Ready Player OK

free every wednesday | Metro OKC’s Independent Weekly | march 21, 2018

OKLAHOMA IN MODERN POP CULTURE

BY GAZETTE STAFF

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inside COVER P. 22 Oklahoma’s appearances in popular culture are beginning to move beyond stereotypes and Western tropes into modern and near-future territory thanks to novels like Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, movies like Logan and shout-outs to Oklahoma City Thunder in hip-hop tracks.

By Laura Eastes, George Lang, Ben Luschen and Jacob Threadgill Illustration by Rod Whigham

NEWS 4 Health Lynn Health Science

Institute Alzheimer’s trials

6 City bikewalkokc

8 City immigration issues in OKC 10 Chicken-Fried News

EAT & DRINK 13 Review St. Mark’s Chop Room

& Bar

14 Feature poke comes to OKC

16 Event The Dude Abides OKC

18 Feature HunnyBunny Biscuit Co. 20 Gazedibles barbecue

ARTS & CULTURE 22 Cover Oklahoma in popular

culture

residence Marissa Raglin

24 Art Skirvin Hilton Hotel artist-in- 25 Theater Blood Relations at

Carpenter Square Theatre

Myriad Botanical Gardens

26 Culture Doggy Easter Egg Hunt at 27

Easter Services Guide

School student athletes receive scholarships

Edmond opens Vault 405 co-working space

28 Community Santa Fe South High

31 Community Citizens Bank of

32 Calendar

MUSIC 35 Feature Rei Wang

36 Event Ty Dolla $ign at Tower

Theatre

37 Live music

FUN 38 Puzzles sudoku | crossword 39 Astrology OKG Classifieds 39

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NEWS

Memory advancements

An Oklahoma City-based clinical trial firm is playing a role in Alzheimer’s research, but more volunteers are needed. By Laura Eastes

Alzheimer’s disease, the common progressive disease that destroys memory and other important functions, continues to make the top-10 list of killer diseases each year. Listed amongst heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke, Alzheimer’s stands alone as the only illness lacking a treatment option. And unlike the others, Alzheimer’s death rates continue to rise.

In Oklahoma, between 2000 and 2017, the death rate from Alzheimer’s increased 92 percent, according to data from the Alzheimer’s Association. Last year, Oklahoma City-County Health Department recorded Alzheimer’s as the eighth-leading cause of death among Oklahoma County residents.

Meeting Alzheimer’s acceleration is the steadfast effort amongst medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies to develop methods to prevent and effectively treat the disease. Efforts have caught the attention of federal lawmakers, who increased funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for Alzheimer’s the last two years, and the nation’s richest man Bill Gates, who is investing $50 million of his own money in startup ventures focused on the disease, among others.

One well-documented roadblock is hindering efforts: the lack of volunteers for clinical research studies.

“The NIH has said that the biggest issue we have with Alzheimer’s today is that we don’t have enough clinical volunteers,” Lynn Institute’s chief operating officer Carlos Blanco said.

The Oklahoma City-based, independent clinical trials firm conducts between 145 and 160 clinical research trials each year in different disease specialties, including Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s, which now affects an estimated 5 million Americans, including 63,000 Oklahomans, is a brain

disease that destroys memory and thinking skills. The first symptom is recent memories slipping away.

“We have studies. We have medication,” Blanco said. “But by not having enough volunteers, we are slowing down the process of development. If it takes two to three years to enroll [a clinical trial], now the process for approving that drug has been delayed by that same amount of time.”

Currently, through Lynn Health Science Institute, clinical staff is enrolling individuals for an Alzheimer’s study through Cambridge, Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company Biogen Inc. Like clinical trial firms across the country, Lynn sees a small number of volunteers participating in the compensated studies. The reasons vary from people’s perceptions or skepticism about clinical trials to a lack of awareness about such opportunities.

“If you were told that you had cancer, you would act immediately. There would be no waiting,” Blanco said.

“When you have Alzheimer’s, you don’t have that same sense of urgency even though you should. You should try to stop the disease or slow down the progression of the disease as soon as possible. Once you’ve lost [memory], we know it is hard to get back. That’s what we are trying to get folks to understand: If you have symptoms early, react early.”

Examining the brain

Alzheimer’s clinical trials take on all forms, from diagnostic studies to prevention and quality of life studies. At Lynn, the Biogen clinical trial is built on the theory that the disease is caused by the buildup of a sticky protein called beta-amyloid. The protein forms plaque in the brain that damages and destroys brain cells.

“The theory behind these two studies

Image Bigstock.com

is to use [Biogen’s] medication that shows, at least in earlier clinical trials, good success in dissolving the beta-amyloid plaque and keeping whatever is in the cerebrospinal solution from solidifying on the brain tissue itself,” said Carl Griffin, a physician and principal investigator of the Alzheimer’s clinical trials at Lynn. “What we are hoping to find — and that’s the other part of the trial — is getting an idea of this thought that beta-amyloid plaque is the main culprit.

If we can dissolve it, will this allow the person to be at their current level of mental function or will they be able to gain previous mental function levels that they hadn’t had in quite a while?”

There is a lot we can find out, but the only way we can is through clinical trials.

Karen Waddell The drug, which is in phase two of clinical trials at Lynn, is given to patients once a month during the five-year study.

The trial is a double-blind study, meaning neither participants nor Lynn staff know whether a patient receives the medication or a placebo. Regardless, the volunteers receive monthly health assessments, including PET brain scans, and one-on-one time with Griffin and a coordinator, who is available 24/7. The study also requires caregivers to participate, as Lynn staff analyzes them too.

A study participant can drop out of the trial at any time.

Reasons to hope

While there is no cure for Alzheimer’s, researchers have learned a lot about the disease in recent years. There have been some recent flops in general Alzheimer’s research, but the overall picture is promising. Currently, there are US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)- approved drugs on the market treating the disease’s symptoms. left Karen Waddell | Photo provided right Physician Carl Griffin, who is a principal investigator at Lynn Institute, is currently working on Alzheimer’s clinical trials. | Photo provided 4

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“I think so many people think it’s hopeless,” Lynn president/CEO Karen Waddell said. “That’s what we were told for a long time.”

That’s not the case anymore.

Recently, a caregiver participating with their spouse in the trials said to Lynn staff that the experience kept their family’s spirits high while fighting an incurable disease. Because of the monthly Lynn visits, they’ve received advice about what to ask for in terms of Alzheimer’s care from their regular medical providers. They feel confident and don’t fear the disease.

It will be volunteers like the caregiver and their spouse playing a substantial role in future Alzheimer’s breakthroughs, Waddell said.

“There is a lot we can find out, but the only way we can is through clinical trials,” she said. “People of all economic straits come to participate and recognize that it’s not necessarily a great way to help themselves, but helping the rest of humanity.”

As the sixth-leading cause of death in the country, many, including Alzheimer’s Association, see the disease as a public health crisis that will have a direct impact on caregivers, the economy and government funding spent on caring for Alzheimer’s disease patients.

As any caregiver would share, the disease exposes family and friends to considerable emotional, physical and financial stress. The number of Americans and Oklahomans living with the disease is growing, thus impacting younger generations who must step up to care for their loved ones, Griffin said.

“If you have a loved one that has symptoms of Alzheimer’s but you have no desire to support them through what they are going through, we’ve already lost,” Griffin said. “We have to have that mindset that each family needs to love, support and care for one another.”

