Become a Part of the Campaign to Save the Franklin Theatre (Franklin, Tennessee)
Topic: Arts
8:08 am EDT, Sep 11, 2008
The Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County announces the selection of Hastings Architectural Associates, LLC as the architectural firm for the rehabilitation of the historic Franklin Theatre and the adjacent building that in recent years was a second small theatre. These two historic buildings on Franklin’s Main Street will become a multiuse entertainment facility for film, performances and events.
The project team will include Hastings for architecture and interior design, Westlake Reed Leskosky for mechanical, plumbing engineering, and electrical engineering. Westlake Reed Leskosky will also work with Hastings as the specialty consultants for the theatre planning and theatre technical, audio and visual, theatrical and custom lighting and acoustical consulting.
Hastings was founded in 1985 and has 37 full time professionals including 14 LEED accredited professionals. The firm recently had extensive involvement in the design of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Westlake Reed Leskosky projects include the Strand Capitol Performing Arts Center in Pennsylvania and the Tennessee and Bijou Theatres in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Hastings offered pro bono work when the project was first announced. They have provided preliminary concept plans for fundraising purposes. Westlake Reed Leskosky was selected by the League of Historic American Theatres to work with the Heritage Foundation and local stakeholders to identify the uses that the buildings can accommodate.
The Heritage Foundation purchased the Franklin Theatre buildings in the fall of 2007 with a loan from Emily Magid. This spring, Cal Turner offered to donate 1 million dollars to the Save the Franklin Theatre project if the Heritage Foundation could match the gift. This challenge was met when Magid pledged 2 million dollars to the project. The cost of the total project is approximately 7 million dollars. According to David Garrett, president of the Heritage Foundation, the selection of the architectural firm is an important step. Jay Franks, a member of the theatre Construction Committee says “we are now in a position to select a construction firm to do the work.” Fundraising for the project is ongoing and anyone interested in contributing to the project should contact the Heritage Foundation at 6155918500 or make a donation at www.savethefranklintheatre.org
New Kids on the Block and Lady GaGa Tell Us She's a Big Girl Now
Topic: Arts
2:32 pm EDT, Aug 27, 2008
I'm sure to catch flak for this, but I've been waiting for this song for about 5 months now. And with New Kids on the Block's comeback album, The Block, scheduled for release it a week, we kind of figured it was inevitable that their mighty ship might spring a leak.
Overall, I liken this album to Britney's Blackout. Sure it's not the greatest album in the world, but the [lack of] talents have gone and hired themselves amazing writers and producers to make it feel like an extremely solid effort. And if anything, you can dance the night away to it.
ha ha here is a tad dose of audio cheesy goodness!
Jamie Lidell has been releasing EPs or full-length albums for about a decade now, but his most recent album, Jim, hits all the right notes. Part funk, part soul, and a whole lot of “Minneapolis Sound,” Lidell helps revive one of the greatest eras of music. Check out this track:
Check it out... “Minneapolis” Great “Minneapolis” sound... :P
Robin McKelle’s “people” claim she’s inspired by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra, which immediately made me skeptical only because that seems too cliché. Almost any artist with a big voice backed by bigger horns has dibs on comparing themselves to icons of the 1940s. However, I apologize because I was wrong to be so skeptical; it's actually an ideal claim. The Boston-based diva is currently touring her big band jazz through Europe but is all set for a US celebration of her sophomore effort, Modern Antique, this August.
With rich horns, James Bond soundtrack quality vocals and that Nellie McKay esque mix of genres, McKelle brings a spicy presentation to the over saturated pop table. All of this and she holds a degree from Berklee and includes a position with the Boston Pops on her resume, giving her room to stretch into just about any place she wants to go.
While viewing Elbows (http://www.elbo.ws) I ran across this lovely smoooth 40's voice lass. If you like big horns and even bigger vocals, 40s style, check it out! :)
It s easier to prepare for Armageddon when you re stepping to that ragtime beat. According to Kofi Annan, the more that nuclear weapon states ...insist that nuclear weapons are essential for their national security, the more other states feel that they too must have them for their security . Despite this, the British goverment is pushing through plans for a new £25 billion trident missile. What would Gary Cooper say?
This original footage comes from the Protect and Survive series, commissioned by the UK government to show people how to prepare for nuclear war.
When I was young, my father was transferred, and our family moved from western New York State to Raleigh, North Carolina. IBM had relocated a great many northerners, and, together, we made relentless fun of our new neighbors and their poky, backward way of life. Rumors circulated that locals ran stills out of their toolsheds and referred to their house cats as "good eatin'." Our parents coached us never to use the titles ma'am or sir when speaking to a teacher or shopkeeper. Tobacco was acceptable in the form of a cigarette, but should any of us experiment with plug or snuff, we would be automatically disinherited. Mountain Dew was forbidden, and our speech was monitored for the slightest hint of a Raleigh accent. Use the word y'all and, before you knew it, you'd find yourself in a haystack French-kissing an underage goat. Along with grits and hush puppies, the abbreviated form of"you all" was a dangerous step on an insidious path leading straight to the doors of the Baptist church.
We might not have been the wealthiest People in town, but at least we weren't one of them.
Our family remained free from outside influence until 1968, when my mother gave birth to my brother, Paul, a North Carolina native who has since grown to become both my father's best ally and worst nightmare. Here was a child who, by the time he had reached second grade, spoke much like the toothless fishermen casting their nets into Albemarle Sound. This is the thirty-year-old son who now phones his father to say, "Motherfucker, I ain't seen pussy in so long I'd throw stones at it."
Two master entertainers from England, and the line connecting them is palpable.
Hitchcock studied four Dickens novels at school: 'Bleak House', 'A Tale of Two Cities', 'Great Expectations', and 'Our Mutual Friend'. His favourite was 'Great Expectations', which may have inspired a theme of 'growing up' found in several of his 'picaresque' thrillers (such as North by Northwest). But it was 'Bleak House', notes Donald Spoto, which 'seems to have engraved itself on Hitchcock's memory. More than a simple treatment of political corruption and the injustices of the legal system (which the young Dickens and his family had experienced firsthand), "Bleak House" details a grim distrust in any public institution. This same sort of cynicism informs Hitchcock's films, where statesmen and judges and lawyers and policemen are venal, small-minded, driven by the most intense lust and greed, and not much better than the apparent villains.' (Donald Spoto, 'The Life of Alfred Hitchcock' [1983], p. 28. Spoto perhaps underestimates Hitchcock's personal detachment, but cynicism is certainly present in a work like The Paradine Case. See, for example, the note below on the sadistic, and lustful, Judge Horfield.)
The 5 minute film tells the story of a couple who spot each other across a crowded street and fall in love. Although everyone else in the world around them moves backwards, the couple moves forward as they find each other.
Ze Frank is a marvel. We love him to the depths of our little, bursting hearts (eww! gross!). And on this day, every year, our little bursting hearts splatter in pretty little explosions of love for this video. If you look closely, the viscera spell out 'Ze Rocks'. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Proper, if you haven't already, you really should go check out the archives of (the now sadly defunct) The Show....
