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(09/08/11 3:50am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Wearing jeans and a blue hooded sweatshirt, freshman Logan Bloom pointed a borrowed sword at Society for Creative Anachronism member Mike Underwood.“Find a square stance,” said Underwood, who was wearing striped cotton pants and a blue yellow-collared shirt. “Sink into it a little bit here.”As his SCA persona, Vincente Xavier, Underwood taught Bloom and 15 others the basics of 16th-century rapier fencing at the Medieval Activity Fair on Wednesday in Dunn Meadow. The SCA, an international organization, participates in practicing the arts and skills of the Renaissance. “I learned a couple defenses,” Bloom said. “I learned the difference between German, Spanish, English and Italian sword fighting.”Due to light rain, the 65-member organization decided to switch the event’s date to next week. But when curious students arrived to participate, they decided to go through with the fair.“We had a couple people here tearing down the stuff, and people showed up,” said Paul Friebus, president of the Bloomington SCA. “We had to do something for them.”In the SCA, Friebus takes on the persona of Peter Grau, the son of a noble family from Bremen in northern Germany.Outside the SCA, Friebus is a manager at Barnes & Noble.At a “reasonable age,” Grau moved from his family’s home in pursuit of personal fortune.“I worked as a minor sub-commander in an army,” Grau said. “In whichever army would hire me.”There is no specific method for choosing an SCA character name, Friebus said.“A lot of it is looking at paintings or etchings from that time period or thinking of family names,” he said. “You find inspiration from ‘I really want to do this thing.’ Then you create a character around that idea.”Under a tree near Jordan River, three musicians began to play music for the “petit vriens,” a medieval Italian dance.It started with a few steps on par with Dorothy’s movements as she’s “‘off to see the Wizard,’” said Shannon Conway, otherwise known as Sionnain O’Malley.“This is a chasing dance,” Conway said, taking a second dancer by the hand.Dancers weaved around each other in groups of three with one person leading at the front. After a few steps, the leader let go of the second person’s hand and skipped a few feet from the group, then waved to the second person to join.“You come, too, my lady,” Conway said, waving at the third group member.Together again, Conway repeated the action, leaving behind the other two dancers.After a few more steps, Conway honored the other two members with a bow, then started the process again. A couple steps forward with one foot, a couple skips forward with the next.Though Bloom did not participate in the dancing, he said he would come back to find out more about the group. Bloom said he heard about the call-out event from someone who described it as, “a bunch of crazy people in the woods.” He decided to check it out.“It’s just so bizarre,” he said. “It’s just people doing what they want to do. They don’t care about what the people walking by are saying.”
(09/07/11 6:49pm)
WEEKEND columnist Bailey Loosemore explains how to dress appropriate for themed parties on the fly (and on the cheap).
(09/06/11 5:59am)
Local First Indiana tour guides Alex Simmons and Lisa Simmons, who are not related, share some fun facts in the organization’s first “Where the Locals Go” tour of downtown Bloomington.
(09/06/11 5:03am)
From Friday through Monday, thousands of rib eaters and music lovers from across the country made their way to Military Park at White River State Park in downtown Indianapolis for the 16th annual Rib America Festival. More than 75,000 people visited the festival in 2010, and despite the weekend’s heat, Rib America Marketing Manager Jo Carlin said everything was going as expected.
