The Arts

National Parks Commemorate Martin Luther King Holiday with Free Admission and Special Events

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By Glynn Wilson – The National Park Service will host special events and provide free entrance to all national parks this year in honor of the Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 20. The Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. is an official day of service in remembrance of the man whose…

Robert Frost: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

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Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.…

Thinking About An Honest Life by the Singing River in Muscle Shoals

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By Glynn Wilson – MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. — Sitting beside the Tennessee River in McFarland Park by the Florence Visitor’s Center after spending a few days in the quad city area often just called “the shoals,” I cannot help but think about what might have been. What if I had stuck with the music business…

Jason Isbell, St. Paul and the Broken Bones to Support U.S. Senate Candidate Doug Jones at Huntsville, Birmingham Concerts Saturday, Dec. 9

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BREAKING NEWS: Grammy-winner Jason Isbell and St. Paul and the Broken Bones will perform FREE get out the vote concerts in support of Doug Jones on Saturday, Dec. 9, three days before the vote in Alabama’s special U.S. Senate election on Tuesday, Dec. 12. Jones, the Democrat, is in a neck and neck race with…

Photo Essay: A White House Tour

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By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – For the past three years I have chased a dream to visit the White House and stand on the same hallowed ground where so much American history has taken place in the nation’s capital. Finally, thanks to the helpful staff of Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, the Congressman from…

New York Times Hires Extreme Climate Science Denier

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By Joe Romm – Amidst backlash and subscription cancellations for hiring extreme climate science denier, colunnist Bret Stephens, the New York Times offered a stunning defense: There are “millions of people who agree with him.” With that ‘logic’, the Times could hire as a columnist former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke — or…

Photographer Rowland Scherman Was There

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He Shot Rock ‘n’ Roll Too EDITOR’S NOTE: We caught up with Scherman and got this story we ran on August 6, 2011 in The Locust Fork News-Journal. We re-run it here today because we are about to hook with Rowland again in New York on a trip to meet up with author and new…

Mardi Gras in Mobile Has Become a Circus

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By Catherine Bullock Rainey – Arts Editor – With the glamor of a Broadway show and the ambience of a carnival, Venardos Circus brings a whole new light to entertainment and the festivities of Mardi Gras. “We are proof that the circus is not coming to an end!” announced ringmaster and producer Kevin Venardos during…

Cirque du Mardi Gras Comes to Mobile Art Space

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By Catherine Rainey – Arts Editor – While Mardi Gras in Mobile holds its own captivating charm, another spectacle will take place during the long-standing tradition this year. In early February, Venardos Circus and Alabama Contemporary Arts Center, formerly Space 301, are collaborating by putting together a performance art piece for all audiences entitled Cirque…

Mobile Artist Alton Dwight Adams Dies of Injuries Suffered in Bike Crash with Car

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MOBILE, Ala. — Beloved local artist Alton Dwight Adams has died from injuries suffered on Dec. 13 when he was hit by a moving vehicle while riding his bicycle on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. He was 62. Adams was a familiar face to people who worked, lived, or played in downtown Mobile, according to…

Expedition of Rediscovery Western Journey Timeline

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By Glynn Wilson and Walter Simon – On a mission to investigate what’s going on with the pipeline protest in Cannonball, North Dakota and the privatization of the national parks out west, we departed from Mobile, Alabama on Friday, Sept. 23, and drove for about 8 hours to Jonesboro, Arkansas, where we hooked up with…

Follow An ‘Expedition of Rediscovery’ on the Way to Cannonball North Dakota

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“Art at its highest and nature at its truest are one.” — Knute E. Westerlind, the architect of Municipal Auditorium in Sioux City, Iowa, designed in 1938 and finished in 1950 By Glynn Wilson – CHAMBERLAIN, S.D. — From this vantage point looking out from the American Creek Campground, the Missouri River looks as blue…

Sugarcane Jane Plays Windmill Market in Fairhope Alabama

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By Glynn Wilson – FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Upon recently discovering the Windmill Market restaurant and bar in this artsy community on Mobile Bay’s Eastern Shore, I was urged to show up Tuesday night to get a glimpse of and hear the sound of something quite unique: A new dynamic duo out of Alabama by way…

Stolen Charles Darwin Letter Recovered, Returned to Smithsonian

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — A handwritten letter by Charles Darwin that was stolen from the Smithsonian Institution Archives more than three decades ago was recovered by FBI special agents and returned last week to the care of the Smithsonian. The letter, written in 1875 by the British naturalist and geologist best known for his theory of…

Artist to Perform WWII Japanese Internment Show Sunday

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Kimi Maeda’s solo performance, Bend, tells the true story of two men interned in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II: Maeda’s father, an Asian Art historian who suffered from dementia at the end of his life, and the subject of his research, Isamu Noguchi, a half-Japanese-half-American sculptor. Weaving together live feed projections…

Smithsonian Opens ‘Nation to Nation’ Treaty Exhibit in National Museum of the American Indian

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Watch the video interview – By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Independent curator Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee from Oklahoma living on Capitol Hill, is seeing a long-held dream come to fruition at the Smithsonian Museum on the National Mall. An ambitious project that really started in 1967 — but began…

The Art of Budget Cutting: Arts Orgs, Others Try To Compose a Response in Mobile

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By David Underhill – MOBILE, Ala. – Remember those photos from Pakistan several years ago? Squadrons of unruly lawyers in suits and ties, some with flowing wigs left over from British imperial days, wielding brief cases like cudgels in the streets to protest an insult to themselves and the constitution by autocratic rulers? Now picture…