Yesterday, since my mom was in town and we had nothing planned for Memorial Day, we went to see the newly renovated and opened Lincoln Theater in the King-Lincoln District, who was having a free open house for the community after just opening on Thursday. The theater was originally opened in 1928 as the Ogden Theater and was meant to fulfill the need for an African-American focused entertainment center. It was designed with an Egyptian Revival style that is strikingly different than any of the other CAPA theaters downtown. Originally, it played films and brought in vaudeville and musical performances. It was renamed the Lincoln Theater in 1939 and mostly operated as a movie theater through the 1960s, though occasionally it showcased musical artists like Nancy Wilson and Count Basie. It closed in the early 1970s but has been undergoing various restoration projects for the past 20 years, and was successful in gaining the support of the City of Columbus and Mayor Coleman and teamed with local businesses to help fund a total overhaul of the entire theater. After chatting with the man behind most of the major renovations, we learned that the inside of the theater was a disaster when they started the project. He said the stage was almost completely rotted through and wasn’t safe to stand on as well as some of the pillars on the stage being completely destroyed and rotten. They made sure to maintain the original style of the decorations inside and worked off of old plans and schematics. The theater will also be run by CAPA and focus on jazz and blues along with other performing arts.

I’ll be honest, the theater is very gorgeous. It’s not as ornate perhaps as the Ohio Theater or the Southern, but the Egyptian theme is so unique to me. It’s fairly small, maybe close in size to the Southern (an usher told me it has about 500 or so seats), which makes it a really cozy space. There’s literally no bad seat in the house. Even the balcony is relatively close to the stage and gives a really breathtaking view of the whole space.

Like the other theaters, there were lots of surprising little details everywhere, even on the sides of seats.

Off the balcony is a curvy side waiting area that leads to an outdoor balcony the looks off onto a parking lot and large apartment building that looked to be undergoing renovations itself.

There are also stairs off the waiting area that go up several flights to a floor that will be operated as a Jazz Center, which will offer music education programs, lessons, informal performance spaces and a recording studio.

The first room is a comfortable parents waiting room followed by a room filled with pianos hooked up to keyboards (reminds me of trying to figure out how to use midi back in my childhood piano playing years!). Lots of kids were already trying out the equipment and I was almost jealous of the kids that get to take advantage of this kind of awesome space and technology.

There was another practice room that held a drum kit and an old-fashioned organ.

Next was a recording studio and across the way was a large space where they had DJ BHB (Brothers Helping Brothers) set up giving a demo on how technology has changed being a DJ and explaining some of the programs he uses when he does gigs. He also gave a really cool demonstration of his work, using hip-hip and blues beats. He was pretty awesome and I kind of wish I had enough money that I could hire him to DJ something. He also explained his philosophy behind DJ-ing and hip-hop music and said if there was enough demand, he may be giving DJ lessons at the theater in the future

Finally there were stairs leading to a second floor ballroom area that I heard would be used for a few different things, like a rented space for events and parties as well as a dance rehearsal space. By the time we made it down there, the Columbus Youth Jazz Orchestra was playing, so we got to enjoy an unexpected concert. Actually the performance made me really miss playing an instrument and a friend suggested I look up the New Albany community band. I do have my dusty Buffet clarinet in the basement, I need to buy some new reeds and see if I can remember how to read music again :-X

Overall what made me so excited about this theater is that it really seems focused on making it a community space. Unlike the theaters downtown, the Lincoln has made an effort to incorporate educational music space inside the theater itself which I feel will hopefully increase community involvement. And especially with lots of music programs getting cut from school budgets, hopefully it will also encourage kids to stick with music and give them an opportunity for a creative outlet. I know my own experience being involved in band for 8 years was a really important part of my life and I think I could actually still pick up my clarinet and be able to read and play some simple pieces again (we’ll see…)

Overall, he KLD itself reminds me of Old Towne East, in that there’s a lot of effort to revitalize the area and bring back some of the old spirit, especially because of their history as a destination for jazz and entertainment. I know a lot of people, both Mayor Coleman and residents/community leaders are hoping that the reopening of the theater will draw a lot of people in and give the area a cultural renaissance. However, after reading last week’s Dispatch article about the theater reopening, it seems like there isn’t any other money available to make some basic infrastructure improvements beyond what was allocated to the theater renovation.