(09/06/11 2:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A waist-high fence separated Alison Ruess from singing with Blind Melon lead singer Travis Warren, so 40 minutes into the band’s Indianapolis show, she jumped it.“My friend standing right next to me pointed to me, and he waved me up to the stage,” Ruess said. “No one in the front row wanted to sing, so I just jumped the railing and went for it.”Behind her, another Rib America Festival crowd member wasn’t as lucky. As Ruess reached for the microphone, two security guards led the second gate-jumper away.“They tried to make me leave, too, but Travis said, ‘No, I need her to sing,’” Ruess said.From Friday through Monday, thousands of rib eaters and music lovers from across the country made their way to Military Park at White River State Park in downtown Indianapolis for the 16th annual Rib America Festival. More than 75,000 people visited the festival in 2010, and despite the weekend’s heat, Rib America Marketing Manager Jo Carlin said everything was going as expected.“It looks like Wal-Mart on a Saturday,” one crowd member said.The festival began in a parking lot in 1995 with about seven vendors and moved to Military Park four years ago with more than 10 regular vendors.John Giovenco of Chicago BBQ said his company’s truck has traveled to the festival every year since its inception. “It’s always a good time,” he said. “People out here are friendly.”In the Chicago truck, more than 1,680 ribs in 140 cases waited to be distributed. “I’d like to not go home with any,” Giovenco said. “We went through about 15 cases last night, which is not a lot.”But the truck has a reputation for having the best ribs in the festival, at least in Rachael Chuman’s opinion. Chuman works with Chicago BBQ and has attended the festival as a cook for the past few years.“I work at another restaurant, but I don’t eat anyone else’s ribs but ours,” she said. “I like flavor. I like the rub. I like the way they fall off the bone.”To make the ribs, Chuman said the meat is rubbed down with spices and placed in a slow roast cooker for three and a half to four hours. “We normally get here pretty early to cook them,” she said.After they’re tenderized, the ribs are taken out of the cooker and given one brush of barbecue sauce on each side.Vendors have different ways of making the ribs, but festival attendee Scott Brackney said there’s one main way to eat them.“With your fingers,” he said. “Just pick them up and gnaw on them. I just do the Neanderthal thing.”During the course of Labor Day weekend, bands including REO Speedwagon, Everclear, Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Johnny Lang and the Doobie Brothers performed for crowds of sticky-fingered music lovers. But crowd member Cheri Johnson attended the festival for one band in particular: Blind Melon. Like Ruess, Johnson went through great lengths to see her favorite musicians, traveling from Massachusetts to see them live for the seventh time.“They’ve got, like, a hippie, fun vibe,” she said. Though she chose not to sing with Warren — “I can’t sing that in tune” — Johnson said she enjoyed the show.“It was great to see Nico sing,” she said of original lead singer Shannon Hoon’s daughter. Hoon died of a drug overdose on the band’s tour bus in 1995, less than four months after Nico was born. Now, Johnson said Nico performs with the band at shows near her hometown, Chicago.“She was great,” Johnson said. “That was history in the making.”
(09/06/11 12:41am)
Dominic Balente of Chicago BBQ serves ribs to waiting customers Saturday at the Indianapolis Rib America Festival.
(09/06/11 12:40am)
Blind Melon lead singer Travis Warren performs Saturday at the Indianapolis Rib America Festival. During the show, Warren asked an audience member to join him for a song. When no one from the front row was willing, Alison Ruess jumped a fence to take on the task.
(09/06/11 12:40am)
John Giovenco of the Chicago BBQ cooking team checks on ribs in a slow roast cooker Saturday at the Indianapolis Rib America Festival. Ribs in the slow cooker generally take 3 1/2-4 hours to cook fully.
(09/06/11 12:40am)
Rachael Chuman prepares ribs with the Chicago BBQ cooking team Saturday at the Indianapolis Rib America Festival.
(09/02/11 1:38am)
Where the Locals Go tour guide Alex Simmons stands next to People's Park at the corner of Kirkwood Avenue and Dunn Street. She and fellow tourguide Lisa Simmons, unrelated, told a story of the Black Market, an African American store that used occupy the space where the park is now but was firebombed in 1968 by members of the Ku Klux Klan.
