Showing posts with label South Bend. Show all posts
Showing posts with label South Bend. Show all posts

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Saint Mary's College Women's Choir: Amazing Grace

The Saint Mary's College Women's Choir is recognized as one of the finest collegiate women's ensembles in the country. They have just released their 4th CD of new music for women's voices on the ProOrganolabel. Here they perform Ron Jeffers' arrangement of "Amazing Grace."

Saint Mary's is my alma mater. The choir, of which I was a fan and not a participant, submitted the above video as part of the Clash of the Choirs television contest. View the site at http://my.nbc.com/groups/videos/clash-of-the-choirs?videoID=676468

Friday, August 31, 2007

Video: Notre Dame--Get Fired Up for the Season

Thanks to Dave for passing this along. Twenty minutes to wake up the echoes.....


Thursday, March 08, 2007

Jane Fonda to Speak at YWCA in South Bend

Jane Fonda to speak at YWCA luncheon

Tickets available in advance


Tribune Staff Report

SOUTH BEND - Actress Jane Fonda, an activist in environmental and human rights, will be the keynote speaker at the YWCA of St. Joseph County’s “Tribute to Women” luncheon this year.

The event will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. May 3 in Century Center - the same day her latest film, “Georgia Rule,” is scheduled to debut.

Fonda gained attention for defiance of the Vietnam War while she was in the midst of a successful movie career. She won Oscars and an Emmy award. Her films include “The China Syndrome,” “Nine to Five” and “On Golden Pond.”

Turning 70 this year, Fonda has directed her energy to the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. In 2000, she traveled to Nigeria and produced a film in collaboration with the International Women’s Health Coalition, titled “Generation 2000: Changing Girls’ Realities.”

Among other efforts, she founded Greenstone, a women’s talk radio network that is owned by women.

Tickets to the luncheon cost $50 in advance. To order, call Katy Beach at (574) 233-9491, ext. 316.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Studio Arts Center Gallery Openings

Opening Reception for
Studio Arts Center's

Gallery 805
Ruth Andrews- current works in her ongoing series of comic book based drawings
Beau Bilenki - Mixed media: 2D and 3D pieces In the Woods series

Studio 807

Robert Williams - Faces & Places paintings and sculptures

Studio 815

Annual exhibit by the members of the
Northern Indiana Pastel Society

Thursday, March 8
7 pm to 9 pm

The evening will also feature
University of Notre Dame Students in
Performance Art: History, Theory, Practice
Human Art Work
Still lives representing the students' recent research into identity as performance.
Information about the personae the students have been periodically assuming in public will be available at the exhibit.

For more information:
www.studioartscenter.org

Studio Arts Center
805/807/815 Lincoln Way West
South Bend, IN 46616
574/288-0160

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Ted Kooser visits Dowagiac, Michigan

I recently learned that Ted Kooser, former Poet Laureate of the United States, will visit the The Dogwood Festival in Dowagiac, Michigan on May 11th, 2007. The event will take place at 7:30 pm, leaving plenty of time to take in a late dinner and/or drinks at the Wood Fire trattoria in downtown Dowagiac.

Kooser joins an impressive list of past lecturers at the festival, including the likes of Michael Cunningham, Margarat Atwood, Russel Banks, Tim O'Brien, Amy Tan, Norman Mailer, and Kurt Vonnegut.

I heard Kooser read from his work a few years ago and was impressed both by the spare beauty of his work and his low-key, dignified reading style. You will have plenty of time to read some of his poems before the event. I most most familiar with Delights and Shadows and can recommend it.

Tickets are required and cost between $20 and $60. For more information visit The Dogwood Festival website at http://www.dogwoodfinearts.org/.

Here is one of my favorite poems by Kooser:

Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Dave Eggers and "What is the What"

Thursday night L. and I attended the culminating event in Notre Dame’s 40th annual literary festival. The featured author was Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, his memoir (see link below for an extensive list of all his publications). Eggers recently completed a new project that chronicles the life of Valentino Achak Deng, who emigrated with the wave of “Lost Boys” from Sudan.

Eggers was warmly introduced and began his lecture with a flurry of microphone adjustments and a shuffle of papers. After briefly reading from his new work, titled What is the What, and introducing us to his fictional version of Valentino, he introduced us to the real Valentino. If it had been previously announced that both the author and his subject would lecture, I hadn’t been aware of it. It would prove to be a powerful presentation. I went into the lecture mildly curious about Eggers. I emerged with an awakened consciousness (and a commitment to buy his new book).

