Indianapolis Theatricals

 Indianapolis has a theater scene which includes New Plays Indy — The New Harmony Project. Now, if I could find a way to see some of it. It looks like local talent is also writing plays that are produced. 

Meet six historical reenactors bringing Indiana history to life.

Shareef played one of the first characters for Freetown Village, a history museum that tours around the state. It was founded by Ophelia Wellington in 1982.

He played Isaiah Cuffee, a barber from the year 1870 in Indianapolis. Wellington developed the character using U.S. Census records and books. Wellington remembers Shareef shaking on stage at first, but bringing the character to life, whom she said he emulated, anyway.

From there, Freetown created other composite characters, including teachers, ministers and attorneys.

***

Elaine Sholty was introduced to the living history scene in the early 1990s. She and her husband were leaving a movie theater after catching “Gettysburg,” featuring Richard Jordan and Martin Sheen. On the way out, they passed a group of Civil War reenactors with a canon prop.

The couple began doing reenactments together as a hobby. Sholty portrayed northern and southern women of the Civil War era in her mid-century day dresses — at places such as Crown Hill Cemetery. At a gun salute, she met members of Daughters of the American Revolution, where she is now the Indianapolis chapter president.

***

Most elementary school students on field trips to Conner Prairie come into contact with historical interpreters. Interpretation coordinator Anne Coffey plans all programming on the historic grounds at the museum in Fishers. She also plays a few characters such as Mrs. Whitaker. Mrs. Whitaker is loud and outgoing, and her husband owns a general store set in 1836.

Coffey said all of the characters in Prairie Town are composite characters, meaning they’re not based on one real person, but a mix of facts and of perspectives of people who lived in Hamilton County during the 1830s.

***

Actors Donnice Robinson and Tracey Wynn met in 2019 while working as characters in the Madam C.J. Walker exhibit at the Indiana Historical Society. Wynn played Madam C.J. Walker, and Robinson portrayed Candace Pinkston, who was one of Walker’s sales agents.

When the exhibit closed, the duo didn’t want to see “those people go to sleep.” In 2022, they founded Soulful Journeys of Women. The company has a contract with the Indianapolis Public Library to perform History on Stage.

***

Tristan Ross has always been a “history dork.” Even his email address calls on the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe known for making the most accurate astronomical observations before the invention of the telescope. He described his previous role as an interpreter and facilitator at the Indiana Historical Society for eight years as “a spoonful of sugar that helped the lesson go down.”

“For the past decades, the humanities have been an academic punching bag ever since STEM became a hot button thing. There is a lot of wisdom to be gleaned from what has happened in the past,” he said.

 

 

 

 

   

Rock It!

 No one can be serious all the time. It will get you into a rubber room, or its federal equivalent.

 Rollin' Rock | Discogs - doing some research for a story and found the releases for Rollin Rock records. Probably just for the hardcore rockabilly fan.

 The Top Song From Every Year in the 1970s - okay, these are all but one truly embarrassing.

 

100 Greatest Drummers of All Time - some thought provocation here, as with any list. I would shuffle the top three. Ringo and Charlie Watts may have more influence over more drummers. Well, not the flashy ones.

 

‘Shane was rascality personified’: the Pogues on their late frontman, anti-Irish prejudice and the feud over Fairytale of New York (The Guardian).

Luck, fads, more than talent can make a career.

I never heard Nina Simone before I went to New Jersey. WXPN played her. Gone but deserves more attention than she gets around here. Take a look at Nina Simone, Langston Hughes and their forgotten creative collaboration.

The best covers:

 

 sch 10/4

 10/6

Yes, We Elected A Deluded Idiot Child To President

So we need to do something about it - vote Democrat in the midterms. The only chance we have is with a feckless donkey. Still, better than staying with an elephant rampaging and smashing what made America great. Time to close the door to the padded room for Donald J. Trump.

White House: Trump will not reimburse government for TV ads

New Brunswick’s Trade Ties with Maine Could Sway the US Midterms (The Walrus)

And now to really chill your guts:

There is zero doubt Hegseth and Trump want a military more loyal to them than the US Constiution. A glaring example is when Trump’s DOJ sought to prosecute six sitting members of Congress for reminding active-duty members of the military that they have an obligation to not follow “illegal orders.” Even though charges were ultimately not brought, Trump called the Democratic lawmakers--all who served in military or intelligence agencies --”traitors” and suggested the video was an offense “punishable by death.”

