Cover Story
When Loud Is Too Loud: Sensory Friendly Performances Meet Need
Amid bright yellow, hanging scarves and a deep red rope dangling from above the stage at The Kentucky Center’s Bomhard Theater, CirqueLouis artists welcomed guests to join them onstage. They had time, as the company wasn’t scheduled to begin “The Circus Show” for another hour. Performers were poised with hoops to spin, and others had…
Photos from Santacon 2019
The annual Santacon pub crawl brought a gaggle of Louisvillians dressed as holiday characters to several bars throughout Phoenix Hill and NuLu on Saturday. They included a range of traditional and themed Santa costumes, but there were also Grinches, elves and a few mash-ups of various Christmas characters that can to be described only as…
10 Things To Do Under $5 This Week In Louisville (12/16)
MONDAY, Dec. 16 Randy Santel at W.W. Cousins W.W. Cousins Free | 5:30 p.m. Randy Santel, a competitive eater and YouTuber with almost 1 million subscribers, is coming to Louisville to take on a customized challenge at W.W. Cousins. Come cheer him on as he devours another monstrosity for his channel. Metal Monday: Seventh Annual…
Vaping Blowback: Schools, lawmakers attack e-cig makers for teen vaping epidemic
JCPS’ Board of Education voted Dec. 10 to join other school systems in Kentucky and across the country that are suing e-cigarette maker Juul, claiming it has been marketing to teenagers and children. And Kentucky lawmakers have prefiled at least four bills for the upcoming legislative session with the goal to discourage teen vaping. The…
LEO Podcast #83: 99 Bottles, The Sexton from False Idol
On this episode of 99 Bottles, host Syd Bishop talks to False Idol Independent Brewers co-owner and brewer Shawn Steele about The Sexton, their robust Rye Abbey Ale.
5 Things To Do In Louisville This Weekend (12/13)
SATURDAY, Dec. 14 The Flea Off Market Holiday Pop-up Logan Street Market Free | 11 a.m.-5 p.m. It’s a special Flea Off Market: the last of the year, held on the second to last weekend for Christmas shopping and outside of the new Logan Street Market, which is also loaded with local vendors waiting to…
Explained: What Gov. Beshear’s restoration of felon voting rights means
I interviewed Daniel Nichanian of The Appeal, a national publication that focuses on criminal justice policy issues, about Gov. Andy Beshear’s decision to restore voting rights to people who committed nonviolent offenses and have served out their sentences. We looked at how this policy might work, what some of its pitfalls are and how it…
New life in retail hell: A Q&A with ‘Santaland Diaries’ actor Bear Brummel
Humorist David Sedaris’ snarky holiday classic “Santaland Diaries” features one grumpy retail worker recounting the horror of working as an elf named Crumpet during “the most wonderful time of the year.” For the last two years, New York-based actor Bear Brummel has played Crumpet in the stage adaptation at Actors Theatre of Louisville, a one-person…
Budget Forecast Bad… Light Up!
Former Gov. Matt Bevin is leaving behind a $1.1 billion deficit for Gov. Andy Beshear — and all of us. So much for being the hotshot CEO he bragged about for four years. Bevin’s budget director, John Chilton, sent a four-page memo describing the grim budget outlook to Beshear’s transition team and legislators last week.…
Why Rapes Go Unreported, Unprosecuted In City
I’m using my ?1000 words this week to plug the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting’s excellent examination of LMPD’s treatment of reported rapes. Notice I say “treatment” and not “investigation.” There’s a reason for that. KyCIR’s new podcast, simply called “Dig,” focuses on a case that begins (as many of these stories do) with a…
Is Kentucky A Red State or a Nonvoting State?
Kentucky had its most intense gubernatorial election in recent years last month. Both the official state Democratic Party and the state’s teachers organized aggressively against Gov. Matt Bevin. Bevin had his own powerful boosters — the sitting president and vice president of the United States came to Kentucky a combined four times this year to…
Could Vapers Swing The 2020 Presidential Election?