Several years ago Eggers was invited to meet Valentino, who had decided that his goal was to write a book about his experiences. In the beginning it wasn’t clear if Eggers would help Valentino compose his own memoir or perhaps serve as his scribe. In the end, something brand new was formed. Eggers listened to Valentino’s story—his 800-mile trek with a flock of children from Sudan to Kenya, Valentino’s childhood confrontation with death and violence, the constant concern about the fate of his family left behind in a burning village. Eggers listened, time passed, and their friendship deepened. Eventually trust moved the two men beyond the stark tragedy and allowed them to uncover the profound humanity and tenderness that Valentino experienced despite the inexorable reality of violence that colored his coming-of-age.

Eggers listened and made a crucial realization: he couldn’t write Valentino’s story in the third person. He needed to tell the truth about Valentino. And to tell the truth, he needed to use the tool of fiction. So, after gaining Valentino’s consent, he wrote Valentino’s memoir as fiction, telling his story using a first person narrator. He became Valentino. The readers, in turn, are invited to become Valentino. By living through the terror and injustice of Southern Sudan, we can move beyond an intellectual discussion of totalitarian states and genocides. We bypass the head entirely. We live like Valentino, all heart. Eggers doesn’t go maudlin on us. Valentino’s heart is his organ of survival and decision-making. Think blood, hot and quick in fear, or thin from hunger. Think of a little boy whose heart pumped day after day despite being attacked on all fronts.

It was a powerful presentation. I was already impressed by Eggers writing and his social justice work. I think I am a little bit in love with him too—you will know what I mean if you hear him speak.

And the best news—this really gets my social justice, English teacher blood flowing—all the proceeds from the book go to Valentino’s foundation. He plans to rebuild his village in Sudan and provide college scholarships for other Sudanese immigrants.

Consider this is a strong recommendation to buy a book that I have not yet read.

The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation
849 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA 94110

For more information, visit valentinoachackdeng.com

Dave Eggers' Biography and List of Books


Sunday, February 04, 2007

Dave Eggers in South Bend for Notre Dame Literary Festival

Dave Eggers, author of the best selling memoir "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," will be in town for Notre Dame's literary festival. He is scheduled to speak on Thursday, February 8th, 8 pm in Room 101, DeBartolo Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

While his memoir was overhyped for me, his other literary and social ventures have earned him my respect and admiration. (He founded McSweeney's. Check out the link in my sidebar.) His newest book, "What is the What," is fiction that tells the all-too-true story of one of Sudan's Lost Boys. (See review below.)

This is well worth risking your extremities on a cold February night!

Other authors at Notre Dame this week:

Poet Lolita Hernandez, 10:30 am Monday in room 210, McKenna Hall and 8 pm Monday in LaFortune Student Center ballroom

Palestinian poet and playwright Nathalie Handal, 7pm Monday in LaFortune ballroom

Poet Hal Sirowitz, 8 pm Tuesday in the Oak Room, South Dining Hall

Essayist and humorist David Rakoff, 8 pm Wednesday in LaFortune ballroom

Freelance writer Anne Elizabeth Moore, 6:30 pm Thursday in room 129, DeBartolo Hall

Mining the power of fiction Eggers' novel
tells story of a 'Lost Boy' of Sudan


by Bob Thompson

WASHINGTON POST

Here are a few things we can say for sure about Dave Eggers' latest book:

It's not a satire of political correctness in the English department of an elite liberal arts college. No publisher is betting that it will be "the next 'Da Vinci Code.' " Judith Regan had nothing to do with it.

Oh, and it's a safe bet that Eggers didn't consult any marketing types about the title.

He called it "What Is the What."

Which means ...

Well, maybe we should save that for later. Because right now the writer best known for his arrestingly titled memoir "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" is sitting in a newspaper conference room with Valentino Achak Deng, the Sudanese "Lost Boy" whose life story he's undertaken to tell. And he's talking about one thing readers of "What Is the What" can't say for sure: How much is fact and how much is fiction.

Why the line-blurring? The explanation goes like this: Introduced to Deng in early 2003 and deeply engaged by his story, Eggers set out to write a conventional biography. But he kept getting stuck.

"I didn't know how to do it," he says. "I didn't want my own voice in there."

Despairing, he was ready to give the whole thing up. Then it occurred to him that "all the books that we remember about war and about the biggest events of the 20th century are novels." Think of "The Naked and the Dead," "Catch-22" and "all Hemingway's stuff."

More important, think of the ways fictionalizing Deng's story could solve narrative problems. By labeling the book a novel, Eggers says, he freed himself to re-create conversations, streamline complex relationships, add relevant detail and manipulate time and space in helpful ways -- all while maintaining the essential truthfulness of the storytelling.