Take part in the Lynn Health Science Institute Alzheimer’s study Are you between the ages of 50 and 85?

Are you experiencing mild to moderate memory loss, or have you been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease?

Call Lynn Health Science Institute to schedule a free memory screening at 405-447-8839.

Based on results from the screening, Lynn Health Science Institute physicians will work to determine the next course of action or a clinical trial that might benefit you.

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Make space

bikewalkokc, the city’s first cycling and pedestrian master plan, calls for expanding and improving bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. By Laura Eastes

There is no denying that Oklahoma City, like many other U.S. cities, is an automobile-centric city. While there are signs of progress for active transportation, from the arrival of trails winding through the city’s natural landscapes to constructing miles of sidewalks through residential and commercial areas, much of the city still has a way to go when it comes to encouraging cycling and walking.

Tucked inside the pages of planokc, the City of Oklahoma City’s guide for policy, infrastructure and planning decisions, was not only a section listing initiatives relating to walking and biking but a call to create a master plan for pedestrians and cyclists. The idea was to study and plan for how to expand and improve bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure to ensure the city’s transportation network allowed for bicycling and walking as safe and comfortable modes of travel.

About three years ago, planners from the city’s Planning Department set off into research, asking citizens how they used the city’s active transportation network and how they would like to use it.

“If you’ve walked or biked in Oklahoma City, you know that there are barriers,” John Tankard, an associate planner for the city, said. “What are some significant barriers that we can address?”

The answers were not simple.

After years of planning department research and study, combined with several community outreach meetings and the guidance of an advisory council, the end result is bikewalkokc.

This plan lays the foundation for the development of an active transportation network and builds from existing city plans, such as 1997’s Trails Master

Plan and 2008’s Bicycle Transportation Plan. While it awaits a hearing from the Planning Commission and Oklahoma City Council, the 149-page draft document recently completed a public comment period.

The proposal has its supporters, who view the plan as a way to improve safety and the community’s quality of life. If a downtown meetup in which cyclists and pedestrians discussed and traveled along streets where improvements are suggested is any indication, bikewalkokc is the strategy many have asked for with investments of sidewalks and walker-friendly infrastructure in pedestrian priority areas, the erection of two cycling arterials called crosstown corridors and off-street alternative paths in suburban areas, called neighborhood greenways.

“There is a functional approach to this plan,” Tankard said. “It is about increasing access to the places people need to get to.” bikewalkokc comes at the right moment. Last September, Oklahoma City voters approved 13 bond propositions and two sales tax initiatives known as the Better Streets, Safer City projects. The general obligation bond program alone called for a $491 million investment into streets and sidewalks.

Under the temporary, 27-month penny sales tax, three-tenths of a cent is set aside for sidewalks, trails, streetscapes and bicycle infrastructure. The city is also eyeing federal transit dollars for active transportation.

“Most of the time, plan documents are aspirational,” Tankard said.

“Oftentimes, they sit on a shelf and collect dust until someone forgets about it or it is time to update the plan.

This is very different because of the

Cyclists travel in downtown Oklahoma City to visit proposed bicycle infrastructure in bikewalkokc’s draft plan last week. | Photo Laura Eastes

voter-approved funding streams.

People want more trails. People want more on-street bike trails. People want more sidewalks.”

Details

bikewalkokc is a plan that highlights challenges, opportunities and strategies for a citywide bicycle and pedestrian network for riders and walkers of all ages and abilities. It can be viewed as a capital improvement plan as well as one plan with two components: pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure.

The proposal appeals to those who utilize the city’s active transportation network for pleasure and fitness as well as necessity, Tankard said. The pedestrian priority areas are a good example. bikewalkokc identified 10 sections of the city that require a boost to become safe, comfortable pedestrian corridors.

Sections have chosen a variety of criteria, including data around the number of households without access to an automobile, households in poverty, the elderly and the young and locations of schools, parks, churches, shops and health care facilities.

Sections include Capitol Hill, SW 29th Street, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and a swath of city blocks around NW 23rd Street and N. Classen Boulevard, to name a few.

“Pedestrian priority areas are a great way to do repair to the network that for 40 to 50 years did not require sidewalks for new development,” Tankard said. “We are actually using this plan to go back and fix some of those gaps that were left to us by previous generations that were more focused on automobiles.”

The plan also recognizes the needs of residents in the suburbs. Like their more urban neighbors, suburban residents also desire sidewalks for traveling to schools and parks. Unlike the urban core, suburban neighborhoods often prevent through-traffic, which can force cyclists and pedestrians to share the roads with automobiles. Greenway John Tankard presents the City of Oklahoma City’s bikewalkokc draft plan to interested citizens at Clarity Coffee in downtown OKC last week. | Photo Laura Eastes

trails, which are bike and pedestrian paths, slice through natural open spaces in suburbs to allow travel to neighborhood schools, parks or businesses.

The document also proposes longrange planning for expanding and developing bicycle infrastructure in the city, including an emphasis on designating bike routes and promoting bicycling as a viable transportation option.

It is about increasing access to the places people need to get to.

John Tankard

Response

Early last week, cycling enthusiasts and walkers reviewed and discussed bikewalkokc at downtown’s Clarity Coffee; outside the shop’s doors are wide sidewalks home to bike racks and a striped bike lane with green paint along Walker Avenue. Tankard presented the plan and fielded crowd questions, including information on what proposal supporters can do to ensure its passage and keep active transportation a city priority. The answer was simple: Share desires with city council members as well as the new Better Streets, Safer City Advisory Board, a recommending body on projects for the new, temporary sales tax. Another suggestion was to advocate for the creation of a bike and pedestrian advisory committee to the mayor.

Midtown resident Stuart Campbell said downtown OKC, which saw significant investments in pedestrian infrastructure with Project 180, is a good example of what could come to other areas of the city under bikewalkokc.

“Making cycling and walking a more viable option is a large goal, but I think ... that Oklahoma City is up for the task,” said Campbell, who often rides his bike to work. “The plan is dense and it’s large, but that’s because a lot needs to happen to get to the point where cycling and walking are safe and accessible for every person in our community. It will take a lot of work to get there, but Oklahoma City is on the right path.”

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NEWS Community members attend a prayer vigil in an office complex in northwest Oklahoma City in midMarch. | Photo Laura Eastes

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Citizens on ICE

In Oklahoma City, locals are keeping watch over their immigrant neighbors. By Laura Eastes

Promptly at noon, the voices of clergy, retirees and others concerned about a wide range of issues facing immigrants and refugees rang out the solemn verses of “We Shall Overcome” around the flagpole of an office building complex in northwest Oklahoma City on March 14.

Prayer for immigrants, families, Dreamers, immigration officers and the national government followed the hymn.

The Vigil for Immigration Justice was a 10-minute service; however, its impact goes much further than that.

The prayer vigils began in January, months after Mayflower Congressional United Church of Christ voted to join the New Sanctuary Movement, a national initiative to provide help to immigrants, including those undocumented, facing possible deportation.

The weekly vigils bring together people from different congregations and faiths to pray for immigration justice and give attention to the plight of neighbors living without papers, said Rev. Lori Walke, Mayflower’s associate minister.

“I knew in theory that people were afraid,” said Walke in an interview with Oklahoma Gazette.