“The city has no money earmarked to resurface streets or install new streetlights to make the area more attractive. Columbus contributed $6.3 million to the theater project. Much of E. Long Street, the Lincoln’s home, remains desolate. A boarded-up nursing home and vacant church are reminders that there is a lot of work to do. Another reminder is the vacant Poindexter Tower, a monument to classic urban blight. The Franklin County treasurer’s office is winding through a slow, cumbersome process of foreclosing on each of the 101 units before going to court to tear it down. And no dirt has been turned at the site of the Whitney, a $6.4 million, 28-unit condominium complex that is supposed to be built at the site of the former crime-plagued Whitney Young apartments.”

I really hope that somewhere in all this stimulus money being spent, a little will go to the KLD to help give residents basic health and safety services like better roads and lighting and getting rid of boarded up urban blight. It seems like the residents are really trying to invest in the area and with a little help from the local government and the theater, I think it’s a really big start.

The rest of the King-Lincoln Dispatch article is here

More pictures from the Lincoln Theater under the cut.

Agora definitely lived up to my expectations and then some. I found out later that this was the biggest Agora to date, which didn’t surprise me after going. When Morgan, Deanna, Nick and I got there, it was wasn’t too busy, lots of people but enough space to be able to look at the art and wander into artists’ studios to chat. I saw a few really nice photos and some awesome mixed media work. I got a huge kick out of a video submission too (of course I can’t remember the artist’s name now). It really made me want to submit something to the next Agora, though I’d have to work on the fine art quality to my photos. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of what I would even enter.

Anyway, we ran into Lisa and I only caught a glimpse of Missy as well as other spotting other Columbus celebrities (Terry from Project Runway, anyone?). It was clearly THE event to be at that night. By the time we made our way to the other side of JunctionView, the space was PACKED. It actually became difficult at some points to walk because the hallways were probably not meant to accommodate so many people, half who are trying to stop and admire the art and the other half just trying to squeeze by. Agora 6 definitely had the atmosphere of a carnival, with the women on stilts wandering through as well as a music stage outside and the of course, the fire dancing show, which was hands down my favorite part of the night. It was kind of chilly outside, so combined with my chronic habit of under dressing, I was freezing every single second I was outside. So, I didn’t get to see much of the outdoor acts or vendors, but I made an exception for the fire show, especially since I warmed up once the dancers got going because of the heat they were giving off. The fire show seriously made me want to reconsider my career path. Maybe Deanna and I will practice and become a 2-woman show. Look for us on the live arts stage at Comfest next year

In retrospect, I wish we had either gone to the preview show on Friday night, or come earlier in the day on Saturday to enjoy just the art and then come back later to enjoy the live events, which were worth their own time. I saw some suggestions on the Columbus underground thread that Agora become a 2-day event in the future, which I whole-heartedly agree with. Hopefully more volunteers will step up (I’d be willing to do it!) to make that happen. And now that school is winding to a close, I will definitely be attending as many JunctionView/Couchfire Collective events as I can. Here’s the link to the CU story that used some of my photos, though for some reason they seemed to turn out a bit more washed out then what I shot, not sure why.

In other news, I’m really pulling to have 99% of my thesis drafted by Friday so I can email my advisor to read over it for revisions and suggestions before I have to hand in a final copy. I feel like my original draft was so raw that he couldn’t give me much of a real critique. I just want to make that he feels like I’m actually following the guidance he gave and not just effing everything up. It also looks like I may NOT actually have to have a committee meeting and orally “defend” my paper. Apparently the division that my studies are in does not require anything except to have my readers read and grade my final paper. But being in a slightly different program for “experienced professionals” may have different regulations, which makes no sense because you’d think people who have real jobs are used to making presentations and wouldn’t benefit from the extra requirement of having to defend, especially if it’s not required for normal daytime students. I emailed the office once again (I think I’ve emailed them approximately 43583490588485545 times in the past week) so now I’m back to waiting. I would be so ecstatic if I don’t have to try to schedule 2 professors who are impossible to get ahold of to be in the room at the same time as well as trying to beg for some time off during the day so that I can bus to campus and have this “meeting”. It also means I would probably get a few more days to work on my paper. BLAH. Luckily, for better or worse this will be over by Tuesday May 26th (well not for worse because then I’ll have to pay another $1400 for another quarter at OSU to finish this thing, but we’ll pretend that it’s not even a possibility, ok?).

