

Cover Story
Two gunshots: A Louisville father’s plea
[Dean Walker recently lost two children to gun shots. Here is a two-part story. The first (directly below) follows how he is using activism to deal with loss. The second is an excerpt of a speech he gave in December.] The early morning is cold, the kind of cold that tightens your skin and stings your…
Our six favorite local songs from February
Vyva Melinkolyaky Soft Red Lights On Soft Red Lights, Vyva Melinkolyaky paints a picture, both musically and lyrically, with the lead single from her newest release, a self-titled album loaded with dreamy, shoegaze-leaning pop waves of blissed-out guitar and reverb-drenched vocals floating gently. In this love song there is an unmitigated joy in…
Tacoquest 2018: Where to find the best tacos in Louisville
Tacos are the perfect food. Some folks will argue that honor belongs to pizza. These people are mistaken. Dont get it twisted pizza is great. But tacos tick some boxes pizza just cant. Versatility, for instance. Almost any ingredient can successfully find its way inside of a taco, even ice cream. Conversely, there are…
10 things to do under $5 this week in Louisville (2/26)
MONDAY Does God Exist? A Creationist And Atheist Debate UofLs Gheens Science Hall – Rauch Planetarium Free | 7-8 p.m. Socrates believed debate was the best way to prove an ideas worth. Or in his words: Dont talk shit if you cant back it up. So in that tradition, a debate on the existence of…
Photos from the Gravy Cup
The flooding outside of Mellwood didnt stop flocks of people from eating biscuits drizzled in gravy. The 6th annual Gravy Cup competition was a face-off between chefs and family recipes, competing in the categories of traditional, non-traditional and vegetarian. Some of the amateur chefs brought recipes that have been passed down in the family for…
A Q&A with ceramicist Jason B. Burnett
Ceramicist Jason B. Burnett (mrbennyspotshop.com) is a cofounder of the Southern Crossings Pottery Festival (SXPF.org) on March 2-3 at Copper & Kings Distillery and Play Louisville. LEO: What type of artist are you? Jason Burnett: I consider myself an artist with a current focus on ceramics, inspired by printmaking and graphic design. What is your…
LEO Podcast #61: Louisville Visual Art’s “The Stars Among Us”
LEO’s contributing arts editor Jo Anne Triplett spoke with Lindy Casebier on the Louisville Visual Art Honors “The Stars Among Us.”
A wonderland for gamers: The Louisville Arcade Expo returns
It would be easy to pessimistically speculate that the Louisville Arcade Expo was put on by some faceless company looking to make a quick buck, but that couldnt be further from the truth. Three local, independent co-founders Joe Stith and brothers Matt and Jeremy Fleitz started the expo seven years ago to recapture…
5 things to do this weekend in Louisville (2/23)
FRIDAY Moonlight Screening with Talkback The Floyd Theater $3 | 5 and 8 p.m. If youve already seen Black Panther, and you’re looking for other notable films starring people of color, join The Floyd Theater for its series Black Films Matter. This Friday features a screening of Moonlight, followed by a discussion of the film…
The State of Black Louisville 2018
The State of Black Louisville 2018 report, produced by the Louisville Urban League, is not a dense compilation of numbers and charts and footnotes and promises. It is a collection of over 40 essays on jobs, justice, education, health, housing and more, written by experts from within the city. Its comprehensiveness is eclipsed only by…
Thorns & Roses: The Worst, Best & Most Absurd
Thorn | GOP = More Shootings Pssst… Want to know a secret? If you want more, better gun control, vote Democratic, because the GOP will continue to blame mass shootings on everything but guns. Take Gov. Matt Oblivious Bevin, who said video games are the cause: There is zero upside to any of this being…
auralgamiSOUNDS celebrates three years with concerts, compilation
The DIY record label is throwing a three-day, 12-band event auralgamiSOUNDS, a local DIY record label led by JC Denison and Matt Dodds, hits genres all across the map, which is evident on Kirigami, a 14-song compilation that marks the companys third year of existence. Ranging from the garage rock of Cereal Glyphs, to the…
Brett Dennen talks about his new record, ‘Let’s ’