Mayflower’s congregation has spent the last year learning more about issues related to immigration — more specifically, how changes under the Trump administration affect the local immigrant communities, she said.

“I think that has been the real difference between a year ago and now.

It’s no longer an issue,” Walke said.

“These are people who are our neighbors, our friends and our co-workers.”

The prayer vigils show a commitment of support from members of the faith community to immigrants outside an unmarked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. The location was brought to the attention of Mayflower members after hearing of immigrant friends being asked to report to 8

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the NW 56th Street address by ICE. There are no signage or identification markers to confirm ICE’s presence in the large complex. After the first vigil, Mayflower leaders received their own confirmation when an ICE officer arrived at the church, inquiring about a protest. Mayflower leaders insisted the vigil was a religious service where community members unite in prayer and follow the Gospel’s call to welcome strangers.

New order

Days after taking office, President Donald J. Trump signed executive orders calling for tougher immigration policies and expanding the scope of deportation priorities to include those without a criminal record. Fourteen months later, the president has made significant progress in transforming the United States’ immigration system with a travel ban on eight mostly majority-Muslim countries, a reduction in refugee admissions, an uptick in immigration arrests and the termination of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for nationals from El Salvador, Haiti and Nicaragua.

The changes have been felt in Oklahoma City’s immigrant communities, where everyone knows somebody who has heard of someone swept up in an ICE raid or where a routine traffic stop leads to ICE detainment. Locals’ reports of a heightened ICE presence have stoked fears.

“We are seeing practices that go not only against the norms of the last decade but beyond the memos and executive orders and against long-standing, court-defended laws and regulations of the United States,” Dream Act Oklahoma’s deportation defense director Serena Prammanasudh said.

Dream Act Oklahoma, a communityOne participant of the Vigil for Immigrant Justice wore a “Here to Stay” T-shirt. | Photo Laura Eastes

based organization, has chapters in OKC and Tulsa and aims to empower immigrant communities through education and advocacy.

“In addition to the traffic stop situations, people are being detained for complying with their check-ins with ICE, detained while they possess legal presence in the country due to a pending green card petition, and we have seen Oklahoma DACA recipients detained,” Prammanasudh said.

In 2017, ICE arrests went up across the board. The Dallas region, which includes north Texas and Oklahoma, made 16,520 arrests, which put it first out of the country’s 24 regions according to data released by the agency.

Immigrant communities are on high alert, especially after learning of the agency’s request to open a “forced detention and correction facility” at 1220 Sovereign Row in an industrial area of southwest OKC. ICE already offices in OKC at U.S. Citizen and Immigrant Services (USCIS), 4400 SW 44th St. According to a City of Oklahoma City staff report, RP Oklahoma City, LLC applied for a special permit to operate administrative offices with a temporary daytime holding facility for ICE’s Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations. Oklahoma City Planning Commission had slated a hearing in early March; however, it was withdrawn from an agenda after it was discovered a special permit was not required.

The permit comes a few months after the federal agency stated in a Request for Information that it could hire as many as 25,700 staff members by 2023.

A Request for Information is an initial step in the government contracting process.

Dream Act Oklahoma is “unapologetic and straightforward” on its stance on immigration enforcement, “whether it be more funding to hire additional officers, a wall, a detention facility or collaboration with ICE” as it “terrorizes families, especially children, and deeply harms communities, of which many members are historically marginalized peoples of color who continue to be disenfranchised and held

back from contributing to society,” Prammanasudh said.

To fight against current deportation policies, Prammanasudh said, immigrants and their allies share their stories. Their voices are getting stronger with more individuals and groups reaching out to ask how they can help.

In solidarity

After hearing about the plight of a cancer-stricken 5-year-old — a U.S. citizen — whose mother was facing deportation, a small crowd congregated near OKC’s USCIS office to stand in solidarity with the mother and support her request for a stay of deportation. Walke, along with another clergy member and an attorney, accompanied the mother inside the office for her meeting with immigration officials on March 15.

“If you show up with a bunch of white people and there are a bunch of white people outside, offering their presences and their solidarity, then the outcomes are more likely to be favorable,” Walke said prior to the meeting.

“We’ve seen this nationwide.”

Days later, Dream Act Oklahoma hosted its first Know Your Rights, Know Your Power clinic inside the Guatemalan government’s consulate in OKC. While the organization has hosted town halls and forums on the subject of immigrant rights, Prammanasudh said the clinics featured attorneys discussing how immigrants can exercise their constitutional rights in the event they come in contact with law enforcement.

Dream Act Oklahoma continues to explore innovative ways to help immigrant communities. There has been a discussion about hosting free vehicle inspections checking for working brake lights and signal devices. While the group pushes the MigraWatch Hotline, a national hotline for reporting ICE activity and raids, they’ve considered developing a local hotline that would send volunteers in real time to areas where ICE activity is reported.

“No human being is legal or illegal, and all human beings deserve justice and liberation,” Prammanasudh said.

“When it feels like you have nothing else to lose, you risk it all. What stronger base can you have?”

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friedNEWS

Private records

In cash-strapped Oklahoma, lawmakers are looking for ways to bring in revenue!

We at Chicken-Fried News are imagining all our readers shouting, “It’s about time!”

One revenue-raising measure is to levy fees on public records. Now, we are imagining readers shaking their heads in disappointment.

According to the Associated Press (AP), some state agencies are looking to restrict the public’s access to records or information through bills filed by lawmakers this session. Some of those bills are billed as cost-saving measures. As if!

For instance, one bill would allow for Department of Corrections to discuss private prison rates or prison industries in closed-door meetings.

Another bill would authorize the sale of some court records.

While the entire public should be concerned about government tightening access to public records, journalists and their lobbyist Mark Thomas, executive vice president of Oklahoma Press Association, are especially concerned.

“When I look at a lot of the bills this year, they are bills to give government bodies the opportunity to sell their records or restrict access to records to help the government … make money,” Thomas told AP. At CFN, we feel lawmakers viewing public records as a cash crop is a misnomer. While they can be a hot commodity for journalists and genealogists — grandmothers across the state have utilized public records to trace family trees — citizens aren’t generally lining up to get their copies of legislative minutes or government spending reports. We assure you, lawmakers, that citizens won’t buy this argument that tight budgets are the real reason to limit press and public freedom.

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Pick sick

Oh, hello there, Mr. Dick Vitale!

You’re the practical face of college basketball who has became known as one of the sport’s biggest cheerleaders through your work as a broadcaster for ESPN. How do you feel about the inclusion of the University of Oklahoma (OU) over in-state rival Oklahoma State University (OSU) in this year’s NCAA tournament field?

“I think it is a disgrace. I think it is an embarrassment, and it’s a humiliation to what this tournament’s about.

To tell you the truth, it frustrates the hell out of me.”

That was Vitale’s televised take on ESPN after the tournament bracket was fully unveiled on a TBS-broadcast selection show.

Vitale was far from the only one upset at OU’s spot at a 10 seed in the annual 68-team March tournament bracket. Plenty of fans and pundits wondered why the selection committee felt OU had earned a spot after losing 11 of its last 15 games and not winning a single game away from Norman after the calendar turned to 2018.

Vitale was especially puzzled by OU’s inclusion over OSU, which beat the Sooners twice this

season. The Cowboys also beat No. 1 seed Kansas twice, No. 5 West Virginia once on the road and No. 9 Florida State.