Brian Strietelmeier has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 2008. In 2020, the 34-year-old Prospect man might vote for a Libertarian or even Donald Trump. Why? Strietelmeier’s top political issue heading into 2020 is not healthcare, or border security or any of the other top issues that seem to have split the electorate. The…
Thorns & Roses: The Worst, Best and Most Absurd
Rose + Thorn: It Ought To Be A Crime Read the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting’s “Prosecution Declined” and listen to the podcast, which report that: “ … LMPD brings almost every rape case to a prosecutor to decide whether to make an arrest — sometimes before they’ve done much investigating. If prosecutors decline the…
Phantogram’s Dance Music, Beyond Pop
For over a decade, duo Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter have been altering the sound of pop to the point that their band Phantogram should be a new genre. The music is electronic with a gritty guitar, but the heft happens in the copious flow of overlapping beats. Barthel’s velvet voice provides a slight softness…
American Aquarium and two other concerts to catch this week
Crave On, Charles Rivera, Shutaro Noguchi Wednesday, Dec. 11 Kaiju Through thick experimental folk that is atmospheric and a bit ominous, Crave On is reminiscent of early The Velvet Underground or The War On Drugs, especially with the steady, direct vocal work. Composer Charles Rivera creates avant-garde jazz that could be the cinematic score to…
Record Review: Hazelfire — ‘Winter’
Winter, Hazelfire’s third full-length album released in 2019, can be incredibly serious about mental health issues one minute, then dripping with stylish satire from dark, captivating humor the next. It’s that juxtaposition, mixed with the trio’s ability to bounce from metal-ish horror punk to familiar-sounding alt-rock, that makes Hazelfire an idiosyncratic force. There’s a trail…
Record Review: The Cut Family Foundation — ‘Minutes Of Meeting’
With a focus on futuristic funk, The Cut Family Foundation turns in a diverse and sharp batch of songs with Minutes Of Meeting, a five-song EP that is the first entry in a series of planned shorter releases from the band. The album veers from traditional and dance-y, as the opening track “Back To It”…
Record Review: Wax Fang — ‘Repetition’
With Repetition, Wax Fang looks backward to move forward. The four-song EP is a collection of older songs that, for one reason or another, did not fit on prior releases. The cinematic scope of Wax Fang has historically skewed to unique narratives, and the exclusion of certain tracks makes sense when you have as much…
Record Review: Ted Tyro — ‘Reappears’
Throughout the years, Ted Tyro has shown a commitment to the craft of experimental pop songwriting. Through the sort of twee-indie that pays homage to both the loneliest Sebadoh songs and Mac DeMarco at his most demented, Ted Tyro’s latest EP is made up of short numbers with great hooks that eschew guitar bombast and…
El Mundo Brings Heat To Veggie
Mexican food is great for vegetarians and gluten-intolerants. One staple on Frankfort Avenue is El Mundo. We showed up before our friends and were immediately directed around back, down a short alley… only to discover an amazing space filled with heated, outdoor seating, a full bar and a packed patio. It was like crawling through…
Jasmine Asian Bistro, Extensive Chinese Regional Flavors
I still vividly remember the excitement of my first taste of Sichuan cuisine. We had to travel to New York City, San Francisco or Chicago to get such goodies back in the late ‘70s, but Sichuan, aka Szechwan, fare did get to Louisville finally, and for a decade or two, these spicy regional cuisines were…
A Final Farewell To The Butchertown Social
How’s the song go? “Sometimes you want to go, where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came … ” Sadly, we’ve seen many Louisville institutions come and go, closings that always have us reflecting on memories we made there and wondering what comes next. However, for many, the announcement of the closing…
‘Band’s Visit,’ A Compelling Masterpiece
From the beginning of the show and again at the end, we’re told of a band of musicians that visited Israel from Egypt but that: “You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.” It’s an odd way to preface a 90-minute musical, but, from the get-go, “The Band’s Visit” shows that “not very…
This Season, Give The Gift Of Great Books
It’s been a busy and bountiful year for the Louisville area’s literary scene. Now that we’ve entered the season when publishers and booksellers count on being noticed by potential readers (and the people who shop for them), there’s a staggering range of material newly available. Traditional print from the big publishing houses is far from…
Comic Book Reviews: ‘Folklords’ and ‘Creatures’
‘Folklords’ No. 1 Writer Matt Kindt and artist Matt Smith Review by Ashley Cornell, The Great Escape Louisville What’s magical about the fantasy genre (other than the magic) is the ability to take the many tropes and mold them into something completely new. This is what writer Matt Kindt has done in “Folklords,” the story…
Savage Love: Kink Monsters
Q: My husband and I (straight male/bi female couple) have been married 15 years. We are in our early 40s. When we met, he was inexperienced and crippled by shame from having grown up in an extremely sex-negative atmosphere. I have no hang-ups about sex and was happy to get him involved in some more…
