Hey, you! Yeah, you. That was a great idea you had in the meeting this morning. No, don’t give me any of that negativity. I won’t hear it. It was a great idea and that’s that … and (get this) you are one smart cookie. I mean, you really know your stuff and I am glad to know you.
“Run! Run! As fast as you can! You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!” – From “The Gingerbread Boy”
Each Thanksgiving holiday since (well, we’ll get to that), the President of the United States has officially pardoned one lucky turkey, allowing the bird to live out its remaining life on a turkey farm. It should come as no surprise that this wasn’t always the case.
For those who choose to observe it, it’s “spooky time” again. Each year in October, many of us do our darndest to scare the willies out of each other and ourselves. We watch scary movies, visit “haunted” houses, and search for the most frightening costumes with the goal of experiencing a little bit of that most universal of emotions: fear.
For 15 years, Steve Wood displayed his exceptional, detailed portraits at Art at the Market. “I was a vendor and artist there since 2006,” he remembers. “In 2009, I became board president and I continued in that position until April of 2021.” His dedication to the gallery was appreciated by his fellow artists. Recently, he left the gallery and his position due to new family and work obligations; but there was one more thing he wanted to do. “I’ve been painting murals for nearly 25 years and when the gallery moved to its new location in the Flint Farmers’ Market, an opportunity presented itself.” A new room for the gallery was built, complete with a blank wall – or to an artist, a canvas. “It was a giant space and I felt it would be a sin to leave it empty,” he explains.
In August of 1969, over 450,000 people from all walks of life met at a small dairy farm in Bethel, New York for a music festival billed as “three days of peace and music.” No one who attended – not the audience, promoters or musicians – could have anticipated it becoming a defining moment in the history of a generation. The festival was besotted with problems, from traffic jams to tumultuous rainstorms and shoddy equipment; but that never dampened the spirit of peace, love and harmony radiated by the audience. In a time of political and social strife, Woodstock was an example of unity and hope.
Are you ready to jump? On July 20, at 7:39am and 13 seconds (EDT), it is planned for everyone in the entire world to jump simultaneously with the goal of changing Earth’s orbit slightly to abate climate change.
During WW2, simple calculating/tabulating machines including the first computer facsimiles were used to catalog soldiers, people and munitions by the use of punch cards and other apparatus. After the war, the United States Army developed the ENIAC system and used it to calculate artillery firing tables and perform functions related to thermonuclear weaponry. Weighing nearly 30 tons, the unit utilized 18,000 vacuum tubes, numerous diodes, relays, resistors, etc. At a cost of $5 million of today’s money, it was too expensive and cumbersome to reproduce for personal or independent business applications.
Imagine if you will a city down on its luck – holding on to the grand days of its past when parades filled the streets with cheer and every hand was full, now left forgotten, abandoned by prosperity to fend for itself. For the people in this city and its hard streets, hope is hard to come by, a catastrophe seemingly waiting around every corner. Now cue a movement, a feeling, a breath of fresh air full of inspiration and the world begins to change. The flowers grow, the children learn and the sun shines highlighting a path to a new horizon, a new destiny. What happens when a community walks that path together? Come with me on a voyage through another dimension – a dimension of sight, a dimension of sound, a dimension of mind. A voyage to a place without prejudice, fear or poverty.
Spring is in the air. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, people are venturing outdoors and flowers are blooming. For humans, it’s easy to know when spring has arrived. We feel the warm temperatures, we hear the birds, smell the flowers and see the changes all around us and it must be much the same for most animals. But, what of the plants? How do they know when it is time to emerge from the earth and bloom? What external or internal cues let them know when spring has arrived?
What’s your favorite color? Is it a primary like blue, red, yellow? Or something more exotic like cerulean, goldenrod, scarlet or the infamous (and now retired) yellow-green? Everyone has an answer to this question going as far back as they can remember and it’s all due to a pack of small wax sticks given to us as toddlers with the directive to “stay inside the lines.” As a society, the majority of our introduction to color and the myriad of shades and hues that exist came in the form of crayons and, once acquired, no blank piece of paper, wall, sibling or t-shirt was left unmarked. As the tool of choice for child artists everywhere, the crayon reigns supreme. And, even as an adult, I’ll bet you have a small box of crayons somewhere at home.
Before 1960, the National Football League (NFL) was the absolute dominant football league in the United States. So, when a small group of businessmen approached the league with hopes of starting new franchises and were turned away, the only thing they could do was start a league of their own. They launched the American Football League (AFL) in direct competition with the NFL. To the NFL’s surprise, the AFL not only stuck around but began to prosper. Six years later, the two leagues came together and formed an agreement to merge by 1970.