Here are some pictures of our neighborhood I took on a walk with Morgan last weekend. You know. Instead of doing my thesis. \m/

Definitely a highlight was the CupcakeCamp Columbus event at Surly Girl Saturday afternoon. We bought tickets a while ago, which was good because it ended up selling out pretty quickly. Morgan, Deanna, Brandie and I signed up to be tasters in the first session, which was held in the back room at Surly Girl.

After handing in our tickets, we walked into the room and my jaw literally dropped. It sort of reminded me of the scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where they all walk into the magical candy land room. There were trays and trays of cupcakes everywhere, and I got a toothache just looking it. Everyone kind of hung to the back until someone finally said “ok guys, start eating!” And then my greedy side surfaced as I grabbed for every cupcake within reach, except for the meat ones (Sorry Elvis and Pretentious Pork). I managed to eat 3 or 4 before my stomach seized up and I had to down some complimentary coffee and pop. I pretty much gave up after the first rush and spent the rest of the time taking photos of the cupcakes and goofing off with Brandie and Deanna.

We met some nice new people too and Lisa appeared too, since she had entered 2 different kinds of mini-cupcakes (her lavender ones ended up winning best vegan cupcake, congrats!).

My favorite cupcake hands down was the Lemon Rosemary cupcake. I love lemon flavored anything and the frosting was so ungodly good. I think I actually ended up eating 4 of those :-X

Probably the best part of the whole event was when they announced that we could take home doggie bags of the leftover cupcakes. I almost peed my pants! So I proceeded to fill a takeout box full of cupcakes. We tottered out into the daylight an hour later, totally stuffed and in the beginning stages of sugar coma.

On a photo note, this is obviously not my best work ever. Even using the fastest lens I own (50mm f/1.4), I was still shooting at 3200 and getting blur. The lighting at Surly Girl, while awesome for drinking and hanging out with friends, was not ideal for getting crisp, evenly colored shots. I debated using flash but I didn’t want to be that obnoxious girl who blinds everyone as she takes 10,000 photos. I heard rumblings of them holding this at a bigger venue next year and maybe there will be better lighting. But overall I can’t complain about stuffing myself full of delicious cupcakes for only $5, which went straight to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank.

I also got to see and hang out with some long lost friends Saturday night too, which was nice, though it was a lot colder outside than I thought it was going to be and therefore was severely under-dressed.

Also, in a fit of stress, I cleaned most of the house yesterday and instead of working more on my thesis, I researched photo trips to New Zealand. I found a reputable-looking company called Capture New Zealand that was getting rave reviews from fellow photographers in different forums and decided to put a down payment on a trip for late November and early December. The tour I want is a 15 day trip through the South Island and basically addresses all my biggest fears about traveling to New Zealand alone like transportaion, traveling alone and finding photogenic spots. From everything I was hearing, there isn’t much in the way of inter-country transportation (like a train system) and basically your options are renting a car or booking vans or buses that go town to town, neither of which sounded appealing. I was also not really finding the information I wanted from guidebooks and lonely planet guides about the most photogenic areas of the country, or if I did see a mention, it was always for something on the South Island, which was not where my roommate was going to be and seemed even more daunting to navigate. After going back and forth in my mind about it all night, I decided to just do it and pay the deposit for the trip. I received receipt of my payment but not any sort of confirmation from the company, so I sent them an email this morning about it, hopefully I’ll get a response sometime in the next day or so. If everything works out, I’m really excited to do more photo tour based excursions to other countries. I’m actually not sure why I didn’t think of it earlier. So, I’m somewhat feeling more on track with photography once again. Hopefully I keep that momentum going this summer once I’m finally done with school (cross your fingers!)