Northern California singer-songwriter Brett Dennen has many passions. And he enjoys incorporating those passions into his music, such as environmental activism, skiing and winemaking. The 38-year-old just released a five-song EP called Lets less than a month after wrapping up his annual Lift tour series a month-long tour in January, during which he performs…
Sonic Breakdown: Sasha Renee ‘My City’
[LEOs biweekly Sonic Breakdown column deconstructs a single song from a Louisville musician or band.] Sasha Renees confident, Kendrick Lamar-like cadence machine guns in My City with a dark, but jam-worthy, mid-90s backbone, as she contemplates her place in Louisvilles sharp and growing hip-hop scene. It aint all about fame and money / Thats why…
‘Red,’ thrilling theater, beautiful writing
At the beginning of John Logans 2009 play Red, a young man enters the studio of Mark Rothko. Its clear from his diffident manner and formal dress that hes a supplicant, a candidate for a position. And what happens next is perhaps the most riveting job interview in the history of drama. Rothko faces the…
New Speed show leans into feminist relevance
I recently saw a fashion ad with a model wearing a T-shirt that stated, Why have there been no great women artists? I thought that had been settled already. The question was first proposed by art historian Linda Nochlin in 1971. Since then, its been realized there are many great female artists we just…
Comedian John Iavarone: ‘When do I get to be a jerk?’
Comedian John Iavarone survived a childhood as the only boy in a house with a single mom and four older sisters. I was 12 years old still waiting to get my period, Iavarone recalled. This wise-cracking, joke craftsman also brings a physical act (handstands!) that has made him popular at clubs, colleges and casinos all…
Øskar’s, a delightful taste of Scandinavia
How is Øskars Slider Bar delightfully different from just about every other eatery in town? Uff da! Its light, amusing Scandinavian vibe sets it geographically and culturally apart from all the local restaurants that fake a drawl while frying chicken and simmering grits. Even the good folks from Top Chef, announcing their plan to highlight…
New kid in town, and try the Ebony
Remember when St. Louis-based Schlafly Beer seemed to be the dominant craft beer in Louisville? We see the out-of-market beers come and go all the time, with Floridas Sweetwater and Californias Lagunitas finding their way into taps and retail outlets here in the past year or two. Why those breweries and not another? Well, its…
Ask Minda Honey: Should I Open the Door to More Partners?
In a relationship or life jam? Lemme unstuck your life send your questions to: AskMindaHoney@leoweekly.com. Minda, I wanted to know your thoughts on open relationships. Do people have open relationships because it is a way to give permission to cheat? As we saw on the show Insecure, there are a lot of questions. What…
Savage Love: Bi & Biphobia
Q: Im an 18-year-old female. Im cisgender and bisexual. Ive been in a monogamous relationship with my cisgender bisexual boyfriend for about a year. Im currently struggling with a lot of internalized biphobia and other hang-ups about my boyfriends sexuality. I dont know if Im projecting my own issues onto him or if Im just…
‘Black Panther,’ a triumph
Ive told friends before that I was taught to read by two people, my mother and Jim Shooter, the former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. I went from Green Eggs and Ham to Shooters penned Secret Wars in what feels like a mere month, and Ive never looked back in regards to comic books. I love…
Mayor loves the donor class, solar hypocrisy… blame voter apathy
Bloody hell, that Greg Fischer is a right jammy git. What, has he lined up a two-hundred-grand-a-year teaching gig at UofL too? Stone me, thats some sweet grift there. As extraordinary as that story is and props to Insider for breaking it I am in fact referring to Fischers trip to India to…
‘Enough is enough’
Anytime is the right time to talk about making schools safe from guns. After the Las Vegas mass shooting was the right time, because maybe we could have prevented the shooting in a Marshall County, Kentucky high school. After Marshall County also was the right time to maybe prevent the shooting in Parkland, Florida. In…






