A&E

Live music, food to be offered at fundraiser

Beer brews and kazoo music will be offered at the first annual 4th and Walnut Block Party. The celebration will run from 5:30 to 10 p.m. Friday and is a fundraiser for the Bloomington Area Arts Council and WFHB, a local volunteer radio station.

Cartoonist to receive cancer treatment in Bloomington

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A cartoonist with a rare tumor threatening his vision is getting some help from artists who draw rival strips.

Union Board: 'Show Me the Funny'

Friday is the deadline for submitting entries to the Union Board's "Show Me the Funny" contest. Competitors must submit a five- to seven-minute stand-up routine, sketch or improvisational bit containing either one or two performers. This competition is open to all IU students. The Union Board expects a very diverse group of entrants, ranging from amateur comedians to those who have acting experience or are already performing in a group.

JOHN HANCOCK

JOHN HANCOCK -- GZA "the Genius" signs a pair of chucks brought in by a fan. The owner of the shoes, actually named Charles, or Chuck, Taylor prompted laughter among the veteran |rappers.

Bob Dylan, Lyle Lovett offer insight in Van Zandt documentary

Besides being prominent musicians in their respective fields, what do artists Bob Dylan, Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, Sonic Youth, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Kris Kristofferson have in common? They all make up the growing cult fan base of singer songwriter Townes Van Zandt and play a part in a new documentary based on the late artist's music and life.

African-American art on display at Art Museum

This month, the IU Art Museum will feature works depicting 60 years of "Black Spirit" conceptualized by one person, displayed in one place and portrayed in many ways.

Writing through the trenches

It was June 6, 1944, a date that would soon be known as D-Day. War reporter Ernie Pyle walked across the blood-soaked beach in Normandy, France, watching as the waves from the English Channel brushed against the cheeks of dead men gently floating in the shallow waters. His fingers weren't itching for his pad of paper or a pen to write down the details quickly, to help him remember the images later when he sat in front of his typewriter. There was no way he could forget.

Young talent

Young talent -- Phylip Woelmer, a student at Binford Elementary School, searches for his artwork with his mother after a reception for Youth Art Month at the IU Art Museum Saturday afternoon.

IU alumnus making music videos in Hollywood

In the spring of 2004, Brent Woodall walked away from IU with a degree in fine arts and stepped into what many college students nervously refer to as "the real world." Two years later, he is well on the way to living his dream of directing and producing music videos.

Computer games ate my brain

It's rare to watch television without seeing an advertisement for Game Tap anymore. For a monthly fee, subscribers can access the hundreds of classic games stored within Game Tap's "game vault." It's a service honed for casual computer gamers who don't have the time or inclination to obtain software by way of emulator programs or tedious Internet searches. Still, for all of Game Tap's target demographic, there are plenty of free alternatives for online entertainment.

BREAKING DOWN BROKEBACK

Though the Oscar buzz for "Brokeback Mountain" may have fizzled, IU professors and researchers have weighed in about the meaning of the movie in light of some critics' eagerness to write it off as just a "gay cowboy" movie. Though the film starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger had been slated by many as the "it" movie of this year's awards season, it went into the Oscars as a favorite for best picture, but lost that as well as best actor and best supporting actor. It did come away with three Oscars - best director, best adapted screenplay and best score.

HIGH STRUNG

IU Theatre and Drama announces 2006-07 season

The IU Department of Theatre and Drama recently announced in a press release the shows for the upcoming 2006-2007 season. Included in this lineup are a variety of plays and musicals. As the season opener, IU will stage Nobel Prize winner Harold Pinter's "The Dinner Party." Set in the 1950s, this drama challenges the socially conformist society of the times. Also slated to run next year is "Urinetown: The Musical," Greg Kotis and Mark Hollman's tale of one city's struggle against a large corporation that controls its water supply, including each citizen's "privilege to pee," according to the release. IU will bring to the stage Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," a politically-charged allegorical drama set in Puritan Salem during the notorious witch hunts of the late 1600s.

Why 'Brokeback' lost

NEW YORK -- We chatted about it, joked about it, argued about it, spoofed it. "Brokeback Mountain" was everywhere in our popular culture -- yet it lost the big Oscar it was supposed to win. Was there a "Brokeback Backlash," or was "Crash" just the worthy contender that came on strong in the final Best Picture stretch? There were as many theories offered Monday as there are "Brokeback" parodies on the Internet. One theory was that despite the hoopla, the endless late-night monologues and the clever imitations, people (Academy voters, that is) didn't really love the soulful saga of two gay cowboys -- and perhaps even felt uncomfortable with its themes.

Vintage cars inspire fashion collection

TV Review: Jon Stewart was disappointing host of bland Oscarcast

NEW YORK - You would have been more amused Sunday night if you'd revved up your TiVo and played back an evening's worth of "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" reruns while you tracked Oscar winners on the Web. Stewart, usually a very funny guy, displayed a lack of beginner's luck as first-time host of "The 78th Annual Academy Awards," which ABC aired live from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.

Lee earns best-director honor for cowboy love story `Brokeback Mountain'

LOS ANGELES - Ang Lee won the Academy Award as best director Sunday for the cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain," becoming the first Asian to win Hollywood's top honor for filmmakers. Adept at genres from Westerns to historical romance to martial-arts pageants, Lee won his Oscar for a purely American story about two men tragically swept up in a gay romance that they conceal from their families for two decades.

`Crash' pulls off Oscar upset with best-picture win

LOS ANGELES - The ensemble drama "Crash" pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Academy Awards history, winning best picture Sunday over the cowboy romance "Brokeback Mountain," which had been the front-runner. "Crash," featuring a huge cast in crisscrossing story lines over a chaotic 36-hour period in Los Angeles, rode a late surge of praise that lifted it past "Brokeback Mountain," a film that had won most other key Hollywood honors.

Students sculpt peanut butter in Art Olympics

The athletic action in Turin, Italy, ended last week, but the IU School of Fine Arts held its own version of the Olympics Saturday.

Thumbs up

Jake Gyllenhaal, nominated for an Oscar for best actor in a supporting role for his work in "Brokeback Mountain," arrives for the 78th Academy Awards Sunday in Los Angeles. Check out idsnews.com for more Oscar coverage.