In the early portion of the season, OU achieved a high national ranking off the stellar play of phenomenal freshman guard Trae Young, whose size and playing style remind many of current pro star Steph Curry. But as teams began to tailor their defensive schemes to shutting down Young, the Sooners fell far from national graces.

One could argue that OU’s inclusion is comparable to naming the Titanic as one of the world’s best boats after it sank just because of how highly regarded it was when its journey began. At the end of the day, a sinking ship is a sinking ship.

Of course, the Sooners nearly proved their doubters wrong in the opening round, taking No. 7 seed Rhode Island to overtime before Young and friends ultimately ran out of firepower.

Young has likely now played his last game as a Sooner, trading

his amateur status for the chance to make millions in the National Basketball Association (NBA). If he lives up to his immense talent, his former school’s “embarrassment” of a selection will just be a small footnote in a storied and fruitful career.

Progressive execution

It’s not often that Oklahoma can be on the leading edge of any movement in the country. State leaders announced last week that the state plans to begin using nitrogen for executions, making it the first state in the country to use the colorless, odorless gas in the death-penalty chamber.

We’re not progressive unless it comes to figuring out ways to administer justice.

Charles Warner was the last person put to death in Oklahoma, which occurred in Jan. 2015. After his execution, it was shown that the wrong drug was used to stop the heart — they used potassium acetate instead of potassium chloride, according to Oklahoma Watch.

International drug manufacturers have made drugs used in the executions expensive or pulled them altogether over concerns that they violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel

and unusual punishment.

Nitrogen, which is used in some assisted suicides in Europe and touted in the industry for euthanasia of animals, is a potential path for satisfying the Eighth Amendment, especially in comparison to the 2014 execution of Clayton Lockett — he reportedly writhed in pain on the execution table, according to Oklahoma Watch. The state passed a law in 2015 to use nitrogen as a potential use of execution.

An attorney representing 20 death row inmates who are currently suing the state over execution protocols said that the state is ignoring the recommendation suggested by the independent Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission in 2017 for an entirely new method of execution.

There are 17 inmates that have gone through the appeals process and are eligible for execution in Oklahoma. It will be months before the new plan can be implemented. It still has to stand up to court scrutiny, and according to Oklahoma Watch, the

state does not have an apparatus to administer the nitrogen.

Et tu, Pruitte?

Last week in Pruittland, a place where everyone drinks water flambé and the Teslas get retrofitted with Hummer engines, it was reported

by Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman that President Donald Trump might fire U.S. Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. His replacement choice? According to Sherman, it is Environmental “Protection” Agency chief and Oklahoma’s favorite son Scott Pruitt.

Trump seems to be firing everyone in the White House and could be checking around to see if the Dyad Institute from Orphan Black can just clone an all-Trump cabinet for him. If he cannot will fiction into reality, Pruitt’s scorched-earth approach to scorching the earth might

sound to Trump like a good way to approach inconvenient laws like the First Amendment and then the Third through 10th ones.

But then, on the Ides of March no less, The New Republic reported that rumors about Pruitt being in line for the A.G. position probably started with Pruitt.

Politico reported in January that Pruitt had his eyes on being A.G., but the E“P”A quickly denied the report.

Fast-forward to March, and anonymous sources within the agency are telling The Atlantic’s Elaina Plott that the calls are coming from inside the house!

The icing on this fetid cake of disingenuousness is, according to Jonathan Swan of Axios, the fact that the White House knows the rumors are coming from Pruitt.

With this White House, that kind of chicanery might be seen as a benefit rather than a demerit. Still, after all the hubbub over Pruitt flying first-class on Emirates Airlines to keep clear of the hoi polloi, plus the fact that Smokey the Bear wants to maul him, he might not get far in the Senate confirmation hearings without raising sustained guffaws worthy of an ’80s sitcom laugh track.

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Oklahoma grown and produced products & businesses The fun begins on Friday April 6th, 2018 with a Golf Tournament to support the Seminole Food Pantry and a spaghetti dinner sponsored by COCAA and Roma’s Italian Restaurant to help continue the efforts of COCAA. Then, spend Saturday April 7, 2018 in the Seminole Municipal Park on Milt Phillips enjoying items made, produced, and sold in Oklahoma.

Seminole’s Made In Oklahoma Festival, Business Expo, & Car Show will be open from 9:00 am - 4:00 pm. We will feature over 100 vendor booths: including but not limited to handmade jewelry & clothes, soaps, candles, furniture and local wineries. There will be numerous food vendors and a blood drive. Enjoy a delicious breakfast to kick off your Saturday at the Masonic Lodge, The SCCA Car Show, The Seminole Masonic Lodge Poker Run, and donate blood at the OBI Blood Mobile Drive (10a-2p) all in the Park! You will be able to look at cars, shop and eat all day long. Please plan on bringing the whole family out on Friday and Saturday April 6&7 for some quality time and see what all Seminole has to offer. Don’t forget to purchase your commemorative Made In Oklahoma or Car Show Shirt!

If you have any questions or wish to participate in the festival or car show, please feel free to call the Seminole Chamber of Commerce at 405-382-3640 or e-mail us at amybrittchambered@yahoo.net. The applications are also located on our website at

www.seminoleokchamber.org

Sponsored by:

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Thank You to our Top Sponsors: The Seminole Tourism Council and Melvin & Jasmine Moran

EAT & DRINK

review

A wagyu rib-eye cooked in a cast iron skillet achieves a crunchy exterior at St. Mark’s Chop Room & Bar. | Photo Jacob Threadgill

Close quarters

St. Mark’s Chop Room delivers local wagyu beef in an intimate and attentive setting. By Jacob Threadgill

St. Mark’s Chop Room & Bar 6462 Avondale Drive, Nichols Hills stmarkschoproom.com | 405-848-6200 What works: Steak is cooked in cast iron, which results in a crispy exterior and delicate interior.

What needs work: The bananas in the bananas Foster split could be cooked on both sides for a better finish.

Tip: Squeeze complimentary roasted garlic cloves onto each bite of steak.

Just before opening St. Mark’s Chop Room last summer, co-owner Drew Tekell told me that he envisioned the restaurant, which is named after his late father Mark, to be a neighborhood steakhouse where people could casually enjoy a steak while watching a Thunder game.

As I sat down for my first meal in the intimate dining room with six tables and 10 seats at the bar that shares a kitchen with its sister restaurant En Croûte, I found a pair of gentlemen This house salad, which changes weekly, was made with blistered shishito peppers, bok choy and heirloom tomatoes. | Photo Jacob Threadgill

seated at the bar, debating their favorite year of Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve bourbon and preferred opening-round playoff match-up for the Thunder as pre-game for a Thunder game against Atlanta played silently on the television. In that regard, it is mission accomplished.

For the small restaurant at 6462 Avondale Drive that doesn’t engage in advertising, spreading the word about St. Mark’s selection of wagyu beef has been an interesting tactic for staff.

“It’s been a celebratory place for anniversaries and birthdays,” general manager Brent Buchheit said. “We’re trying to pitch it as a great place for meetings for people like drug reps because it’s so private and they can sell easier than in a big steakhouse that is crowded.”