But what we are seeing is Hegseth transform the military not to reflect Trump’s values—but his own. The most glaring example is Hegseth’s efforts to turn the military into a right wing, devoutly Christian fighting force. We all know Trump doesn’t care about religion—but Hegseth--who belongs to a far right Evangelical church--proudly has a crusader cross tattoo on his chest and another Latin tattoo on his arm that translates into, “God Wills It.”

 Impeach Hegeseth.

sch 10/6 

 

Thinking: George Saunders on AI & Drew Calvert on Self-Help Books & Writing Is Hard!

 I did not mean to pair these two articles. Only the time I finished the first paragraph, I decided they belonged together.

Read  Model Behavior, an interview with George Saunders, if you want to know why we should not be using AI for writing and why writing matters. Maybe you will not agree with me that George Saunders is a genius, but there is enough common sense for those think about Saunders differently than I do.

Drew Calvert's Literature Is Not About You (Commonweal Magazine)is here because how he takes down self-help books relates in my mind with this bit of Saunders:

When I read a novel or story, what do I want? I want the writer’s full experience, as expressed in the subterfuge of a made-up story. I want her life experience, her aesthetic feelings (and even biases); I want that subtle record, that is there in her prose, of every book she’s read and where and when she read it, and how it subtly altered that younger version of her—how it moved her and changed the voice in her head—I want all of that, and I want it from a person. That’s its whole value, that it comes from another person. She and I are in communication....

What Calvert wrote was:

In May, during an audience at the Vatican, Pope Leo connected the practice of serious reading to the “culture of encounter.” I find this phrase useful for explaining what I value about the transfer of consciousness between an author and a reader or the deep sense of compassion one can feel for a fictional character. The problem with self-help is that in offering solutions, diagnoses, boundaries, and methods, it protects suffering readers from a genuine encounter. Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn calls that tendency in therapeutic culture “gnostic escapism.” In Ars Vitae, a book that attempts to wrest philosophy back from the corporate festival crowd and YouTube intellectuals, she makes a persuasive argument against that ancient heresy, which claims to offer access to a secret knowledge beyond the “hurly burly” of human experience. Gnosticism, or “knowingness” (the red pill, the life hack, the silver-bullet insight) “destroys revelation, and revelation is the necessary ingredient to transform the constitution of a self to a soul.” For Lasch-Quinn, the antidote is Neoplatonism. In particular, the work of Plotinus, who accused the Gnostics of arrogantly treating life as a puzzle they could solve instead of the mystery it is. The same accusation could be leveled against the authors of many popular psychology books.

Encounter. Experience. Communication. Life as a mystery. 

Several weeks ago, the instructor of my Friday class (my group “therapy”) mentioned he thought cars would be all self-driving in the near future. I have been chewing that since then. These two pieces seem supportive of my conclusion that we want lives without experience, without any need to learn skills, to be self-contained in our own fantasies, to have things done to us rather than us doing them. The world of Wall-E made flesh. That should be enough to make me queasy, but is not such a world the promise of AI? Could  AI be meant to be our ultimate self-help literature?

I will close with Writing forces your brain to discover what you really think (Big Think) and points I agree with and tie in with the preceeding.

Writing can be tedious. It can be tiresome to sit down with pen and paper. Your hand cramps. The pen bleeds ink. Or you start typing and notice your posture is truly and utterly poor. My grandmother would be horrified.

Orwell likened writing a book to a “long bout of some painful illness.” As Rose Horowitch put it in The Atlantic, writing “is not merely the act of transcribing fully formed thoughts—if it were, it wouldn’t be hard.” It instead “exposes flabby thoughts and shoddy reasoning. And the time and focus it takes to form thoughts into words, sentences, and paragraphs allow the author to make new connections and discover new insights.”

But the hard part of anything does something good for your brain. I saw it up close as a Spanish tutor. Someone was trying to recall the word for soldier, soldado. They couldn’t get it, and I wouldn’t give it to them. I asked them to think about what they were doing when they first learned the word. It probably took five minutes of this word being on the tip of their tongue, which is excruciating. There is a fine line between being a teacher and being an asshole.

***

Good writing forces logic. To write clearly for you, the reader, I have to be clear to myself first. Do I have a good thought process? Is there good logic? What counterarguments can people make against my points? Have I thought through my counters to those counters?