There was only one hitch.

"I was so afraid to ask Valentino," Eggers says.

Author and subject grin at the memory. Eggers, in a white shirt and a sport coat that's seen better days, is the shorter and more intense-looking of the two. Deng, in a black shirt and jeans, is tall -- as the Dinka people tend to be -- with a warm, gap-toothed smile.

They call each other "Dave" and "Val," but Eggers, who's 36, has had the luxury of keeping the same name all his life. Deng, who's a decade or so younger, has been known as "Achak" (the name his parents gave him), "Valentino" (a baptismal name), "Dominic" (from a teacher in a refugee camp), "Gone Far" (a nickname alluding to his long trek out of war-wracked Sudan) and, most poetically, "Sleeper" -- bestowed by a girl who found him lying in the road one day, half-blind and longing for death.

Here's how Eggers, in Deng's voice, describes the moment:

"I conjured my mother as best I could. I pictured her in yellow, yellow like an evening sun, walking down the path. ... When she came up to me I told her I was too tired to continue, that I would suffer again, and would watch others suffer. ... Then I washed her from my mind. It seemed to me that to die I needed to clear my mind of all thoughts, all visions, and concentrate on passing on."

You look like my dead brother, the girl said. She lifted him up and got him walking again.

Lost Boys is a name attached to thousands of young refugees from the civil war in southern Sudan, which broke out in the mid-1980s and continued until peace was finally negotiated in 2005. "It is not a nickname appreciated by many in our ranks," as Deng the book character puts it, "but it is apt enough."

These days, Deng and the roughly 4,000 other Lost Boys who were resettled in the United States often find themselves confused with victims of more recent savagery in Darfur. But while the atrocities committed by government-backed militiamen have been similar -- "the difference is just the name they're using to describe the militia," he says -- Darfur is in western Sudan. Marial Bai, the hometown from which Deng was driven in fear of his life, is farther south.

His journey began in the mid-'80s, when, as a 6-year-old, he was still young enough "to be weak and melt into his mother's arms." Trouble had been brewing between the African peoples of southern Sudan and the Arab-dominated government in the north. But the boy knew nothing of the complex history behind the conflict.

"I couldn't understand," he says. "There was me in my town, my father was doing well -- why do we want to go to war? No reason."

Reason or no, war came.

Arab militiamen on horseback overran Marial Bai. Deng saw his hometown burned, his friends and neighbors killed or abducted. Not knowing his parents' fate, he fell in with a group of similarly displaced boys. An adult leader set them walking toward Ethiopia, where they were told they would find a haven, despite having no idea what "an Ethiopia" was.

The horrors of that walk cannot be easily summarized.

In "What Is the What," there are scenes of famished boys ripping the flesh off a dead elephant; of a boy dragging a stick as he walked, "making a line in the dirt so he would know his way home"; of land mines, ravening lions and exhausted, starving "sleepers" who gave up and died along the way.

Once across the border, a refugee camp became a recruiting ground. Rebel leaders told the boys, many destined to become child soldiers, that they were "the seeds of a new Sudan." Driven out, eventually, by the Ethiopians, the boys escaped across the Gilo River in a hail of gunfire -- except for those who got shot or were intercepted by crocodiles.

Reaching safety in Kenya, they found themselves trapped in a bleak refugee camp called Kakuma for -- in Deng's case -- 10 years.

How he finally got to the United States is an epic in itself. Being scheduled to fly on Sept. 11, 2001, did not help. Plunked down in Atlanta, he got to know the founder of a nonprofit called the Lost Boys Foundation. Her name was Mary Williams, and she came to view him as an especially articulate spokesman for his Lost Boy peers.

One day, he says, Williams asked about his long-term goals. "I would like to be able to document my story," he told her, "in a written form that generations will have access to."

OK, she said, she'd find somebody to help.

Mary Williams didn't know Dave Eggers, but she'd happened to pick up his memoir once when she needed airplane reading.

"The title was just hilarious," she says.

"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" is the saga of how, when Eggers was in college, his parents contrived to die of cancer within five weeks of each other, leaving Dave and his sister to raise their 7-year-old brother. The memoir's out-of-nowhere success left Eggers with enough cash to fund a variety of literary and philanthropic projects, among them the tiny independent publishing house McSweeney's and a literary magazine, the Believer, as well as a writing workshop and tutoring center in San Francisco.

Williams read up on Eggers and was impressed. He's "kind of like a Lost Boy himself," she says. So she wrote and asked if he'd like to get involved.

The idea was a long shot. How many name-brand authors would drop everything to tell a Lost Boy's story? But Eggers, as it happened, was already intrigued by the long march of the Sudanese refugees.