The small restaurant translates to intimate and personal conversations with the server, who will take the time to discuss their favorite items on the menu and explain the nuance of the changing chef selection specials.

The meal began with a complementary popover that is a smaller version

of the Dutch Baby pancake served at En Croûte. I found the center to be a little too eggy for my taste, but the ginger blackberry jam gave me the inspiration to bake a peach, strawberry and ginger pie with a crumble topping at home.

My server Aubrey tried to convince me to begin my meal with the Caesar salad because it’s topped with crispy anchovies, which sounded very tempting, but I opted for the house salad ($12), which changes every week, because it came with blistered shishito peppers.

Chances are you’ve probably seen the finger-length dark green shishito peppers either in a prepackaged supermarket bag or on a restaurant special in the last two years. Native to Japan, the pepper is usually very sweet and mild but is somewhat like playing Russian roulette. Every 10 to 20 peppers amps up the heat, but even the hot ones are about a third of a jalapeño on the Scoville scale.

The peppers have become so ubiquitous that they earned a place on the Bon Appetit “Food Trends We Hope Disappear in 2017” list, but thankfully for me, they haven’t gone away completely. I enjoyed the smokiness paired with heirloom tomatoes, bok choy, haricots verts, tomato vinaigrette, radishes and an avocado puree. The vinaigrette got lost against the puree, but the bok choy was somewhat of a revelation as a salad item. It was tender and not as bitter as some other dark, leafy greens.

The star of any meal at St. Mark’s is its selection of wagyu beef, which comes from Ironhorse Ranch in Macomb, Oklahoma. The kitchen staff at St. Mark’s, which is overseen by executive chef Jonathon Stranger, cooks each steak in a cast-iron skillet and butterbastes the meat as it finishes in the pan.

“It’s been great, and we don’t advertise at all. People say it’s one of the best steaks they’ve had because the way we cook it is so different,” Buchheit said.

“You get this nice crust, and then the wagyu beef in the middle is delicious.”

I ordered the 14-ounce rib-eye ($48) because it’s my personal preferred cut, especially compared to its offerings of The bananas Foster split is served with housemade caramel and brown butter ice cream. | Photo Jacob Threadgill

strip loin and tenderloin. I like the extra fat on a rib-eye for a boost in flavor.

St. Mark’s offers the enhancement of au povire, périgueux, chimichurri and truffle butter sauces, but I opted for the complimentary sea salt and roasted garlic head for optimum Oklahoma meat flavor.

My favorite part of the steak cooked on a grill is the bits of flame-kissed pieces that are singed brown and crispy.

The cast-iron method allows the entire steak to finish this way for a beautifully brown finish and medium interior.

While I’ll admit that part of me missed the smoky flavor that comes from a grill, the cast iron is a preferable overall method to cook the steak.

I squeezed out a clove of roasted garlic for nearly every bite and even did a prerequisite Salt Bae meme recreation while adding sea salt to the beef. It was an excellent piece of beef well worth the price. Nothing is as disappointing as going to a steakhouse and thinking that you could’ve cooked it at home for a fraction of the price.

I squeezed out a clove of roasted garlic for nearly every bite.

I finished the meal with a bananas Foster split ($12), which is a slight reinvention of the classic 1950s New Orleans dessert. Banana slices are caramelized on one side in a mixture of brown sugar and rum, and they are joined by housemade caramel and brown butter ice cream.

I don’t know how long it has been since I’ve seen this dessert on the menu, so I ordered it with nostalgic glee. I would’ve preferred smaller pieces of banana and for it to be cooked on both sides. By the time it came to the table, one side was brûléed and the middle was no longer warm. The crunchy exterior was bitter in places, but the house-made caramel and ice cream were superb and a tremendous way to finish the meal with a latte made at the bar.

Are you looking for a great steak without the loud atmosphere of other steakhouses? St. Mark’s Chop Room & Bar allows Oklahoma beef to be showcased in an intimate and attentive setting.

Visit stmarkschoproom.com.

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GOAT CURRY

Poke wars

23rd Street welcomes three standalone Hawaiian-inspired restaurants in 2018.

By Jacob Threadgill

The Hawaiian concept of poke bowls — marinated raw fish served with vegetables and rice — has grown in popularity across the country over the last half decade.

The concept isn’t completely foreign to Oklahoma City, as the dish is available at Edmond’s The One Café; Caeli’s Sweets, Eats, & Bar; and various other sushi restaurants in the metro area.

The city will welcome three standalone poke concepts in 2018, two of which are shepherded by California celebrity chefs, and the other is the retooling of a familiar Oklahoma City destination, Guernsey Park.

Chef Penny Davidi, a finalist on Food Network Star season seven and winner of the network’s Chopped All-Stars, will open Oki Poke at the former Foster’s Flowers location at 1520 NW 23rd St. Los Angeles-based chef Andy Nguyen, owner of more than 40 restaurants, will bring his highly successful Project Poke concept to the corner NE 23rd Street and Rhode Island Avenue later this year.

Owner and chef Truong Le is converting his former Guernsey Park restaurant, 2418 N. Guernsey Ave., into two concepts on each floor of the building: Okie Poke and Noodee, the latter of which is a naked noodle bar where guests build bowls out of five different types of noodles.

Le’s concept is scheduled to open in late March or early April, according to social media posts.

Oki Poke

Davidi first traveled to Oklahoma City three years ago as she started working in conjunction with culinary schools across the country to host a series of pop-up dinners with students and de14

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veloped a rapport with Platt College’s culinary students and the city.

Her travels across the country allowed her to take note of certain restaurant trends, and she noticed that more people were looking for lean proteins with complex carbohydrates. “[Oklahoma City has] this amazing culinary talent pool,” Davidi said in an interview with Oklahoma Gazette. “I saw that Japanese food is popular and there is a big Asian community in Oklahoma City. Poke is huge in California, but it hadn’t really planted itself in OKC. I thought it would be really cool to bring the concept and be so close to [Platt college], where students [can gain experience].”

Oki Pokie will offer soup noodles in addition to poke to ensure a draw when the weather gets cold. Guests will be able to choose from three broths and three types of noodles that are paired with protein and vegetables.

Davidi began working on the concept and looking for a location two years ago and ran into roadblocks securing and updating the historic building, which was built for Foster’s Flowers and Gifts in 1964 but had been vacant since 2003.

“I was adamant about the space,” Davidi said. “I didn’t want to be part of a mall, and I wanted to standalone because we’re working on a drive-thru.

We will be the first of its kind to have a drive-thru.”

While Davidi secured the location, Le closed down Guernsey Park and gave his poke concept a similar name.

“Two blocks down the street, they will open up with literally the same name,” she said. “How do you do that? … I’m sure they’ll be great too, and we welcome the competition, but it means that I was on

New Spring Line!

Okie Pokie will open in the former Guernsey Park location in late March or early April. | Photo provided

the right path for the location and concept. They will have the market ready for us. … People will be curious how I bring the flavors of the Mediterranean cuisine to Oklahoma poke.”

Davidi said Oki Poke will open by late summer.

Unique shopping experience Name brand and local items

East Side Poke Project

Before Ngyuen became a restaurant mogul, co-founding Project Poke, Milk Box boba, Pig Pen Delicacy, Wingman Kitchen and Afters Ice Cream, he owned a successful clothing brand in southern California.