More CupcakeCamp pics under the cut!

Sunday was my first experience at Wild Goose Creative, though I’d been hearing buzz about them in the last 6 months. For some reason I was under the impression they only hosted events for children, probably because the person I heard about Wild Goose from has kids and goes to the kid-oriented stuff. Through the magic of twitter (do I talk about twitter too much? TOO BAD!), I found out that @lisathewaitress was hosting a salt tasting at Wild Goose. I already followed Lisa on twitter because she has a lot of interesting posts about food and eating local, so I knew it was going to be really awesome. When we got to the space, which is on Summit, right where you turn off from Hudson, Deanna and I were surprised by how built up the area is now. When I used to live several blocks away, on 19th and Summit, this area was a total wasteland, the only viable business being a shady looking “convenience” store with bars over the windows. While the convenience store is still there now, there’s also the new location of Leeno’s Cafe (a hookah bar that used to be on King), a few new storefronts (maybe a consignment store I think?) and Wild Goose. I really like what the area looks like now and I’m interested to see where it’s going to go.

The space at Wild Goose is so nice; really bright, airy and calm.

We sat down at tables set with place settings of 7 different salts: Iodized salt, kosher salt, murray river salt, sel gris, himalayan salt, cyprus black lava salt and alder smoked sea salt.

Lisa talked a bit about each salt and there were fresh cut zucchini, grapefruit and bread with her home-churned butter to sprinkle the different salts on.

My favorite salt was probably a tie between the murray river salt and the alder smoked salt.  Murray river salt has a delicate flavor and a really lovely texture.  The alder smoked salt, on the other hand is really strong and tastes just like a campfire.  Lisa told us a whole list of things that we could cook with the smoked salt, but I just can’t imagine what veggie dishes I would use it on (do you like how I saw this as if I actually cook?). The cyprus black lava salt was the prettiest, I think. It formed in little black pyramids and was fun to roll over in your mouth while it melted. The pink himalayan salt reminded me of pebbles, very very salty pebbles and the sel gris was kind of a sea-flavored wet salt, and probably my least favorite.

Cyprus black lava salt and sel gris:

Himalayan salt and more Cyprus black lava salt:

more sel gris and murray river salt:

more murray river salt and alder smoked salt:

We also got impromptu lessons on how to churn your own butter (because Lisa’s was so amazing) and how to build a smoker and smoke salt at home. Also, I learned (and promptly forgot) how to thinly slice a grapefruit into slivers.

The whole night was just such a blast and I’m so glad we ended up going. I found out they have lots of reoccurring events, the salt tasting is actually apart of their “Too Many Cooks” series, which showcases different culinary seminars every month. I’m also really excited about a coffee roasting class that they’re doing May 23rd, which I’d really like to go to, if I get enough work done on my thesis by then. I highly recommend checking them out!

more photos of the event behind the cut

cut cut

I alternated between excitement and dread all day. I suspected that the crowd would be insane at the show, but I (naively) figured that since we had those special, golden tickets *cue Charlie and the Chocolate Factory music* that we would somehow be ushered in on a red carpet and squish and push our way to the front. However, after compulsively checking twitter for any updates on the insanity of the show, Robert Duffy and some guy on my list who works at CD101 informed me that Jack Daniels gave out 1500 coveted, shiny, “exclusive” tickets and that Skully’s capacity, of which I am intimately familiar, can only fit about 1/3 of that. Also, when prompted, I read the fine print of my ticket which not-so-clearly states that this in no way guarantees me entry to the event. *headdesk* So I began to obsessively plot the evening out accordingly.

After getting off work, we zoomed home and I tried to throw all my camera gear into an awkward, uncomfortable purse arrangement while at the same time trying to hipster myself up. I ended up failing both and stumbled out of the house at 6:30 in what can only be described as closely resembling the uniform for ladies of the night. It’s a good thing that I found out via twitter to get there 2.5 hours early (doors were at 8:30) because after we parked and hiked up to Skully’s, the line was already all the way past the concrete couch. Then began the wait. Luckily the weather was gorgeous and I ended up people watching and alternately, trying to cover my escaping bosoms and yank down my dress. (thanks, American Apparel!)

