Big Guys
Troy Maynard was a guest on Big Talk back in December when the show was an eight-minute feature of the Daily Local News on WFHB. I’ve invited him back now that BT is its own stand-alone, half-hour program. You can hear him talk about his book, How to Raise Viking Children and Other Tales of Woe, this afternoon at 5:30pm on 91.3 FM.
Maynard is yoked to Catherine Stafford, Democratic candidate for Monroe County circuit court judge. Troy and I agreed not to mention his loved one’s candidacy on air, so I’m doing it here.
Maynard
That out of the way, Maynard is one of the world’s sine qua non characters. There’s room on this planet, apparently, for only one of him — and that’s not a pun on his mass, which rivals mine for enormity. He runs around calling himself a viking, much as I run around calling myself Big Mike. Each of us came to the conclusion years ago that, rather than curse our luck because we weren’t long, tall, slender swains who make people swoon, we’d play up that which we are — super-sized blocks of cartilage.
It has worked, I’d have to conclude, for both of us.
Back almost a decade ago, Maynard started posting Facebook anecdotes about being a big daddy-o to a now-trio of spawn whom he and the missus are raising as, in their words, free-range children. His posts became so popular on social media that he decided to turn the best of them in the aforementioned tome. It’s a hoot and so is he. His yarn about being congratulated on buying so much food from local charity booths at a county fair’ll make you titter. His recollection of nearly blowing up a square block as a college student in Terre Haute will make you gasp. (Spoiler alert: It was an accident — Maynard wasn’t, and isn’t, a wild-eyed, bomb-throwing revolutionary. Then again, there is a bit of a feral gleam in his eye.)
So tune in later this PM or wait until I post the link to the podcast here tomorrow.
▼
Every Body
Next week’s Big Talk guest will be Filiz Çiçek, artist-sculptor-filmmaker-graphic designer-photographer-dancer-singer-performance artist, who’s curating the Every Body Art exhibit opening Friday, August 3rd, at the Thomas Gallery on North College Avenue.
Çiçek
Çiçek splits her time between this holy land and Turkey where she serves as the Istanbul coordinator for The Feminist Art Project. On these shores, she has taught art, feminism, and cinema at a variety of college and universities. She’s back in Bloomington teaching an Indiana University drawing class. She came here nearly a decade ago to work on her MFA in sculpture and then her PhD in Central Eurasian Studies. She’s a longtime contributor to The Ryder, a political activist, and (natch) tireless make of art.
The Every Body show will feature LGBTQ artists. The show’s advance notice reads, in part: “The participating artists look at the human body and life experience from many different viewpoints: exploring identity, sexuality, movement, form and the transcendence of form.” It’ll run through August 31st. The opening coincides with next month’s First Friday fete.
Here, BTW, is the roster of artists exhibiting at the Every Body Art show:
- Brick Daniel Kyle
- Alexandria Hollett
- Rob Stone
- Jessica Hurt
- Smove G
- Margaret Belton
- Kelvin Berzon
- Javier Cordoan Otera (Puerto Rico)
- Dimosthenis Prodromou (Greece)
- Mia Be
- Jasper Wirtshafter
▼
Big Business
How about those Hopscotch kids? Jane Kupersmith and Jeff Grant couldn’t possibly have envisioned what they were getting themselves into when they opened their caffeine den at Dodds Street and the B-Line Trail almost exactly three years ago. Their empire now includes that original shop along with a smaller outlet connected to their roastery on Madison Street as well as the Rainbow Bakery at 4th St. and Rogers.
Now they’re hosting another grand opening of sorts tomorrow evening as they turn on their sparkling new taps and pour local beers at the Hop HQ on Dodds. The brew bash’ll run from 7-10pm Friday with suds from Function Brewing, Switchyard Brewing, Bloomington Brewing, The Tap, and Upland Brewing. The erstwhile coffee-only-house will still serve the life-giving morning drug every day and be open to all ages but also will sling beer daily until 10pm from now on.
Anyway, see you at the place tomorrow night.
▲