More than a decade ago, Nguyen first met Oklahoma City entrepreneur and rapper Jabee Williams in California. As Nguyen became successful in the restaurant industry, earning a bona fide viral sensation with his take on a sushi doughnut, he expanded with two locations in Arizona.

Williams and his partner Jonathan Dodson with the Project Pivot development stayed on Nguyen to bring the Poke Project concept to Oklahoma City.

First, they went to Los Angeles to meet with and invite him to visit OKC. Nguyen made the trip last May. “I didn’t know what to expect from OKC,” Nguyen told the Gazette. “I kind of thought it would be farmland or something. I was pleasantly surprised to see a really clean downtown. The people were friendly, and I thought it was super gorgeous.”

Nguyen committed shortly thereafter to push the expansion of his brand eastward. East Side Poke Project will become the first retail tenant of Pivot Project Eastside Redevelopment at the corner of NE 23rd and Rhode Island.

“I knew when I tried Andy’s Project Poke in LA I wanted to bring a similar idea back home. I love good food and just want to introduce some fun new concepts like this to the place I grew up and to the people I grew up with,” Jabee said in a press release.

Nguyen said that East Side Poke Project will have a similar menu to his concept in southern California but they will adapt the menu for Oklahoma City market as needed. He said his popular take on the sushi doughnut, which he said has earned over 70 million views on social media and led to long lines, will be available at certain points during the year, similar to how McDonald’s only has the McRib a few months at a time.

East Side Poke Project is scheduled to open in late summer or early fall, Nguyen said.

“We’re on the right track in terms of timing [in the OKC market],” Nguyen said. “In California, there are hundreds if not thousands of poke shops now, and us having been in it for some time, so we’re able to figure out ways to differentiate ourselves and make our product stand out.”

chuesck out

9705 N May Ave Ste.120 | The Village, OK 73120 woodsmantrading.com | 405-286-0614 Mon-Thurs 9AM-6PM | Fri-Sat 9AM-7PM

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Chef Andy Nguyen is bringing his successful East Side Poke Project concept to NE 23rd Street later this year. | Photo provided

People will be curious how I bring the flavors of the Mediterranean cuisine to Oklahoma poke.

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Food Network Star finalist Penny Davidi is opening Oki Poke in the old Foster’s Flowers location on NW 23rd Street this summer. | Photo provided

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Join us on 3/27 to celebrate

A Tribute to Women with the Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women

Art for Peace with DG Smalling

March 27 5:00 - 7:30 PM Bossa Nova Lounge @ Cafe do Brasil 440 NW 11 Street, OKC 2 drink tickets, appetizers & creative supplies.

405-943-4474 Go to ieew.org/events-2 to purchase tickets or text ARTFORPEACE to 41444

Mon.-Thurs.

4:30pm-6:00pm 2227 ExchangE avE StockyardS city, (405) 232-0151 www.mcclintockSaloon.com

529 Buchanan Ave. Campus Corner Norman

BAR & GRILLE, LIVE MUSIC MON: Closed THU: Throwback Thursdays! Trivia 7p-9p TUE: $2 Beer/$2 Shots /$2 Sides Wings, Fries & Pint $10 All Day Karaoke @9 FRI/SAT: Happy Hour 3p-7p, Live Music WED: Bike Night! $5 Pitchers/Free Pool SUN: $4 Mimosa & Bloody Marys Get Delivery using OrderUp or Postmates!

Brunch Food (12p-5pm)

FREE PARKING | All ages until 10 pm Like us on Facebook! normanchickenwings.com 405-310-3728 16

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e v e nt

Women’s History Month!

Roll on Shabbos

The Dude Abides OKC allows fans of The Big Lebowski to celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary. By Jacob Threadgill

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Coen brothers’ cult classic The Big Lebowski has more cultural impact today than it did when it underachieved at the box office.

Jeff Bridges’ The Dude and John Goodman’s Walter are just two of the quirkily indelible characters that have become immortalized in gifs and memes across internet culture.

The Dude Abides OKC is a free event honoring the movie’s legacy with a trivia contest, costume contests and half-price bowling split between Fassler Hall and Dust Bowl Lanes & Lounge, 421 NW 10th St., 8 p.m. Saturday.

Organizer Tobi Coleman is hoping the first gathering of Oklahoma Lebowski fans becomes an annual event. Coleman and her son Justin run Revolve Productions (AMP Festival, Wanderlust Pop Up Shops), and they’ve contemplated putting together a Lebowski-themed event for long enough to contact the founders of Lebowski Fest, which started in Louisville, Kentucky, in 2002 but has been held all over the country.

“We reached out a few years ago to see if it was possible to bring [Lebowski Fest] here to Oklahoma City, but they’re not doing it all over the country anymore,” Coleman said.

The rejection gave them the impetus to put together an event worthy of Lebowski’s 20th anniversary.

“Fassler Hall and the Dust Bowl is the perfect setting because it’s a vintage bowling alley,” Coleman said.

Many of Lebowski’s most memorable scenes take place in a vintage bowling alley.

The event begins with a trivia contest and costume contest. Each costs $10 to enter, and the money goes to the prizewinners. The costume contest is divided into three categories: The Dude (Bridges), Walter Sobchak (Goodman), Maude Lebowski (Julianne Moore) and two supporting character winners, which can be any role, including John Turturro’s bowling ball-licking Jesus Quintana, Sam Elliott’s The Stranger and everything in between.

A panel of three judges will determine an overall costume contest winner.

The trivia contest will consist of five rounds of written questions, to prevent answers from being yelled out. Coleman said she and her son have watched the movie at least three times per week over the last month to prepare trivia questions. The party will move to Dust Bowl following the trivia contest.

“As big of a fan as I am and as many

times as I’ve watched it prior to the last few months, I’m surprised at some of the stuff I didn’t catch or remember,” Coleman said. “We’ve got some hard questions; if they know them, they deserve to win.”

It’s not a trivia question in the contest, but Coleman said she was surprised to discover the fact that The Dude is technically in every scene of the movie. Even the scene that features German band members, including Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers, ordering pancakes features The Dude and Walter driving their van in the background.

Everybody knows someone like The Dude.

Tobi Coleman “The Coen brothers really sneak that stuff in there,” Coleman said.

“They have deep thought about the things that they make. I’m interested to go back and watch some of their other movies to see what I’ve missed.”

The Big Lebowski earned $17 million at the U.S. box office, barely above its 15 million budget, but thanks to memorable characters, quotes and objects like the Persian rug at the center of the mistaken identity caper that “really tied the room together,” the movie’s legacy has lived on. The Library of Congress added the film to the National Film Registry in 2014.

“Everybody knows someone like The Dude,” Coleman said. “It’s a person who has skated through life, never really held a serious job, the fact that he gets caught up in this crazy sequence of events. Those kind of guys always have stuff happen to them and have great stories to tell. I think we all know someone like that or wish we were that person. I think that’s why [the movie] resonates with a lot of people. It has so many lines that are memorable and that you can shoot off in a general conversation or use on a daily basis.”

The Coens based The Dude on a real-life Hollywood producer named Jeff Dowd. Fans of The Dude’s easygoing lifestyle have become so common that it has even inspired its own religion, Dudeism.