So he flew to Atlanta to check things out.

He bonded with Deng right away and began taping interviews. Later, they wangled their way onto a plane delivering aid to Sudan -- "we sat in the cargo hold with the grain and the bicycles and stuff," Eggers says -- to do a little firsthand research. In all, they spent thousands of hours together. It took him that long, he says, "to be able to see through Valentino's eyes."

As for the fiction decision: When Eggers raised the idea, he feared that Deng would angrily reject any reimagining of his real story. But "right away he was like 'What? Do whatever! Do anything you want!' "

"Dave is an artist," Deng says. "I'm not only about myself in the book." The idea was to tell the most accessible story possible about the devastation so many had endured.

Back and forth they go, deferring to each other, holding forth on their shared narrative.

They talk about how the original idea was to tell just the African part of Deng's life, until Eggers realized that his subject's struggle to adapt to the United States -- and the numerous disasters he has experienced here -- had to be part of the story.

They talk about their plan to use profits from the book to fund Deng's education, aid other Sudanese refugees, help rebuild Marial Bai and promote peace and justice in Darfur.

What does the future hold for Deng? Will he stay in his adopted homeland, where he is attending Allegheny College?

"I would like to bring up my kids here," he says. "But then I also, at the same time, want to make differences in Sudan."

"What Is the What" was published by McSweeney's, which allowed Eggers the total freedom he likes but means there's no marketing machine behind the book. Nonetheless, it's picked up some terrific reviews and made it to No. 25 on the New York Times' extended best-seller list this week.

As for that mysterious title: It's taken from a creation story Deng remembers hearing as a child.

God, it seems, made the first Dinka man tall and strong and the first Dinka woman beautiful. When he was done, he offered his creations a gift. "You can either have these cattle," he told them, "or you can have the What."

"What is the What?" they asked. But God refused to answer. The choice was a test. The Dinka could go for the cattle, which they knew would allow them to live well, or they could take a chance on the unknown. They chose the cattle, which, as the story's moral had it, proved the wise thing to do.

Except ...

The stable, solid universe in which that decision made sense is gone. And in the Lost Boy world of strife and stress and endless change that has replaced it, embracing the unknown -- as Valentino Achak Deng can tell us better than anyone -- looks like the only choice there is.

South Bend Favorites

Farmers Market: We are officially regulars at the Farmers Market. A few weeks ago Bonnie gave us a dollar off on the price of a whole pecan pie we had preordered from the diner “because we are regulars.” This makes me feel, human.

We go to the Market every Saturday. Although it opens at the crack of dawn, we usually make our way there by 1:00 for a late lunch and shopping. We always eat in the diner first. We sit at the second horseshoe-shaped counter, where Sharon is our waitress. (I see Sharon more than I see my Mom.) Our two favorite dishes: The cheeseburger (see entry on best burger in South Bend) and the Market Omelet. The Market Omelet has it all: stuffed with fresh vegetables, cheese, and hash browns and smothered in sausage gravy. Oh yes. It is enough for us to share. I like to sprinkle a little Tabasco sauce on my half. Oh boy.

After lunch we make the rounds at the market stalls. We typically buy blue cheese, apples, and caramel corn (with nuts). We buy garlic and eggs from the Hungarian. The polish lady has the BEST pumpkin pies. We buy Christmas wreathes, pussy willows, and tulips as the seasons bloom. I salivate over the smell of fresh pretzels made by the Amish family. I buy a small container of freshly ground peanut butter (ground right before my eyes!). We pet the puppies up for sale. Once we even lucked into a batch of freshly prepared homemade tamales. We buy homemade candles and soap. We buy what we need and what the season has to offer. Concord grape season and asparagus season are always way too short for our taste buds.


Favorite Burger:
Each burger is unique and fulfills a particular burger-need. Yet I have to go with the Farmers Market Burger as my best. Here is why: while the beef is satisfactory, the vegetables win it. In my opinion, it is the whole package that counts. The Market Burger has a thick ring of white onion, a tomato slice, crisp lettuce, and pickles served with each burger. I add my smidgen of condiments (ketchup, mustard and a smear of mayonnaise), layer the veggies, stack the slightly toasted white bun on top, give a gentle squeeze to the architectural wonder, and bam. There it is. And the portion size matters too. I can eat my burger and feel like I have room to share a slice of cherry pie if I so desire. While CJ’s burgers are sublime, there is also enough meat there to satisfy my yearly quota. CJ’s is legendary. Don’t get me wrong, I love their beef and the onion rings are perfection in a world of fried-vegetable disappointment. But I can do CJ’s once a year. I could handle the Farmers Market burger weekly. There it is. Disagree if you wish. And, by the way, the famous Redamak burger, doesn’t turn me on (and it is not in South Bend). The burger needs its vegetables. And those sad misguided burgers served with (gasp) red onion, forget about it.