(09/02/11 1:27am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There’s a dirt path beneath the Book Corner on Walnut Street that leads to a hidden, closed vault.At the bottom of the basement stairs, a second vault opens to anyone who visits, but this one, located past a pile of dirt and debris, is a bit more complicated to reach.“About 10 years ago, someone got down here and waited till we closed,” said Margaret Taylor, owner of the Book Corner. “He took money from the register and got out the back without a key.”More than 50 years ago, Monroe County Bank occupied the store’s location — a fact Local First Indiana tour guides Alex Simmons and Lisa Simmons, who are not related, shared on the organization’s first “Where the Locals Go” tour of downtown Bloomington.The tour will continue each Saturday until Oct. 1.“We want to attract as many people as we can,” Alex said. “Parents Weekend and Homecoming are both coming up, so we kept it through October.”Alex and Lisa, while not hosting every tour, are self-proclaimed Bloomington fanatics.“I’m a born native, and Lisa is a transplant,” Alex said.Even with “transplant” status, Lisa knows her way around downtown and shared some history about her former place of employment, Greetings.In Feb. 2002, while Lisa still worked at the shop, an electrical shortage set Greetings aflame.“You can see right along the top, where it’s dark, that’s actually left over from the flames,” Lisa said, standing in front of the building. “They can only clean it so much.”Alex Simmons talked about riots that caused damage the last time the IU basketball team made it to the Final Four.“This part of Kirkwood here and Dunn was just full of people in the streets,” Alex said. “They were climbing up the poles and hanging on these lights above us. It was so crazy and wild that they actually tried to set Greetings on fire again while it was under construction.”A block past Greetings, Alex and Lisa stopped in front of the Village Deli, where tour-goer Esther Briggs pointed across the street.“I’d just like to point out that a local of Bloomington is making himself a bouquet of flowers on the church’s lawn,” she said.The tour headed down Fourth Street before returning back to Kirkwood Avenue to talk about the Monroe County History Center, which is at the corner of Sixth and Washington Streets.Before becoming a history center, the building was a Carnegie library, a county library that received money from steel industry giant and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.“If a city wanted a library and put up land and some seed money, he paid the rest,” Lisa said. “There are more Carnegie libraries in Indiana than anywhere else.”But even before becoming a library, a segregated school occupied the space in the 1800s.The tour, set to end at the Farmer’s Market by City Hall, instead ended near the old courthouse on the square.“It’s a lot shorter when we’re just going through it ourselves, because we already know everything,” Alex said.
(08/29/11 2:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After four years of trying, the Monroe County United Ministries has finally met its goal to collect 15,000 pounds of food and hygiene products during its weekend-long Each One, Feed One Community Food Drive.This year’s food drive raised 16,305 pounds of food and hygiene products. “I think it went really well. And, despite the economic crisis, people were as generous as always,” Rebecca Stanze, development coordinator for the Ministries, said. It distributes more than 100,000 pounds of food per year, Stanze said, and generally holds their food drives for a few months.For the annual August food drive, MCUM asks about 250 volunteers to spend a few hours of their weekend asking for donations outside of grocery stores around Bloomington, including Kroger and Marsh. Only six spots for volunteers were left empty this weekend, Stanze said.On Sunday, Margo Winters and her two daughters, Clairessa and Natasha, stood outside of the Kroger on College Avenue for the second year in a row. They handed out lists of goods the Emergency Food Pantry needs.“They said we did good last year, so they asked us to come again,” Winters said.Though Stanze seemed unsure if the food drive would bring in the goal amount, Winters said she believed they could reach it.“Last year we got more,” Winters said. “Saturday’s the better day, when all the IU students are coming. They come out carrying half-gallons of vodka, and I say, ‘If you can spend money on that, you can donate.’ Then they go back in and bring us some cans.”Near the middle of their three-hour shift, Winters’ cart received an upsurge of donations. Three people gave bags full of goods.“You must have gotten everything on that list,” Winters said to a woman who gave three plastic bags of food.“I’m happy to see that,” she said. “We usually don’t get laundry soap, and we got some.”Around 2:35 p.m., two other volunteers stopped by to pick up some of the donations and take them back to put on the shelves at the pantry.“This is the biggest haul so far today,” one of the volunteers said, looking at the shopping cart full of donations.At one of the Kroger locations Saturday, Stanze said one volunteer saw a few employees pushing carts full of food toward the Food Drive. A woman who wished to donate the food anonymously gave it to the employees and left through another door.“We had a lot of positive stories,” Stanze said. “It’s nice to see volunteers interacting with different kinds of people and the general willingness of folks to be supportive.”