I often write about topics under the larger umbrella of wisdom, in the hopes of helping people live lives aligned with meaning and purpose. Well, what is wisdom? The psychologists Paul Baltes and Ursula Staudinger called it “an expert knowledge system concerning the fundamental pragmatics of life.” Monika Ardelt read that and said, essentially, no. Wisdom “should not be reduced to expertise.” It’s “an integration of cognitive, reflective, and affective personality characteristics.” One camp says wisdom is something you know. The other says it’s someone you are.

Oh, how I agree with wisdom is more than expertise. And I agree this is what we should be working on as human beings. This I came to by being unwise.

My own working definition, from scribblings back in August, argues that wisdom is the craft of living well — a skill and expertise in dealing with the fundamental, uncertain, value-laden (inevitable) problems of life — which, I realized while writing this, means that wisdom can be learned. Possibly true. Certainly a position to test. And ultimately a realization that I still don’t totally know how to define wisdom. Maybe those experts were on to something.

As I agree with this advice:

Write more often. Journal in some shape or form. Eat your word vegetables. You don’t need a perfect leather-bound book, the smell of rich mahogany, or the zen of Malte Marten handpan music to find five minutes to put words on a page.

This blog exists as my journal as well as a source of information for whoever deigns to read me. My writing projects in prison straightened out my thinking. What I write now maintains that streak.

 People need to be creative, doing otherwise stunts us. Seek wisdom because that belongs to humans. For all the vaunted abilities of AI, no one speaks of wisdom.

 

sch 10/4 

 

Indiana Politics - There's An Election Coming

 I assume since no one ever comments to these posts that they are not read. It's better than admitting this blog and its posts suck! This post feels especially useless. If anyone is reading me, I doubt they are from Indiana.

But I cannot help myself.

See, I am utterly opposed to changing Indiana's Bill of Rights on bail. First, it is unnecessary. What no one will mention is that if a judge and a prosecutor want someone to stay in jail before trial, then they will stay there. The bail could be cash only. Try to raise even a $10,000 bond if it is in cash. As Right to bail: Amendment asks voters to rewrite pretrial detention rules (Indiana Capital Chronicle) points out the stats do not show any need for this change. Please vote against this.

This feels like it ought to be more isgnificant: Former GOP lieutenant governor endorses Ballard in secretary of state race  (Indiana Capital Chronicle). Could this a reaction to Trump's gerrymandering stunt?

 I did post another article on this but when it comes to Rokita, once is not enough:  Indiana AG Todd Rokita sues disciplinary officials, alleging retaliation over political speech  (Indiana Capital Chronicle).

Finally, Indiana Voters - all the info you require for voting in Indiana.

Ah, well, maybe this will make it all feel better:

 

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Your Republican Party Doing What It Does Best

 Vance Says People Are Too Focused on “Little Things” Ahead of Midterms (The New Republic) - like how to keep paying the bills.

US judge finds law criminalizing noncitizen voting unconstitutional (Reuters).

Leibowitz wrote that under the US Constitution only states can set voter qualifications, not Congress. Every state requires US citizenship to vote, and Leibowitz said ​it was up to Florida, not the Department of Justice, to prosecute her for violating that requirement. 

"Can the State of Florida prohibit and punish the exact conduct Defendant Cox allegedly engaged in ​here? This has already been decided elsewhere and is not addressed here: Florida can and does," Leibowitz wrote. 

Trump, who falsely claims that fraud cost him the 2020 election, has said stricter enforcement of documented citizenship is needed for election integrity. His critics say the administration's highly publicized crackdown on noncitizen voting exaggerates a rare problem and could undermine confidence in election results.

 Trump team is now looking to see if DOJ committed misconduct in investigating Richard Nixon’s Watergate is just eaht Tricky Dick needs. Trump and the Republicans  have a fetish for rewriting history, don't they?

 sch 10/4

 

 

 

Yesterday I Went To Versailles

After liturgy yesterday, I decided on a road trip to Versailles. It was as much a research trip as a get away. I also intended to get in some fishing. That was the only failure of the day, the fishing. I left about 10 AM and returned after 6:30 pm. I was asleep by 8:30, my right foot went numb on the way back, and the rest of me had achieved a state of uncomfortable numbness by the time I got into the apartment.

I went down Indiana 3 to New Castle and then to Rushville. All territory I included in “Road Tripping”. I managed no photos until I stopped in Spiceland for a break and a Coke.

 

The intersection of Indiana 3 and US 40 (The Old National Road), and a bit of Dunreith.

