proposing their multi-location musical where “Norse Gods and Nebraska homesteaders battle for control of the Great Plains.;” Colin Smith of Omaha proposing funding to expand his material research for his public sculpture; Dan Susman and Andrew Monbouqette of Omaha proposing post-production for their urban agriculture documentary; and Ying Zhu proposing funding for a cotton candy machine for a future installation and funding to restore her Benson Studio.
UNL juried art competition…Omaha artist showing abroad…
LUX Center ceramic shows…Sheldon’s new magazine…
by Sally Deskins
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln's Department of Art and Art History is sponsoring the Nebraska National Collegiate Juried Art Exhibition to feature the work of the best undergraduate student artists from across the country. Submissions in ceramics, photography and printmaking are being accepted through May 31 at https://unlart.slideroom.com.
Omaha-based artist Janelle McKain’s drawing “Hive of Perception” was exhibited in THE SOCIETY FOR ART OF IMAGINATION, an international curated show featuring 58 artists from 22 countries at Phantasten Museum Wien in Vienna. This month, her surreal work is being featured in CADAVRE EXQUIS, Expanded (“Exquisite Corpse”), a curated show at Kulter Gallery in Amsterdam, featuring work by international artists of the collaborative movement where artists build on each other’s work. McKain’s art was also featured in the May issue of CATAPULT, an art magazine out of Louisville, Kentucky. Surrealvisions.com.
In Lincoln, the LUX Center recently opened Women’s Work: Seven Studio Potters showcasing stoneware and porcelain by some of the best-known potters in the country exploring a variety of forms and surfaces. The exhibit runs through June 30. June 1, Arrangement opens, featuring LUX Artist-in-Residence Naomi Mostkoff’s decorative ceramic work marrying form and function using her toted technique of “pinching.” Luxcenter.org.
Peggy Jones, an assistant professor in the Department of Black Studies and a member of the Women's and Gender Studies faculty at UNO, has been named a contributing editor for a new arts magazine – artland – published by UNL’s Sheldon Art Assocation. The magazine launched in April “to create and promote a community of artists and arts organizations by providing a forum for dialogue and news.” Sheldonartmuseum.org.
Bogey and Bacall? Amateurs. Hepburn and Tracy? As if. All of cinema has been waiting for this moment. Cameron Diaz. Benicio Del Toro. Don’t worry, it gets even better. The movie is Agent: Century 21, which is perhaps the first movie to have product placement in its title. And the plot sees Diaz as a real estate agent captured and sent on some kind of adventure by a Mexican drug lord played by Del Toro. Incidentally, if they had flipped the casting for the parts, they’d have comedy gold. Don’t worry, though! It’s written by the guy who wrote Stuart Little! How can it not be amazing?
I adore the 1990s sketch comedy show “The State,” and I don’t care who knows it. Sure, it’s dated, but me, a bag of Funions and the boxed set have been known to kill a Saturday night. Nobody’s reading this, right? At any rate, some of the gang from that show are reuniting once again. As they did with Wet Hot American Summer, David Wain and Michael Showalter are pulling in their buddies Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd for They Came Together, which is not an entry in the “50 Shades of Grey” series, despite its title. It actually follows an on-again, off-again relationship between a big corporate dude and a small business owner lady. Based on the pedigree alone, I’m in. Based on the title alone, I’m not telling anyone I’m going.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Sacha Baron Cohen have both exited Django Unchained, presumably because writer/director Quentin Tarantino fears that all people with three names are secret assassins. More than anything, this is likely a result of the push to get this into theaters by December, but if either of those actors wind up murderers, don’t say QT didn’t warn you.
Cutting Room provides breaking local and national movie news … complete with added sarcasm. Send any relevant information to film@thereader.com. Check out Ryan on Movieha!, a weekly half-hour movie podcast (movieha.libsyn.com/rss), catch him on the radio on CD 105.9 (cd1059.com) on Fridays at around 7:30 a.m. and on KVNO 90.7 (KVNO.org) at 8:30 a.m. on Fridays and follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/thereaderfilm).