(08/26/11 2:45am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU Office of Admissions should bring in approximately $1,925,000 in application fees each year.But IU Senior Associate Director of Admissions Terry Knaus said 8 percent of last year’s budget went to waived applications, subtracting about $154,000.“If you think about it, the waived applications, we don’t get money from them, but we’re still processing,” Knaus said.Five years ago, IU received about 24,000 applications a year, and when the number began to increase, Knaus said the University raised the processing fee by five dollars, bringing it to $55.However, even with the increase in applications, Knaus said he has not noticed a difference in students asking to waive the fee.“We waive applications for any student who shows financial need,” he said. “But I haven’t noticed an increase or decrease in waivers.”The percentage might seem small, but waived fees do reduce the processing budget, which is used to send and receive applications, review transcripts and other documents from high school counselors and prospective students, as well as pay for a staggered staff.At the Purdue University Office of Admissions, application fees go toward the same processes.“It is a process,” said Al Hefner, assistant director at the Purdue University Office of Admissions. “It costs a lot of money, just in the manpower required to track those applications. The application fee is a way to pay for that expense. I suppose there could be arguments over how much does it really count.”But besides paying for processing costs, the application fee also offers a small form of commitment, Knaus said. “One of the things that makes applying a more serious decision is the processing fee,” he said.Hefner, however, said the commitment aspect is more heavily weighted at elite universities.“There are institutions that charge $100 or even more,” he said. “At some point, it perhaps becomes a way to reduce the number of applicants to only those that are really interested. Otherwise, Harvard might, if they only charge $10, get all kinds of people applying to at least get a letter of denial from Harvard University. I think most state institutions, it’s more the former — to pay the cost of processing.”In 2009, IU participated in College Goal Week, an initiative through the Indiana Higher Learning Commission, and did try its hand at letting students apply for free — if only for a week.“Enrollment officials across the state said their staffs wasted hundreds of hours sorting through applications, many of them incomplete, and trying to follow up with students who had no intention of attending college,” according to the Associated Press.On the other hand, Joel McKay, a guidance counselor at Bloomington High School South, said the fees are simply a form of predictable revenue.“Universities, as much as they don’t want to be called businesses, they are,” McKay said. “What do you love more than anything as a business? Predictable revenue.”But continuing to waive the fees for students with financial need is necessary, Knaus and Hefner agree.“It’s not like, well, if you can’t pay it, you can’t apply,” Knaus said. “I think it’s important for students to investigate if it can be waived.”In Indiana, students in the Twenty-first Century Scholars program can waive their fees, as well as students whose high school guidance counselors recommend them for a waiver.The National Association for College Admission Counseling suggests guidelines for annual family income to fall between $29,900 and $46,000 to receive a waiver.At Purdue, online applications are set up to ask if prospective students are in that range. The application asks if students are eligible for free or reduced lunch through the National School Lunch Program or the Twenty-first Century Scholars Program, as well as the student’s household size and income.But whatever the cost of the application fees or how many are waived, McKay said they fall short on the scale of college costs.“I think the parents are just sacrificing more now than they used to,” he said. “I don’t think that’s a decision factor. I think it makes them grumpy, but they don’t sweat it.”