Best Ice Cream:
Hands down: Chicory Café in downtown South Bend. Trust me. They serve up handmade fresh gelato with a rainbow of flavors to entice and enchant you—deep chocolates and fruit concoctions that burst with flavor. Walk right past the Chocolate Factory (which has other strengths to be sure) and head to the Chicory Café for your dose of ice dream. Again, there might be some who swear by the Cold Stone Creamery. Their offerings appear voluptuous, but they always fall flat for me. They disappoint or, worse, leave me feeling bloated and guilty. The gelatos at Chicory are pure and simple and divine. No need for add-ins or sparkles or jaunty tunes sung by the underpaid teenage staff. Don’t be fooled by quantity. Go for flavor.


Favorite Café for Writing: This is a tough call. I have to go with The Victorian Pantry--locally owned business, real mugs, help yourself coffee canisters, free wireless, delectable food, wooden tables. But. It is bit too far to drive and technically not in South Bend (it must be Granger, I think.) Slightly closer, but still in Mishawaka, I have to go with Panera which has the coffee buffet, real mugs, tasty treats, wireless, etc., but it is a chain restaurant. In South Bend, you can pick between the Chocolate Cafe and Chicory Cafe, neither of which offer the endless help yourself mugs, although they have wireless. And the coffee at Chicory might just be the best in South Bend (plus they have that remarkable gelato).


Favorite Café:
Lula’s Café. It is the real thing. The house salad, the hummus, the sandwiches all satisfy. No wireless, but this is a good thing. I go there when I need to seclude myself from internet distractions. Coffee served in ceramic mugs, a stellar plus. (Plus I met the man I eventually married there. I was sitting next to the middle window and he was at the table next to me. Ah caffeine-induced romance.)


Best Brunch (and Beer): Fiddler's Hearth. We are regulars here for Sunday brunch. I love their beer, but we don’t get there very often during beer-drinking time. Menu favorites: Shepherd’s Pie and Fish-n-Chips. We go for the Sunday brunch: live music preformed by talented artists, delicious breakfast and lunch foods, and the Sunday papers read on wide wooden tables. Sunday, lovely Sundays.

What are your South Bend favorites?
Any hidden jewels or regular haunts?


Friday, December 01, 2006

You Know You're From South Bend When. . .


*this list was forwarded to me by a former Bender,
who claims the author is unknown.


1: You know all about the Snyder scandal and often
refer to Roseland as Snyderville.

2: In middle school, a typical weekend consisted of
hanging out at the movies, but never actually SEEING a
movie....or going "Meijer-ing"

3: You remember when Movies 14 was Movies 10.

4: You hate Penn High School athletics.

5: Favorite graduation party activities include
Cornhole and Euchre.

6: The last week of classes was spent playing cards.

7: You're a die hard Notre Dame Football fan. HELL
YA!!

8: Whenever someone says to meet at either Wendy's or
Taco Bell you always ask "the one on 31 or the one by
the mall?"

9: You tailgate every home game of football season.

10: "Going out" on a Friday/Saturday night means going
to a friend's house to drink.

11: You can't recall the last time we had a snow day.

12: You hate snow.

13: You hate being stuck behind a Michigan driver
because let's face it, they can't drive.

14: You've gone tubing at Saint Pat's Park.

15: You've been to the Niles Haunted House multiple
times.

16: During your last years of high school, whenever
someone asked what your college plans were you said,
"Probably IUSB or Purdue"

17: You've wondered why Old Navy isn't part of
UP...And you know what UP is.

18: You and your friends have taken turns guessing
what the new building on the corner of 31/Cleveland is
going to be.

19: You know what "Nick's" refers to and only ever go
there after 10:30pm.

20: You've either gone can collecting or have had
people come to your door demanding non-perishable food
items.

21: During the summer, 50 degrees is unbearably cold.
During the winter, 50 degrees is scorching.

22: You wear flip flops in the snow.

23: When deciding where to go out for dinner you drive
up and down both Grape and Main.

24: You go to Barnaby's after every high school
football game.

25: You're a frequent ranch and salsa mixer at
Hacienda...and you know what Hacienda is...and it's
your favorite restaurant.

26: You grocery shop at Martins.

27: You see nothing odd about the word "Mishawaka"

28: You go at least 10 mph over the speed limit in the
section of Ironwood between Douglas and 23. Who set
the 30mph limit on a 4 lane road anyway?