I can hardly believe it. A year ago, Matt Lockwood and I began the crazy process of recording a weekly audio extravaganza to drop on your ears. And a year later, neither of us have lost interest enough to walk away. If you knew our short attention spans, you'd be amazed. So before I tell you the goodness you can enjoy on this, our anniversary, I would ask that you take a moment to consider WHAT YOU WANT FROM US?! I mean that in a serious way. If there is something you want more of or less of, if there are things that work and things that don't, now is the time to tell us. We want nothing more than to give you what you want.
Now, as far as this week goes. We will talk to you of Prometheus (the movie, not the Greek character). We will ponder the future of James Cameron (in terms of movies, not his personal life). We will explore The Avengers (as a movie, we don't conduct a cavity search). We will discuss Knuckle (the documentary, not the joint). And we will deliver some haikus (as in write poetry, not give birth to poems). So listen up, and meet me on the other side for the trailers that we mention.
On Your Radar: After School Midnighters
Look, I understand that Japanese animation isn't for everyone. But if we can't rally around a movie in which skinless squirrels shoot machine guns at an anatomic representation of a human being, I don't know what we can come together on. Watching the trailer below is the safest way to drop acid.
Netflix Roulette: Cemetery Junction
I almost chose a movie that centered around a porn star. Maybe next week? This is a coming-of-age story that is created in part by Ricky Gervais. So you know it's both funny and moderately narcissistic. Enjoy!
Please sign up for our RSS feed HERE, download our podcasts and rave about us in the comments section of iTunes HERE, follow us on Twitter HERE, and become a fan of us on Facebook HERE! You can also listen to our bit we do for KVNO radio HERE. And as always, email any comments and concerns to movieha@gmail.com.
Omaha’s mixologists showcase their craft cocktails
by Rachel Grace
The bartender: You respect her because she stands between you and your drink, whether it be that first sip of cold beer at Friday Happy Hour or a nightcap at the watering hole down the street. If she’s busy, you wait. When she’s ready, you’re served.
But there‘s often more to tending bar than banging out a dozen Kamikaze shots at once. Inventive bartenders, inspired by century-old classics and the methods by which they were made, craft their own recipes and execute with precision and care. Mixology, as the field is known, seems to have skipped over the era of sugary sweet Fuzzy Navels and looks further back in time for inspiration. Today, Omaha abounds with bars that feature the work of dedicated mixologists, a creative force waiting to be drunk.
Whether shaken or stirred, a good cocktail begins with good ice. At House of Loom in Little Italy, distilled water is frozen into blocks and then fashioned into two-inch cubes or hand-cut balls with an ice pick. Since they melt much slower than ice from an industrial machine, your “whisky on the rocks” won’t become “whisky with water” too quickly.
Syrups are another key component, and those involved with crafting the cocktail recipes also have great fun fiddling with syrups to get them just right. The strawberry basil shrub, a type of cold pressed syrup with a hint of red wine vinegar, adds a punch of sweet and sour to the Margarita at House of Loom. The same shrub is also used in the Anne Boleyn, a bourbon cocktail not nearly as controversial as its namesake, though it does include an emulsified egg white, giving it a deliciously rich and smooth texture.
Juices for craft cocktails are almost always freshly squeezed. Some bars even make their own bitters: At the Side Door Lounge in Midtown, the current collection includes vanilla, coffee bean, and lavender rose. When added to the cocktail during preparation or as a garnish, bitters add yet another dimension of flavor.
And then there are the sodas. House of Loom brews a mean root beer. At the Boiler Room in the Old Market, the small-batch ginger beer is carbonated with champagne yeast. They also expertly infuse spirits with botanicals such as saffron, all in a matter of seconds using a nitrogen whipper. It’s chemistry meets booze, and the results are incredible.
The average maraschino cherry loses its luster after experiencing a craft cocktail, as garnishes are much more than just an afterthought. If you order an Old Fashioned at the Side Door, a slice of orange peel will adorn it, but only once it’s been lit on fire, and the orange’s essential oils are released into the drink. It’s Don Draper’s favorite with a pyro twist.
The average age of the craft cocktail bar in Omaha is about three years; LIV Lounge in Aksarben Village will embark on its fourth year of business this month. Their menu offers over one hundred classic and original craft cocktails made with fresh, locally sourced ingredients -- and they’ve even got a bacon-infused vodka.