My memories got a serious jogging after I left US 40 for Rushville. It is neither as flat or as straight as I recalled.

 I did not recall the big Diamond factory as I came into Rushville. The second factory looks different but I recall its position. Rushville's commercial park seems ambitious, if empty.

 

 

The fast food places and chain stores all seem to be on the north side. There is also the county hospital. 

After that, there is what might appear as Hoosier quaintness. It makes me think there was money here and might still be. 

 

Call me very surprised at finding a Japanese restaurant in Rushville.

Below this area begins what would be the town center - the city government offices, small shops, the county courthouse - if it were not so close to what is the south side of the city.

 This is where I got out of the car and took a short tour. Where I parked was in the block north of the intersection between US 52, State Road 3, and State Road Indiana 44. US 52 goes northwest to Indianapolis and southeast to Cincinatti. 44 goes east to Connersville and west to Shelbyville. The view from that corner:

 The castle-looking building is the Rush County courthouse. Lots of semi-trucks passed me heading south and north.

You can see the streets are empty. The antique shops were closed, but not the Radio Shack.

What makes Rushville historically significant, its most famous citizen:

 

I thought to eat at the restaurant that had been south of the courthouse on 3 next to the Flatrock River. Only the restaurant was now a park. I decided on eating at Greensburg. A quick bite.

What I think is the coolest shot I took all of yesterday.

 The road started to roll more, its straightness relaxed. I stopped only for this bit of strangeness.

 I tried snapping shots of Greensburg as I came into the city. These are of the area just south of Interstate 74. 

 I was looking for US 421. It was not to be seen. A frisson of anxiety as both road and scenery were unfamiliar. I assumed I was to the east of the courthouse area. That assumption was wrong, I was to the north. Not much activity around the courthouse square as lunch time approached, but the tree remains in the courthouse tower.

 Two things I did not capture with photos were another Japanese restaurant (is this because of the Honda plant in Greensburg?) and the Sinclair gas station (that came out too blurry). Sinclair is a brand I have seen since I was a little kid; my mother had a cousin working for them back then, so the name stuck in my brain. 

Heading southeast on 421 out of Greensburg:

 Only there was a detour that took me east to Batesville. Lot of cool stuff there, and I really regretted losing the battery before I ran into the town later from the east. The town seems growing, I saw plenty of new and rather attractive homes going up (probably expensive homes, too).

 Time forbid more shots. I left Batesville on State Road 229. This is the kind of winding road where you pay attention to the asphalt and obey the speed limits.

 Eventually, I got through to Osgood and back on 421. That was after Napoleon where I should have taken photos.

 I wound up eating at the Osgood Grub Company on my way back home. It is in the same location as a place where we ate during our family trips to Versailles. Definitely not the same menu, which is ala carte and a bit stiff, but their ribeye sandwhich was fantastic and I almost ordered a second.

The Tyson Methodist Church and the Tyson High School remain the same. I forgot how big the school is. I think my mother's mother graduated from Vesailles High School which was replaced by Tryson's school.

 My oldest sister might be surprised how Versailles now has a CVS, not quite as much Brigadoon as it was when we were little.

 

 Two places to eat and drink, but I got a photo of only one.

 They now have a government annex on the north side of the old courthouse that I could not get in one shot (new = 2012), and I swear the courthouse is now bricks instead of white wood.

 The jail looked the same:

 As did the cemetery:

 Where I found a new mystery. I was unable to find the graves for my mother's mother, her sister Betty or her other sister Mary Ellen. Somehow, I lost my grandmother and two aunts, and an uncle. Finding out more is the job for today.

I spent most of my time in Versailles at the local historical society. 

 

The fellow manning the place was helpful, but the books were more helpful. I solved a couple of mysteries - I held the wedding certificate of my mother's mother's parents' wedding certificate. I found an entry for the guardianship for my mother's mother's father; he got to Ripley County through his mother's family. My mother's father was living in Anderson when he married my grandmother in 1919.

But the camera's battery died in the cemetery. Time had run out for fishing. I left the historical society at 3:30. I came back on 421, taking the detour at Osgood (after that amazing ribeye standwich) to Indiana 129 to 44 into Batesville, and from there I chose Interstate 74 to State Road 3. This was 3:44 pm. Then it was a straight drive back home. It was almost 3 hours after I left Batesville.

I was surprised to see more Beau Bayh signs in Ripley county than in Delaware.   

And it has taken me about almost that same amount of time to get this post written along with attendant emails.

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