29: You went to Franks Red Hots before it became K's.

30: When people ask you where you're from you always
follow "I'm from South Bend" with "*pause* . . . it's
where Notre Dame is"

31: You've ever tried to exaggerate on how cold it is
outside, and the actual temperature is colder than
your exaggeration.

32: You still wonder if the old guy that sits on 31
holding the flag is dead or not.

33: You're still holding a grudge against Joan Raymond
for Plan Z.

34: You remember when Scottsdale Mall was shut down.

35: Your elementary school field trips were spent at
Copshaholm, the Studebaker house, Leeper Park, and
Amish Acres.

36: You consider Mishawaka, Granger, and Roseland all
extensions of South Bend.

37: Driving slowly down Primrose with your headlights
off is a fun, scary thing to do when you're bored.

38: You have always wanted to get the HELL out of here
. . . AND if you did you came back.

39: You know what Dyngus Day is . . . and were
surprised to learn that the rest of the country doesn't.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Protest O.J. Simpson

Last week the YWCA of St. Joseph County made a
public statement (read the statement in the South Bend
Tribune
) reacting to the announcement that O.J. Simpson
will appear in a two-part
special on the Fox television
network, as well as a soon-to-be-released book
detailing
how he "would have" carried out the murders
of Nicole Brown Simpson
and Ron Goldman.

The YWCA has received an overwhelming response from
people wanting to join the protest, and they encourage
people to contact
the following numbers to request
that booksellers not participate in
the book sales, and
that FOX TV not air the special:


Barnes and Noble - Customer Service Center at
1-800-THE-BOOK
(1-800-843-2665).

Amazon - you can send an email via their website
(no really good way to directly connect with them)


HarperCollins (the publisher) - 212-207-7000

ReganBooks - 212-207-7000 (a division of HarperCollins)

FOX - contact the local FOX station 574-679-9758 and/or
fox28news@fox28.com AND the national office
-
http://www.fox.com/links/affiliates.htm AND (310)369-3553

You may also contact big box retailers like Target
(again both local and national office) to ensure they do not
carry the book in stores
or online (their online book service
is provided by amazon).


Spread the Word!

UPDATE!!!!!

O.J. Simpson book and tv show cancelled!
Read the headline.


Tuesday, September 12, 2006

YWCA and Ten Thousand Villages

support the
YWCA of St. Joseph County

by shopping at

Ten Thousand Villages
919 W. McKinley, Mishawaka
20% of the day's sales will go to the YWCA
10 am-6 pm
Friday, Sept. 22

For more information:
Joann Phillips
Resource Development Director
YWCA of St. Joseph County
1102 S. Fellows St., South Bend, IN 46601
PH (574) 233-9491, ext. 316; FAX (574) 233-9616 jphillips@ywcasjc.org


mark your calendars!

spread the word!


Sunday, September 10, 2006

Club Noma, Downtown South Bend

I had heard the owner of the new Club Noma speak about his plans for the hip new bar and restaurant for several years. Those well laid plans have finally been realized.

Last night we headed downtown South Bend to find some dinner and catch a bit of the Ohio v. Texas football game. The regular haunts were packed and so we gave up on the game and enjoyed the delicious soups at the Chocolate Cafe. Heading home, we noticed the Now Open sign in front of Club Noma. Despite our grungy dress, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to peak inside.

We were greeted with hors d'oeuvre of duck, salmon caviar, and chicken--all tasty Asian fusion morsels, a promise of what the dinner menu holds. The bar is a work of art. The owner's eye for detail is truly extraordinary. The bar attendants are stylish and classy (not to mention hot). The live DJ is turning the tables, backlit by smooth water lights. The music is right on for the hip vibe pulsing through the miniature jellyfish orbs over the bar, the bare brick walls (waiting for their soon-to-arrive neon logo), and blood red leather couchettes. Hot, hot, hot.

And soon the center stage will be taken by an enormous free standing jellyfish aquarium. We all know how mystically gorgeous those creatures are. They captivate with their sensuous arms and transparent bodies. Hot music, throbbing jellyfish, and did I mention the martinis?

I am a classic vodka martini girl, a little dirty, with blue cheese olives. None of those fancy sweet concoctions for me. But you would be surprised how difficult it is to find a good plain old martini--and I am not just talking about our bendy city.

Martini Report Card for Club Noma: A+

While I am a straight up martini kind of girl, Club Noma has a tempting list of martini cocktails. I might have to go for the one with pear in its description. Sounds healthy. I need to balance my olives with a daily fruit serving, per the suggestion of my good doctor.