Just like a fine wine, a craft cocktail shouldn’t be overly sweet, bitter or sour, but a well-balanced mix of flavors. It should look snazzy and smell appealing. Don’t let the price tag deter you. With most craft drinks running from $7-12, it’s worth the extra few dollars to experience what are virtually drinkable works of art, creative expressions of the mixologists who created them.
In addition to the aforementioned, the Grey Plume in Midtown Crossing and the newer J. Coco on Leavenworth Street both feature intriguing craft cocktail lists, among others. But Ethan Bondelid of House of Loom assures us that even with so many budding craft cocktail bars, it’s “less about competition and building regulars, and more about educating the community.” Bar Manager Sam Bloomer describes his lounge the Side Door as a “laid back place where we’d love to teach you about liquors and preparations that you might not normally see in Omaha.” Thus, fear not if you’ve never heard of Crème de Violette and other rarities, for the mixologist behind the bar will be happy to describe them for you. Who says you can’t learn anything from sitting around at the bar?
Seriously? This is what it’s come to? Johnny Depp, that delightfully oddball talent who once worked with John Waters and Jim Jarmusch, has reached the point in his career where he’s in movies that climax with a witch barfing on him. For real?
After Alice in Wonderland saw director and apparently terrible friend, Tim Burton, reanimate the corpse of Depp using CGI to puppeteer his body into the most humiliating shuck-and-jive, it looked like the worst was behind this increasingly dysfunctional couple. Nope.
Welcome to Dark Shadows, a remake of a late 1960s-era soap opera that put a vampire in the center of a troubled romance back when their kind weren’t depicted as homeless Abercrombie and Fitch models. The original series may have been quirky, campy fun, but this latest incarnation is belched from the depths of an uninspired Hell. Bad movies happen and can be forgiven. Wildly lazy, spectacularly stupid movies must be ridiculed to dissuade their kind from comin’ round these here parts again.
Stupid is having an opening voiceover narration that says exactly what’s happening on screen. As we watch Barnabas Collins (Depp), a wealthy heir to a fish fortune, spurn the advances of a hussy housekeeper turned sorceress (Eva Green), Depp’s voice tells us that he spurns her. Thanks! We see her murder his true love, turn him into a vampire and imprison him underground for two centuries, as Depp tells us that his true love was murdered while he was turned into a vampire and imprisoned underground for two centuries. Double thanks! There aren’t words to describe how obnoxious just the introduction is.
When ole Barny gets accidentally freed, he finds his family’s empire in ruins and a gang of weirdos in the estate. Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her daughter Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz) live with Elizabeth’s brother Roger (Jonny Lee Miller) and his son David (Gulliver McGrath). Oh, and there’s a psychiatrist played by Helena Bonham Carter—she legally must be in every Burton movie—who is there because David sees ghosts.
Barnabas insta-falls for the new nanny, Victoria Winters (Bella Heathcote), presumably because she’s almost as pale and oddly shaped as he is and is an absolute dead ringer for his one true love. That whole maybe-reincarnation thing is never explained, but given how boring everything else is made out to be, nobody minds. The family readily accepts the vampire, and the gang set about tackling the witch who has now dominated the fishing market. That’s right, prepare for an epic battle over canned fish.
There’s so much bad, a single review can’t contain it. Do you use your word count to describe how the vampire sometimes burns in sunlight and sometimes doesn’t? Do you describe horrible editing that has Barnabas call attention to his bloody clothes five seconds before they spontaneously disappear? Do you talk about how freaky it is that they made Moretz writhe and slink while dancing, make reference to her pleasuring herself and then hammer home over and over again that she’s 15? Do you bemoan the stillborn love story? Do you lament what’s become of Depp and Burton’s career?
Let’s just end there. While Burton’s repetitive semi-gothic schtick became dead to those with taste years ago, Depp curiously remains on everybody’s “I like him” list. No more. He hasn’t made an objectively good movie in almost a decade and is now trotting out parodies of himself, complete with goofy voices and wacky posture. Enough is enough. And Dark Shadows is so much more than enough.