Journalist Oliver Benjamin founded Dudeism in 2005, which is a combination of Taoism and Greek philosophy, mashed with the Dude lifestyle. There are an es-

T-shirts featuring quotes from The Big Lebowski from The Okay See clothing company will be for sale for $15 at the event. | Photo provided

timated 450,000 ordained Dudeist priests worldwide as of May 2017.

Dudeist priest Rick Hall will be performing free vow renewals for interested couples. Hall is available to marry couples for a $30 fee to cover county costs, but Coleman said no one has signed up to be married in 2018.

“We have had people contacting us, asking if we will do it next year because they want to plan wedding around it.

[The event] ought to really grow,” Coleman said.

There will be $15 T-shirts for sale, and all “Caucasians,” (what The Dude calls the drink White Russian) will be available at the upstairs and downstairs bar for $3 with vodka from Prairie Wolf Spirits. COOP Ale Works will also supply beer.

Coleman said that she bought 160 feet of bamboo to recreate the bar in The Dude’s house, all the way down to the blue ice cube tray, and found an era-specific silver frame that houses The Dude’s picture of Richard Nixon bowling. Of course, the infamous rug will make an appearance.

“We searched high and low to find all of the elements,” Coleman said. “It’s not the exactly the same rug, but it is so close that you can’t tell it’s not the same.

We don’t feel like we’re producing an event; it feels like a giant party for everyone that likes the same movie.”

The Dude Abides OKC 8 p.m. Saturday Fassler Hall / Dust Bowl Lanes and Lounge 421 NW 10th St. revolve-productions.com Free ($10 fee each for costume and trivia contests)

O kg a z e t t e . c o m | m a r c h 2 1 , 2 0 1 8

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EAT & DRINK

Come see us!

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in Automobile Alley, next to Hideaway Pizza

ENROLL WITH IT Share your educational opportunities with 134,070 weekly Gazette readers in print and online, with this special advertising section.

Publishes April 11th & 18th Deadlines April 4th Featuring schools and classes of all types, for all ages, including: • Colleges and universities • Vocational and technical schools • Continuing education courses/ career training • Drivers’ ed and other licensing • Cooking, dance and art classes • Sports and health courses • Preschools and daycare centers • Charter and prep schools

To place your ad in this special section, call your Gazette acount executive today at

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f e at u r e

“Gotta Have’s”

Biscuit bonanza

HunnyBunny Biscuit Co. is the latest restaurant to open in Uptown 23rd District. By Jacob Threadgill

As the saying goes, great minds think alike. When Urban Management Group Inc. (UMI) co-founder Robert Ross walked into Packard’s New American Kitchen one day — one of six restaurants in a group that dates to 1976 — he asked executive chef Chris McKenna what he thought about opening a buttermilk biscuit-themed restaurant.

It turned out that McKenna had been playing with potential menu concepts for the previous six months, ever since returning from a honeymoon trip to Charleston, South Carolina.

About a year after that first conversation, HunnyBunny Biscuit Co. opened at 429 NW 23rd St. the last weekend of February.

“Breakfast is probably the fastest growing area [in the restaurant industry],” McKenna said. “A lot of the younger generation really enjoys breakfast any time of the day.”

Biscuit etiquette

In preparation for HunnyBunny, McKenna said he read at least 20 books and articles looking for the perfect recipe. Instead, he found that it’s best to build a recipe around personal taste.

Some people use 100 percent shortening; others use a combination of shortening and butter. If you want to get really wild, some people use bacon grease. McKenna opts for a 100 percent butter mixture that is put in the freezer before it is cut into the flour. The colder the butter, the more likely it is to retain its shape as the biscuit is formed.

“The butter is what creates steam within the dough, which causes the rise,” McKenna said. “To me, shortening is fluffier, but it doesn’t hold as well.

If you’re going to leave the dough out, even for a little bit, it won’t rise the same [with shortening].”

Just as McKenna said that the key to a tender biscuit is not to overwork the dough, he notes that there is a recipe version called a beaten biscuit that places an onus on the chew.

“I spent time in Louisiana, and just like everyone makes crawfish étouffée a little different, everyone has their own taste,” he said. “Some people like a crustabove Biscuit French toast at HunnyBunny Biscuit Co. | below The Nashville sandwich is fried chicken covered in hot sauce and paired with honey mustard and bread-and-butter pickles. | Photo Aaron Snow / provided

now open:

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Nic’s Place

ier, harder outside, and others don’t.”

McKenna and ownership decided on a biscuit that is slightly brown on the outside and fluffy on the inside for the foundation of the menu. Twelve oversized biscuit sandwiches anchor the menu that also includes a salad, a pot pie, standard biscuits and gravy and a tater tot hash.

Menu construction

In preparation for the menu, McKenna and staff sent a rough version to 60 or 70 friends and family and had them rank their favorite ten items. The survey has yielded similar results to the restaurant’s first few weeks of sales.

The No. 1 most popular item is the Cannonball sandwich ($9), which is fried chicken with cheddar cheese and a fried egg topped with sausage gravy.

“It’s an entire breakfast on a sandwich,” McKenna said. “You won’t be hungry when you leave after ordering.”

The biscuit French toast ($10) is another popular menu item, which McKenna said he saw on a few other menus across the country while doing some biscuit research. The biscuit is split, dipped in the same French toast batter McKenna uses at Packard’s and then grilled crispy. It is then topped with fresh fruit, candied pecans, whipped cream and real maple syrup.

“If people know you’re using real ingredients, it makes for a better experience,” McKenna said of the authentic maple syrup, but it’s a philosophy that extends across the menu.

McKenna said he wanted to provide biscuit sandwiches that work all day long, and not just for breakfast. All of the meat on the menu, from bacon to the hot link that is paired with jalapeño

Chris McKenna is executive chef at Packard’s New American Kitchen and HunnyBunny Biscuit Co. | Photo Aaron Snow / provided

cream cheese and caramelized onions on the No. 7 sandwich ($6), comes from Ralph’s Packing Company in Perkins.

Local roasters Eôté Coffee Company and KLLR Coffee provide coffee service for HunnyBunny.

Each item on the menu has an identifier. There is homage to McKenna’s honeymoon with the Charleston sandwich ($8), which is fried chicken with an egg, collard greens and hot sauce.

But when it came time to name his kolach-inspired hot link sandwich, McKenna kept coming back to the number 7.

“I loved going to diner where you order by number and hear the cook yelling, ‘I need a No. 3,’ so I settled on No. 7,” McKenna said. “Our operations director said that I should tell everyone that it is my old baseball number. I played a year and wasn’t very good.”

With a location on 23rd Street next to Tower Theatre, UMI took the smaller dining spaces (56 seats compared to the group’s other restaurants that average at least 100, McKenna said) to unveil its first counter-service concept.

“We’re trying our best to bridge the gap between full-service and counterservice,” McKenna said, noting that servers will clear tables but cautioning that guests should place their order before finding a seat. “With all the buzz right now, on the weekends, it gets busy.

If you can wait in line, by the time you make it to the front, there will be a table open.”

HunnyBunny Biscuit Co. is open 7 a.m.-3 p.m. every day. Visit hunnybunnybiscuitco.com.

Visit our speakeasy lounge!

Mon-sun! Fri-sat till 2aM!

1116 N Robinson Ave. OKC @nicsplacedinerandlounge

Go to PHILLMEUPOKC.COM to book us for your next event!