Congratulations to the owner and staff at Club Noma. Well done.


Applause. Applause. Applause.


The official grand opening will be Thursday, September 14th.

Club Noma description
http://www.opentable.com/rest_profile.aspx?rid=4936

Club Noma
119 North Michigan Street

South Bend, IN 46601
Their website:
http://www.clubnoma.com/

South Bend Tribune Review
September 20, 2006
"New South Bend fusion restaurant reflects a vision"
by Heidi Prescott


Friday, September 08, 2006

Art Beat 2006, Downtown South Bend




































Saturday, January 28, 2006

Michiana Chronicles: Vagina Monologues

April Lidinsky, one of the five local writers who write
"Michiana Chronicles" for the local (South Bend, Indiana)
NPR station, broadcast this yesterday.

http://www.mchron.net/ee/radio/the_plays_the_thing/

Friday, January 27, 2006

The Play's the Thing

Ok, folks – time for a literature quiz that should take you back
to, oh, maybe your Sophomore language arts class. So: Who said the
following line: “The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch the
conscience of the king.” Anyone? Ah ... I see lots of hands.
And yes, “Hamlet” is correct. But with that line, Shakespeare
illuminates something larger than Hamlet’s desire for revenge.
That line reminds us that the best theater catches everyone’s
conscience, and makes all of us shift a bit in our seats.
Art is political– it’s about power.

A friend once gave me a t-shirt, decorated with Andy Warhol
images and the jaunty motto, “Art can’t hurt you.” I wore it a few
times, feeling pretty bohemian-hip, until a colleague said, “You know,
that t-shirt is totally wrong! It can too hurt.” And ... he was
right. To say art can’t hurt us is to say it doesn’t have any teeth, any
power– that art doesn’t matter. A quick reflection on the long
history of censorship reminds us that art has always been under suspicion
for blasphemy or sedition. Art makes arguments we don’t always want
to hear.

But unlike editorials or ranting TV commentators, art rarely
presents one single perspective, which might be its greatest virtue.
Perhaps you, like me, have stood in front of a painting, or in a theater
lobby at intermission, muttering darkly, “Huh ... I don’t get
it.” Art, at its best, reminds us that we should never assume we
“get” anything at first glance. Even those pastel-pretty landscape
paintings by Claude Monet say to us, “You think you know what a
pile of hay looks like? Think again. Look at a haystack in this
light. And now late in the day. And again in a storm.
And again in wintertime.” First impressions are always partial, imperfect.

Art usefully undermines our assumption that we know it all; it keeps
us from thinking simply, and from simply taking sides.

In my college classrooms, sometimes students feel sopassionately
about ideas they want to pick a fight with everyone who disagrees
with them. Not so fast, I urge them – if you tell people
they’re full of hooey, you’ll only get an “Am not!” for every one of
your “Are too!”s. So how do you invite someone to try on a new
perspective? Well, reach back to your childhood, and remember
how those interactions with friends went. Something like: “Ok, now
you play like you’re a such-and-so, and then I’ll play like I’m a
something-or-other, and then let’s play like ...” and on and on.
Remember? Yeah – the play’s the thing. Trying on new roles is
a skill that weakens, sadly, with our harrowing passage to
adulthood.

But art reminds us to play with ideas. To empathize with
perspectives that stretch us, however uncomfortably.

And that is why I teach plays like Eve Ensler’s The Vagina
Monologues, and why college students everywhere have found power
in producing the play themselves, despite the controversy that
often surrounds it. The Vagina Monologues is a response – a creative
response – to a terrible truth about power, and that is that
women worldwide suffer – and resist – the mental and physical effects
of sexism in ways that are both readily apparent and everywhere
ignored.

But instead of dashing off a rant in the face of gruesome
statistics, Ensler wrote a play, with a multitude of perspectives
for us to try on. Now I’m not comfortable, myself, with every
voice in that piece. But when I watch students practicing for
the production, I see the power of art at work as they inhabit
these different roles, empathizing with an amazing range of
human experience. I test myself by the students’ brave example:
How could I become a person who wouldn’t leave a battering husband?
How might I live a life in which fear or belief led me to
inflict violence on others? What would it be like not to
feel vulnerable in my own body? And I wonder,
why are these questions threatening to ask right now?

I think of a playwright controversial and censored in his own
time, Molière, and the pleasure I get every year when I attend the
exuberant undergraduate performance at Notre Dame, all in
French, and this year coming in February, just like some productions
of The Vagina Monologues. While full of humor, Molière’s political
satires still leave tooth marks, thanks to talented student performers
who inhabit his hypocritical, unjust, and foolishly lovable
characters so fully they feel familiar to us, despite the period costumes.