Happy Mother’s Day on Sunday! We’ve all got one. This year, Mother’s Day falls on the 13th, along with a Jupiterian conjunction of the Sun, leading to the New Moon/Mercury/Jupiter/solar conjunction and eclipse on May 20th. Take your psychological shoes off and romp unencumbered through the fertile grasslands on/of our Mother Earth. Remember, when your feet are covered with shoes, your world is covered in leather (or rubber). Feel the naked power. Gravity is the love of Mother Earth for all of her children. There are no mistakes. Peace and love shall conquer all. MOJOPOPlanetPower.com
b TAURUS (4.21-5.20) This is it. Mother’s Day morning initiates the culmination of all of last year’s works and preparations and the hopes and dreams of your possibilities — your BIG PICTURE! On Sunday morning, write your dream(s) down to help birth them into this 3-D world. May 13th starts your last climb toward the New Moon (conjunct Mercury and Jupiter) on the Gemini/Taurus cusp on May 20th. If you’ve played your card$ well, that’$ when the money $hould $tart pouring in. In your own personal, emotional realm, don’t choose too soon. You’ve got ’til the end of June to voice your/any choice.
c GEMINI (5.21-6.21) Bring it forth. We are on the cusp of your luckiest year in 12. Use it before you lose it, somehow, in one short year from now. I know, right now you’re in love for the next 2 months — or until you find out what love is — or isn’t. Hint: Love is not an excuse; it’s a reason for being. Think about it.
d CANCER (6.22-7.22) Sleep late on Friday and (a)void an unexpected hassle… But wait a minute — how ya gonna know ’bout it if it doesn’t happen (astrology’s/astrologers’ dilemma!)? If you don’t go, you’ll never know… Make Mother’s Day a special feast day (the Sun conjunct Jupiter). May I suggest the seafood — but watch out for anything too spicy (Moon in Pisces opposite Mars in Virgo)! This is the week for you to develop a new friend. More about that next week, when we speak once again.
e LEO (7.23-8.22) From the winds of Gemini I hears that you’re about to shift gears into your new “idears” (i.e., the ideas you hold dear). But first, it May (hint!) be time for thee to finance the part (-EEEE!) with the friends who keep thee where your future never ends… Methinks it be time to maybe pay thee subjects, your majesties? Methinks, at least, a round of drinks?
f VIRGO (8.23-9.22) You’re easy! (No, I’m not talkin’ ’bout dat!) I’m talkin’ ’bout dis year’s garden — or, at least, the philosophy of the garden of your mind. Why is it so hard to (de)fin(e)d? The idea has been initiated (Mercury just left Aries), and now is the time to plant/educate your seed in fertile soil and/to harvest by/on your birthday as a gift from a great, full universe for your work behind the “seams.”
g LIBRA (9.23-10.22) The love you seek is only a month-and-a-half debate “await.” Travel and educational opportunities (9th House) will help the mystery. Who knows whom you might meet…and how sweet? (Who’d you think about, right there?)
h SCORPIO (10.23-11.22) Only one more week in the barrel, Maties! Captains, give your power to your/any lieutenants and see(k)/test how these “partners” act with that inherent power. Wenches, keep your voice/counsel to yourselves. Study love, unencumbered. You can speak in a week.
i SAGITTARIUS (11.23-12.21) The 13th(!), you mother! Wake up early to your new self (for this year) on Sunday. You’ve got a week in Gaga-land. In a/that week, you’ll understand. You’ve been waiting/preparing/hoping all year. It’s here! The 13th!
j CAPRICORN (12.22-1.20) Unexpected money (the Moon in your 2nd Hou$e $extile the planet Uranu$ in Arie$) ha$ a chance at lunchtime on Friday and again on $atur(n)day at $un$et, when the Moon trine$ your ruler, $aturn.
k AQUARIUS (1.21-2.19) You are the Capricorn luck this weekend. Read the info above. Know any? Electrif(r)y ’em, and have a happy Mother’s Day! Your luck is at home in a week… We’ll speak.
l PISCES (2.20-3.20) Please read Sagittarius. The Moon enters your sign on Mother’s Day morning, and without warning — boom(!), you’re on the Moon. Now, read Cancer for the answer. From your new friend you’ll discover a new lover, and what’s funny is that you’ll make money with the May 20th New Moon/Sun/Mercury/Jupiter conjunction and Solar Eclipse on the Gemini/Taurus cusp at the end of your 8th House. Good luck!
a ARIES (3.21-4.20) The money starts rollin’ in, starting next Wednesday, the 16th. You should start getting paid from a relative on the following Moonday (your 2nd/3rd House-cusp Solar Eclipse/Taurean conjunction on the 20th). Of course, money is not the only way we can get paid, right? You can also get paid with the truth — and that’s the truth this week, ’til once again we speak…
Returning to the Center of the Earth After 53 Years
by Cheril Lee
Pat Boone is a singer first and an actor second and recording is his favorite thing to do.
