The Electron Pencil

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THE QUOTE

“Touch a scientist and you touch a child.” — Ray Bradbury

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SAINT RONALD SPENT LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR

I love bits of info like this. Deep thinkers like Ted Nugent, Rush Limbaugh, and John Boehner all would have us believe Barack Obama’s the most profligate president when it comes to spending our hard-earned tax dollars.

Hah!

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It really was He Who Has Been Assumed Into Heaven. And our “socialist” Commander in Chief? He’s been the tightest with a buck over the last five decades.

Lest you suspect this is misinformation from the Kremlin’s Commissar of Propaganda, it’s actually from that bastion of capitalism, Forbes Magazine (h/t to Giancarlo Nardini of Club Lago in Chicago).

Hehehe.

Of course, these are mere facts. Facts, as we know, are meaningless to the electorate of this holy land.

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NAILS, 90

A contingent of Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls is gliding down to Bedford this AM to pay respects to Nails Parton.

“Nails” Parton

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Early roller derby tough gal Esther Eileen Parton, nee Nail (she incorporated her maiden name into her rink moniker), died Tuesday. She pitched the elbows up and down the eastern seaboard in the late ’30s and early 40s, back when women’s roller derby resembled more a marathon race than a series of short-burst, two-minute jams.

She became the BHRGs’ elder stateswomen superfan when this town’s girl gang was just getting started. For home bouts, the Rollergirls set Nails up with her own special easy chair behind suicide seating.

Bloomington’s skaters have sent a special flower arrangement for the funeral. It’s heavy on BHRG colors, and the vase has been implanted in a vintage roller skate. BTW: Nails  and her fellow derby-ists wore wooden-wheel skates.

Delicate Flowers

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Speaking of wheels, dig those gams on Eileen. I bet that dame could move.

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BOOM-SHOCKALOCKA

Old Sol blew off a monster flare Thursday. Goddard Space Weather Lab geeks predict the gargantuan tongue of energy will hit the Earth today at 5:14pm, our time.

Burn, Baby, Burn

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If we’re awfully lucky and the skies clear, we may be able to see an aurora display late tonight and early tomorrow morning, thanks to the flare.

Astro-nuts say the flare — AKA, a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) — erupted from a sunspot that directly faced the Earth at blast time, meaning our rock will get the full dose of solar wind, magnetic field, and an extreme ultraviolet radiation pulse when the plume hits.

(You can find a video of the CME in a separate post below this one.)

Solar flare events can interfere with our planet’s electrical grid, GPS signals, and high-frequency radio communication. This CME isn’t expected to do appreciable damage.

BTW: Don’t pay any attention to New Agers and woo-woo enthusiasts who might claim the event will affect anything other than the electromagnetic spectrum here. But you’re too smart for that anyway, aren’t you?

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SUNSHINE SUPERMAN

By Donovan. It charted in late 1966 and early 1967. This vid features the album version of the song, complete with guitar solo.

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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.

◗ Showers Plaza, City Hall — Farmers Market; 8am-1pm

◗ Hoosier National Forest — Archeological Dig open house, see excavated farmsteads of the German Ridge community; noon-4pm

◗ Stable Studios, Spencer — Bluegrass festival 2012: The Travelin’ McCoury’s, The White Lightning Boys, Rumpke Mountain Boys, Flatland Harmony Experiment, New Old Cavalry, the Stuttering Ducks, The Seratones; 1pm-midnight

The Rumpke Mountain Boys

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◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Bloomington Storytelling Project, “The Shocks & Surprises,” true stories; 7pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — David Dwyer; 7-9pm — DW Brykalski; 9:30-11:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”; 7pm

◗ Boxcar Books — Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army production of “Donny Quixote!”; 7pm

The Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army

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◗ Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Musical, “Footloose”; 7:30pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — Musical, “You Can’t Take It With You”; 7:30pm

◗ Cafe Django — Jared Hall Trio; 8pm

◗ Buskirk-Chumley Theater — Film premier, “Found”; 8pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall — Ryder Film Series, “Elles”; 8pm

◗ Mike’s Music & Dance Barn, Nashville — Mike Robertson & Smooth Country; 8pm

◗ IU Memorial Union — UB Films: “The Breakfast Club”; 8pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Below Zero Blues Band; 8pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Chelsea Peretti; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series, “Gerhard Richter Painting”; 8:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Merrie Sloan & Friends; 9pm

◗ The Bluebird — Pam Thrash Retro; 9pm

◗ The Bishop — Soul in the Hole: Soul/Funk dance party; 10pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

• John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This  @#!%”; through July 30th
• Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
• Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
• Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
• Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

• Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
• “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
• Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
• Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
• “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
• David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
• Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
• Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
• “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:

• Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st
• Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th through August 3rd

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — “Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Closed for semester break

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

• “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
• Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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