The cliché says that, “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” But how
much better off we’d be if we acted as if it were. Art strengthens
our atrophied empathy muscles. It says, play like you’re born into
a Bangkok slum and sold into sexual slavery. Play like you’re a
president. Play like you’re a person who lets someone tape a
bomb to your chest, and really feel the power of your belief, the
strange weight of metal and wires, the pull of the duct tape on your
skin.

What is your life like? And what powers of imagination might
revise your story?

The play is the thing. And the conscience that needs catching
is always our own.

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Charlie Weis

Promise keeper: the last wish of a dying boy
By: Terry Moran
Date: October 2, 2005
From: World News Tonight (ABC News)

(Off Camera) Finally tonight, keeping a promise. There are many great stories about the Fighting Irish of the University of Notre Dame. Stories that wake up the echoes, as the song goes. This is another one. It's a story about a dying boy and his last wish. He wanted to call a play for the Irish football team, in a real game. ESPN's Tom Rinaldi tells us what happened.

TOM RINALDI, ESPN: Almost from the day he was given his name, Montana, after Joe Montana, Montana Mazurkiewicz grew up watching Notre Dame football. From the day he was diagnosed with a brain tumor a year and a half ago, he kept watching. And last week, he asked if a player from the team could visit him at home. The head coach came instead.

MOTHER: The coach walked right past me. And he said, hi, I am Charlie Weis, and Montana's eyes just lit up.

CHARLIE WEIS, NOTRE DAME HEAD COACH: You're looking at a kid that you know is not going to make it. I thought my job was to do all I could to get a smile on his face.

MOTHER: The coach just asked him, what would you, what would you like to do? Would you like to call a play? And Montana said, I'd like to call the first offensive play. Charlie Weis says, well, do you want me to run or pass? And he goes, pass to the right. Not just pass, pass to the right. And the coach just kind of broke out in a sweat, you know?

TOM RINALDI: Just a day and a half after the visit, Montana died in his mother's arms. He was ten years old.

MOTHER: I just held him and sang him the stupid Notre Dame fight song, and then, some other songs that my daughter had written. And I just told him he could rest, it was time to stop fighting, that he could rest now, and that he was my hero.

TOM RINALDI: A day later, the family watched as Notre Dame played. For its first offensive play of the game, the ball rested inside the Notre Dame one yard line.

MOTHER: No way. He's not going to pass it. He's not gonna do it. He can't, he can't make that play.

CHARLIE WEIS: I said, well, we don't have a choice. I said, it's not whether we're going to do it, we don't have a choice, run the play.

ANNOUNCER, MALE: Play action for Quinn. Throws, wide-open, (inaudible). The tight end with a hurdle. Provided a first down.

TOM RINALDI: The play went for 13 yards, but reached much farther, all the way to a family in Indiana, a family in grief.

MOTHER: It was the fact that coach Weis kept his word. That was the big thing, that he kept his word in an almost impossible situation to a ten year-old kid that he didn't even know.

TOM RINALDI: Last Sunday, Weis returned to the house and gave the family the game ball, signed by the entire team. But he knows and they know, it's about more than football. For ABC News, Tom Rinaldi, ESPN.

TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) Pass to the right.

TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) That's our report. Tomorrow on "Good Morning America," more on the Lake George boat accident.

TERRY MORAN(Off Camera) I'm Terry Moran. For all of us at ABC News, have a good week. Good night.

http://newsinfo.nd.edu/content.cfm?topicid=13703

Friday, August 19, 2005

Back in the Bend

Details have sucked me deeply into a black hole. The trip home from Budapest was relatively uneventful, though I did run into a very good friend on the last leg of the trip. Do you ever find yourself in the middle of an Indian forest spotting monkeys and yet have the feeling that someone you know will show up around the next tree? Well, this actually happened when I saw M. sitting patiently on the bus from Chicago to South Bend. We simply could not have planned such an encounter.

At any rate, I am tres busy trying to organize the house, my health insurance, clean the basement, purge useless pairs of sweatpants, see the dentist and systemitize eight years + of photos. Luckily we switched to digital at that point. I am decidedly inept at scrapbooks, so these treasures are being diligently sorted by date and filed in boxes with labels. It is the best I can do and it is driving me crazy. I am also trying to apply for jobs in Boston and enroll in a writing class. Anyone out there who needs an English Teacher or knows of a good writing community. . . I am open to suggestions.

The Bend is good. Those of you who who are SMCers/Domers will be suprised when you return for this Fall's football games. There have been major construction and road changes.