He started singing with his younger brother at family gatherings while he was growing up. In grade school and high school, Boone said any time there was a call for someone who could carry a tune he’d raise his hand.
It wasn’t long before he was singing at businessmen’s lunches, talent shows and ladies’ club meetings. Eventually, Boone entered a couple of contests, but said he kept coming in second. He didn’t get upset. Boone admitted the performers who won always seemed to have had a lot of lessons, whether in tap dancing, opera or piano.
“I was just the guy singing pop tunes so I didn’t feel I deserved to win. But I did win a contest in Nashville after I graduated from high school. First prize was a trip to New York and an audition with “Ted Mack’s Amateur Hour,” the “American Idol” of its day,” Boone said.
Viewers selected the winners on the show by sending in cards and letters for their favorites. Boone won three weeks in a row, which amazed him. At the same time he was competing on the show, he also won the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scout Show. In the midst of all of the excitement, Boone had married and the couple was expecting their first child.
Boone said, “All the hullabaloo about winning those national contests led to a recording contract with DOT records. My first record was a Top 10 hit that sold a million copies called “Two Hearts, Two Kisses.” Next was “Ain’t that a Shame,” which went to #1. I had a single on the charts for 220 weeks, a record I still hold in the recording business. It (success) happened overnight and it happened dramatically.”
By the time Boone graduated from Columbia University at age 23, he had made three movies, sold eight million records and had his own network TV show, “The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom.”
“I was the youngest guy ever to have his own network TV show. By then I also had four kids. Everything was just one big headlong rush,” said Boone.
He likes songs that are singable or memorable, but they also have to have lyrics that are catchy or different. According to Boone, he can hear something good in almost anything. And his tastes run the gamut from pop and heavy metal to gospel and folk.
Several years ago, Boone recorded a unique cover of Queen’s hit “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” He used his voice to make every sound on the record, including percussion, background vocals and instrumentation.
“I did it with my conductor/pianist who is sharp with computers. We sampled my voice making all kinds of sounds and then fashioned from that what sounds like an instrumentally and vocally supported record – me singing a vocal of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and I did it all myself. It’s just having fun and being creative with music,” Boone said.
Film historian Bruce Crawford presents a salute to the 1959 adventure classic Journey to the Center of the Earth at the Joslyn Art Museum. This is his 30th classic film event. Boone starred in the film and will be in attendance.
When Boone was offered the role of “Alexander McKuen” in Journey, he balked. He felt he should be doing romantic musicals if he was going to do movies at all. Boone said his role model was Bing Crosby. He wanted to emulate Crosby’s ease, naturalness and musicianship. 20th Century Fox told Boone they would put some songs in the film, but Boone was uncertain if that would work in a science fiction film.
One of the main songs Boone sings in the film is a Robert Burns poem set to music by Jimmy van Heusen, called “My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose.” Boone thinks of this as the pearl of his singing.
“I don’t think I ever sang anything better or that I would be more proud of than that little song. It’s a lovely, heartfelt song. I sang it with almost no accompaniment and it fit the film. So I had to have my arm twisted to do the film but have been very glad ever since,” Boone said.
But everything wasn’t rosy on the set. In fact, Boone almost died during the filming.
He said they were shooting a scene where his character was lost somewhere deep in the bowels of the Earth, cut off from his friends and in a desperate situation. His character slips into an underground tunnel where salt is supposed to fall on top of him. Instead of salt, the director used fine gypsum crystals because they couldn’t penetrate the skin.
Boone said, “When I fell into this pit, several hundred pounds of gypsum crystals were poured on top of me. The director told me to stay down after I fell or I would ruin the shot. So I stayed down in a fetal position and this stuff poured in on top of me and pretty soon only my eyes and nose were above this cascading stuff. I couldn’t take breaths in because I knew I would suck all this gypsum into my lungs and it would never dissolve. It would fill my lungs and I would suffocate.”