The line finally started to move forward at 8:15 and after getting stamped and receiving our free drink coupons, we ran to the bar because after having to endure 2 hours of listening to the most inane and moronic conversation around us, we needed a drink. Luckily I could still redeem my drink coupons for vodka tonics, because I was going to be very upset if I had to spend the night choking down JD whiskey.

I then had the bright idea that ‘Hey, maybe we should stand and sip our drinks at the front row of the floor!’, as opposed to stand milling around at the bar like everyone else. And voila, that is how we landed front row at the show. There was already sort of a crowd near the middle, but I was able to wedge myself in slightly off the left side and set up shop with my obnoxious camera and flash. The first band went on, I think it was the Other Girls, and they were ok. Not really my cup of tea but they had good presence and sounded pretty polished.

By this time, Skully’s was absolutely PACKED. More packed than any show I’ve ever been too, including Diplo or Matt and Kim. Like, impossible-to-twist-my-body-around-to-even-see-how-packed-it-was packed. I didn’t get very hot like other people complained. Probably because I was dressed like a uh, er, ahem. Also in the middle of the opener’s set, I sort of got squeezed out of the front row railing position so I kind of half asked and half pushed my way back in. After the Other Girls set was over, the one dude, who seemed really pissed to be there (no kidding, scowl on his face the whole time, didn’t move his body an inch) leaned over and asked me who I was with. Now, I had actually been expecting this question, mostly because I get it a lot when I carry my giant camera crap around, but also because I was kind of pushy and I’m sure expected me to be someone of importance. I had actually even prepared a lie in my head, something about “…working for the Columbus Alive” or some such bs. but because I’m a horrible liar I ended up word vomiting that I did it mostly for fun. To which he promptly replied “Had I known that, I wouldn’t have let you in!” which is bs because I had been there pretty much up until that point regardless.

ANYWAY, there was too much time between the sets, though I appreciated that there was only one opening band. Every time a song would fade over the loudspeaker the crowd would get really excited and start moving and screaming until another tinny pop song came on. Finally the guys came out to a crowd that went absolutely crazy. It was such an exhilarating feeling to be in the middle of all the energy, especially right up in their faces.

The whole set was really awesome and they kept it mostly upbeat and played both of my all time favorite BK songs. I think I lost it when I heard Dan play the first notes of “Your Touch”, see for yourself:

Here’s “Strange Times” too, just for fun times:

I was also “that annoying girl who takes a million flash photos”. I really thought that Pat or Dan were going to jump off stage and smash my camera. Luckily they didn’t and I managed to squeeze off a couple half-way decent shots.

As a photography aside, I was really frustrated with how most of my photos turned out. I felt like I couldn’t win: without flash my photos resembled blurry ameoba blobs and with my flash, they were too contrasty. I talked to Bryan, my resident self-taught photo guru and he suggested using fast prime lenses (like my 50mm f/1.4 or 85mm /1.4) as opposed to my 24-70 f/2.8 zoom. Also, I’ll admit that even with my awesome sensor on my camera, I’m still totally uncomfortable to shoot above 1600, even though the D700 can shoot pretty noiseless at extremely high ISOs. So next time I’ll play around with my 50mm, no flash and like, 3600 ISO.

Anyway, the whole show was amazing, though I’m sure if we didn’t have front row spaces, I wouldn’t be saying quite the same thing.  So yeah. Probably the best show I’ll see all year.

Some reviews and more photos under the cut:

Here’s The Other Paper review, surprisingly John Petric finds nothing to bitch about!

Here’s a review from MetroMix Columbus, who took the lovely (barf) photo of Morgan and I at the show:

Since it’s a Monday night, I’m thinking I’ll be giving Morgan all my free Jack Daniels coupons and concentrate on photoing the hell out of the event. Oh yeah, I’m bringing my camera junk. I wonder if bringing my tripod would be overkill, hmmm.

while my helpers look on….

well, let’s hope my rabbits never learn how to log onto a computer and find out where this place is. I have a feeling they’d be making a break for it.