(08/25/11 4:38am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Somewhere amid 30 or so other dogs at Mills Pool, Monkey — a three-legged mutt — disappeared. “I lost Monkey,” said his owner Allison Davis. Scampering near one of the kiddie pools placed around the perimeter, Monkey looked up at his owner. It was his first time at Drool in the Pool, and he wanted to explore. Nearly a year ago, Monkey’s previous owners brought him into the animal clinic where Allison Davis worked. They claimed the 4-month-old dog broke his leg falling off a bed, and they did not want to get it fixed, said Tyler Davis, Monkey’s other owner.“No one at the clinic wanted to see him put down,” Tyler Davis said, “so they amputated his leg for free.”Allison Davis, after noticing Monkey’s location, picked him up by a handle on his orange life jacket and took him toward the pool’s shallow end. While this was Monkey’s first time at the event, it was also his first time swimming, and he needed more practice.The City of Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department and White River Co-op have joined to sponsor Drool in the Pool for the past seven years. The event began Wednesday and will continue today from 5 to 8 p.m.Drool at the Pool originally took place at Mills Pool but was moved to Bryan Park Pool for a few years. It was relocated back to Mills this year, said Community Events Manager Becky Barrick Higgins, because of the 0-depth area, which gives dogs an easier way to get out of the pool because there are no stairs.Though coordinators charge $5 per dog to get in, the admission fees all go toward covering the event’s costs, said Rosie Landis, sales and promotions coordinator for White River Co-op.“I think it’s just a fun thing for the dogs,” Landis said.Landis said she has helped plan the event since its inception, and Wednesday she helped guard a white fence, allowing one dog in and one dog out at a time.“It’s so the dogs don’t escape,” she said. “We’ve had a lot of dogs escape.”The new system at Mills, though, prevented dogs such as Tegan, a beagle, from leaving. Tegan hung around Landis’ gate, looking to escape.“She’s been over here a lot,” Landis said of the beagle.For the event, larger dogs had the opportunity to chase tennis balls provided by the Parks and Recreation Department while smaller and “scaredy” dogs played in a separate section.Pepper, a miniature pincher mix, pranced through the small dog section, chasing tennis ball after tennis ball. But a small fight broke out when Pepper’s play was interrupted by a black Labrador.“I don’t think he’s scared because he’s barking at them,” Julie Barbick, his owner, said.An hour into the first night, a group of dogs and their owners gathered around a corner of the pool. A splashing contest was about to begin.After their names were called, the dogs owners would toss a tennis ball into the pool, and the dog would jump in after it, attempting to make the biggest splash.Most dogs chose the running and leaping approach, but Chief, a golden retriever, paused when he got to the water’s edge and jumped for a minimal splash.His sibling, Bell, was next to go. But Chief wasn’t quite finished. As soon as the ball hit the water, Chief was back in to retrieve it.Haggis, last to go, also chose an unusual method. When the ball was thrown, he ran to the edge, barked at the ball and then circled the pool, trying to find a better spot to jump. Neither he nor Chief took home the prize. More competitions for the dogs will take place tonight beginning at 5:30 p.m. with Best Dressed, followed by Pet Tricks, Cutest Dog and a Grand Prize Winner. The grand champ will take home three 35-pound bags of dog food.Near the deep end of the pool Wednesday, Monkey circled around his owner’s legs. Davis reached down, lifted him by his life jacket handle and dropped him in the water. While he didn’t take to swimming immediately, he persevered, reaching the edge without any harm.“He’s not quite sure what to do,” Tyler Davis said. “But he’ll get used to it.”
(08/24/11 11:46pm)
Would you pick this up off the side of the road?
(08/24/11 11:21pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Follow the link below for a Flash presentation of the inaugural edition of Bailey Loosemore's "Beginners' Bloomington" column.
(08/24/11 11:21pm)
Should you pick up this couch off the side of the road?
(08/24/11 5:14pm)
Living on the south side of campus has taught WEEKEND columnist Bailey Loosemore about the finer aspects of sidewalk shopping. She shares her observations.
(08/08/11 12:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Punt a football through the goal posts at Memorial Stadium, find a hot pink bikini and use it to dress Herman B Wells, purchase a large pizza from Mother Bear’s and eat it in its entirety.The pilot episode of “Competition Crimson” asked three teams of two to fulfill these tasks as they ran across campus in January’s snow.“I was hoping the whole way that I was remembering the right statue,” Andi Wellman, a participant with her boyfriend Dustin Jean, said about the Herman-bikini challenge.The two other teams found bikini tops and placed them on the statue as Wellman and Jean continued to circle the Indiana Memorial Union in search of Herman’s bench.With such a distance between them and the other teams, the couple arrived last at the finish line.