He couldn’t yell because he was literally being buried alive. The director had not yelled cut because he was checking with the cameras to see if they got what they needed. Boone said somebody up in catwalk yelled out, “Mr. Levin! You better get Pat out of there quick!”
“And they dug me out seconds before I would’ve had to start taking deep gulps of air. With a few hundred pounds of pressure on your limbs, you can’t move. It’s very scary,” said Boone.
Though it was a physically tough shoot, there were moments of levity. Boone remembered a scene where the actors were latched onto a raft, caught in a whirlpool toward the center of the Earth. Boone and costars James Mason and Arlene Dahl were being swirled around and deluged with water. Dahl screamed, “Get me off! Get me off! Stop!” To which Mason replied, “Quiet woman or they’ll make us do it again!” Boone was laughing so hard he had to hide his face from the camera.
Dahl’s comments aren’t in the finished film but Boone said her screams were authentic.
Boone is proud of the film, which literally saved 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy. The banks were about to close the film company down because of the avalanche of debt they had from “Cleopatra.” Boone said when Journey came out and grosses were so good so fast, it convinced the banks to keep 20th Century Fox alive.
Boone said, “I’m proud of the film, what it meant for 20th, what it meant in my career and that people still love it.”
Journey to the Center of the Earth runs Saturday, May 19th at 7:00 p.m. in Joslyn Art Museum’s Witherspoon Concert Hall. Pat Boone speaks prior to the screening. Tickets are $25 at Omaha HyVee Food Stores. Proceeds benefit the Nebraska Kidney Association.
The Pirates! Band of Misfits fires an errant cannonball
by Ryan Syrek
It’s hard not to mention Chicken Run without wanting to make a joke about Mel Gibson voicing a rooster. And while that may be the lasting thought from the 2000 movie, the fact remains that it was an affable claymation adventure from Aardman Animations that holds up well when compared with the relentless CGI dreck that has infested theaters over the last decade plus. So when The Pirates! Band of Misfits was announced, the general reaction was curiosity and muted enthusiasm. It would have been more intense anticipation, but admitting you’re excited for a cartoon sometimes puts you on watch lists.
Sadly, Pirates is neither quite engaging enough for children nor quite intelligent enough for adults, despite featuring the inclusion of Charles Darwin, which may be an animated first. The film follows a pirate captain named Pirate captain, which is the most on-the-nose name since Dirk Diggler. Pirate Captain, voiced by former hooker enthusiast Hugh Grant, is sad that he continues to lose the Pirate of the Year award to folks like Black Bellamy (Jeremy Piven), Cutlass Liz (Salma Hayek) and Peg Leg Hastings (Lenny Henry). But the goofy, well-intentioned leader has a plan…sort of.
A chance meeting with Charles Darwin (David Tennant) reveals that the Pirate Captain’s parrot is actually a dodo bird. So, with the help of Darwin’s sidekick, a man-panzee named Mr. Bobo, the gang heads into the heart of the empire ruled by the pirate-loathing Queen Victoria (Imelda Staunton) to compete in a scientific competition that may just net Pirate Captain his coveted title. Also, evolution is joked about, which may also be a first for an animated movie.
Here’s the major problem with the largely good-lookin’ Pirates: it’s boring. And not just for adults! Had this been jam-packed with wedgies and fart jokes, it would have at least been understandable. The truth is, the film is just far too slow for anyone with a pulse, whether they poo in public or not. Whereas Chicken Run had a clever script to support the painstaking animation, Pirates just kind of meanders. Half-developed jokes about a pirate passing as a male when she is “surprisingly curvaceous” never pay off, and quips about gout feel tepid at best.
Here’s the point where 3D comes up. The film, which is offered in extra dimensions most everywhere it is playing, is further proof that the gimmick only works in capable hands. Not to say that directors Peter Lord and Jeff Newitt are incompetent, but Marty Scorsese or Werner Herzog they ain’t. While a movie like Up leveraged the tool to provide dimension, Pirates embraces it half-heartedly, which is kind of a metaphor for the film itself.
Look, Pirates isn’t bad by any means. But it is somewhat monotonous and surprisingly disengaging. There’s a reason why, despite movies that appeal for children representing the safest box office bet, you haven’t heard much about this one. Aardman Animations deserves a place at the animation table, but Pirates doesn’t justify their portion size.