“We got here, and we lost, which sucked,” Wellman said in her final statement on the show. “But that’s okay because I figured we would lose. I couldn’t see anybody when we were walking.”The casting crew for “Competition Crimson,” a new reality show that will air on IU Student Television in September, is now looking for five teams of contestants to participate in the semester-long series, filming one episode a month.Each episode will consist of three tasks the teams must complete, and the team that finishes last will be kicked off the show. After four episodes, the first of the last two teams to cross the finish line will take home a prize: more than $200 in gift cards to local businesses.“‘Competition Crimson’ is something I’ve been wanting to do for a really long time,” said Greg Mergruen, founder and host of the show. “I’ve always loved ‘Amazing Race.’ It’s probably my favorite reality show. I wanted to do something similar.”Mergruen said he had pitched a few shows to IUSTV before, but they were mainly scripted.“The first show I pitched got picked up. But the biggest problem is, if they’re scripted shows, they’re not actors,” Mergruen said. “The students get busy. After a couple episodes they realize ‘Oh, I have finals.’”Episodes for “Competition Crimson” will be filmed for two or three hours on a Saturday morning, Mergruen said, which should be less of a problem for participants.While Mergruen has mulled over the idea for a while, IUSTV Programming Director Jason Schiff said the executive board heard the pitch last spring and decided to run with it.“IUSTV is currently expanding its programming line-up, and it fit the needs of our network,” Schiff said in an email. “IUSTV is currently looking for new show concepts for students to produce. “Long time IUSTV show ‘The Food Guy’ is on an indefinite hiatus, as well as several other shows, which has created room for new shows on the IUSTV network.”Aimee Stanton, public relations and casting director for the show, said teams that want to participate can upload a two to three minute video to the “Competition Crimson” Facebook page. They will be accepting video auditions until Sept. 3, and filming will begin Sept. 17.“We’re going to be checking (the videos) ourselves, and then we’ll see which team is the best we think would be good for our show,” Stanton said. “I think that we would like people who are, you know, ready for anything, who are ready to compete, interesting, the usual.”No experience is necessary, Mergruen said. Anyone over the age of 18 can participate, whether they attend IU or not.“We love to see quirkiness. We love to see people’s real personalities,” Mergruen said. “The more you stand out, the better.”JOIN THE GAMETo be a part of the show or watch the pilot episode, check out the “Competition Crimson” page on Facebook.
(08/07/11 9:47pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>An ink drawing that hung in the exhibit room at Sublime Design Gallery and Gifts was what local artist Calista Yates called an “experiment.”“I covered the rice paper in ink, then wet it down and let it do its own thing,” Yates said.After seeing the paper’s reaction, Yates used masking film to incorporate shapes of leaves and other images into the colored ink before covering it again in black ink.“I wanted to see what the first layer would do behind it,” she said. “And it did exactly what I wanted it to do.”Yates and her husband stopped by to see her piece and others during the gallery’s “Vision of Trees,” which opened Aug. 5. Part of the August Downtown Bloomington Gallery Walk, the exhibit displays a tree theme in a multitude of different mediums and will remain open until the end of the month.Sublime Design Owner Carol Hedin had mentioned the show to Yates before she created the ink piece, but she did not make the piece solely for the exhibit.“My whole home is like leaves,” Yates said. “When it turned out to work, I remembered the show is coming up.”A little more than an hour after the show’s opening, Hedin’s mother, Linda Scites, said she had already seen a number of people coming through, and most of them left with a good response.“I think they sometimes live in a modern world, and they want to get back to nature, and trees symbolize that,” Scites said.Yates agreed that viewers enjoyed the emphasis on nature.“It’s a little bit of nature inside,” Yates said. “If you can have a little bit of nature inside, it’s always a good thing.”One of Scites’ favorite pieces in the exhibit was a table made of granite and metal by local artist James Connor.The top of the table was made from a granite slab that Connor chipped in the shape of a tree design, which he filled with marble.“It looks painted on because he did such a good job,” Scites said. “That is not an easy thing to do. I would not attempt that.”In the back left corner near the granite table, a tree sculpture by Bryn Hatton stood shimmering amongst stained glass pieces. Hedin said she hoped the life-size, symbolic sculpture would draw visitors to the show.“To me, it’s very whimsical,” Kim Nathan, a visitor to the exhibit, said. “They say when decorating, buy something whimsical.”By buying one piece out of the ordinary, Nathan said people are reminded to not take everything seriously.“It’s something to break up the routine,” Joey Like, a local artist with a few pieces in the gallery, said.Like said he believes the tree theme will go over well in Bloomington, based on the community’s appreciation for sustainability.“It features trees and their uses,” Like said, “not practically, but imaginatively.”