Family owned and operated since 2014 O kg a z e t t e . c o m | m a r c h 2 1 , 2 0 1 8

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eat & DRINK

Smokin’ time

You might’ve seen the viral photo that started with a Munchies story intending to show the impact of Brooklyn barbecue. The photo was widely criticized for its lack of meat. We don’t have that problem in Oklahoma; here are seven places that will leave you with the meat sweats.

By Jacob Threadgill Photos Gazette / file and provided

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Van’s Pig Stands

320 N. Porter Ave., Norman pigstands.com | 405-703-3000

The standard by which all other Oklahoma barbecue is judged, Van’s Pig Stands has been family-operated since Tennessee native Leroy “ Van” Vandegrift opened the first location in Shawnee in 1930. Now with five permanent locations and a mobile food trailer, Van’s is available in the metro area in Norman or Moore. St. Louis-style ribs are joined by sausage, brisket and pulled pork on the menu.

Leo’s BBQ

Bedlam Bar-B-Q

Whether it is the hickory-smoked brisket, the smoked bologna or the complimentary slice of strawberry-banana cake, Leo’s BBQ has earned the reputation as Oklahoma City’s finest since Leo Smith founded it in 1974. His son Charles continued the tradition, which earned a visit from Food Network’s Guy Fieri in 2012.

More than just a rivalry between OU and OSU, Bedlam Bar-B-Q takes Oklahoma culture to heart, as seen in the heartfelt essay on its website. Not only does Bedlam deliver with plates of smoked brisket, sausage, pork, chicken, ham and bologna, it offers some of the best patio dining in the city. Complete any meal with a side of green rice, Bedlam’s take on broccoli casserole.

3631 N. Kelly Ave. facebook.com/leosbarbecue 405-424-5367

610 NE 50th St. bedlambarbq.com | 405-528-7427

Texlahoma Barbecue

121 E. Waterloo Road, Suite 8, Edmond texlahomabbq.com | 405-513-7631

When you think of garnish, you might think of a lonely sprig of parsley, but with an order of potato or a sandwich pilled high with brisket, pork and sausage, you get a rib as a garnish. That’s right; a pork rib with its smoky and peppery finish awaits. Texlahoma is far north of OKC, even by Edmond standards, but the trip into the shopping center along Waterloo Road is more than worth it.

Iron Star Urban Barbeque 3700 N. Shartel Ave. ironstarokc.com | 405-524-5925

Those who might be wary of “barbecue” and “urban” being used in the same sentence should have their fears assuaged once they bite into Iron Star’s food. It has the prerequisite marking of “haute” barbecue by serving kale and salmon salads on the menu, but it more than delivers with St. Louis-style ribs, brown sugar brisket and tasty sandwiches, including a pimento cheeseburger.

Back Door Barbecue

315 NW 23rd St. backdoorbarbecue.com | 405-525-7427

The sign of a good restaurant is one that continues success after opening buzz.

Kathryn Mathis parlayed her success with Big Truck Tacos into Back Door Barbecue and Pizzeria Gusto. Service and customer support remain high for Back Door’s Texas-inspired barbecue.

It offers the usual array of smoked meats but even throws in a smoked portobello mushroom for something different.

George’s Happy Hog Bar-B-Q 712 Culbertson Drive 405-525-8111

We’ve all been there. You order a plate at a barbecue restaurant and you feel like the price doesn’t reflect the amount of food in the order. That’s not a problem at George’s, where sandwiches check in under $7 and lunch plates with a side and a drink average $7.59. Go Tuesday and Wednesday for smoked wing specials at this hidden gem of a restaurant that doesn’t sacrifice quality for affordability.

Gourmet & Specialty Foods / Riedel Crystal / Gourmet Gift Baskets

O kg a z e t t e . c o m | m a r c h 2 1 , 2 0 1 8

21

COV E R

ARTS & CULTURE

Pop OK

Ready Player One, based on the book by Ernest Cline, hits theaters March 29.

| Photo Warner Bros. Pictures / provided

Portrayals of Oklahoma in popular culture — movies, TV shows, books and music — have improved over the past couple decades.

By Laura Eastes, George Lang, Ben Luschen and Jacob Threadgill

When the trailer for Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One hit theaters and YouTube this winter, Oklahoma City fans of the novel were struck by the place-name at the bottom of the screen: Columbus, Ohio. Local social media posts on the subject ran toward toxic as RP1 fans expressed extreme disappointment about the disappearance of OKC in Spielberg’s big-budget retelling.

Despite that Oklahoma-based backlash, readers of Cline’s novel who understand the difficulties of maintaining continuity in film adaptations generally get it. Wade Watts has to get from OKC to Columbus at one point, and Spielberg and Cline, who adapted his novel with screenwriter Zak Penn, saw that as a difficult hurdle on screen and streamlined the action.

The victim of that streamlining was OKC, and certainly RP1 readers wanted to see a local depiction of The Stacks, the girder-and-baling wire piles of trailers and vehicles where many denizens of the virtual reality world known as The Oasis live their corporeal lives. It was a tantalizing prospect; in the novel, Cline describes Watts’ area of The Stacks as near the river and Portland Avenue. For geographically savvy readers, that meant a vision of trailers south of Mathis Brothers Fu r n i t u r e looking out on a deserted OKC skyline.

It was not the first film in the past few years to depict Oklahoma in modern or

near-future dystopian times. Director James Mangold set part of 2017’s Logan in an Oklahoma City that becomes a sleazy party town with a Harrah’s casino. In 2016, Hell or High Water featured its main characters in an Oklahoma tribal casino.

Depictions of Oklahoma are changing from the hardscrabble images of past films and novels to something that might be grounded in our current reality. Whether it is hip-hop, science fiction or recent literature, Oklahoma isn’t just for Westerns anymore.

Fantasy land

Readers’ glimpse into Oklahoma City through The Stacks of Cline’s RP1 is not exactly a glamorous snapshot of tomorrow. The dystopian near-future offers a bleak look at a world strapped of resources and shrouded in pollution, poverty and isolation.

Cline was born in Ohio — the book version’s other main, real-world setting and the only non-digital location mentioned in the upcoming film — and has no strong personal connection to the Sooner State. So why did the writer choose to begin his story in OKC? In a June 2012 interview with Tulsa World, Cline said the selection wasn’t random; he was inspired by a drive through central Oklahoma’s flat, open plains.

“What I remember is seeing all these wind farms, with those turbines spinning,” Cline told Tulsa World. “And I thought that since the story was going to be set in a post-oil future, Oklahoma City would likely be one of those spots that would have sufficient electricity because of wind and solar power.”

RP1’s future outlook for the state and the rest of the world might be bleak, but Jeff Provine, founder and editor-in-

The first section of Ernest Cline’s 2011 best seller Ready Player One is set in Oklahoma City in 2044. | Image Random House / provided 22

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chief of Okie Comics Magazine and adjunct professor of the University of Oklahoma class History of Comics, said the portrayal can actually be seen as a positive alternative to typical, rural Western scenery.

“Oddly enough,” he said, “The Stacks are really what people should think when they picture Oklahoma: rapid suburban growth stimulated by growing digital industry.”

Oklahoma plays a role in a number of other fantasy and science fiction comics, movies and television shows. In Marvel’s Thor comic book series, the namesake Avenger rebuilds the destroyed Norse god capital Asgard outside of Broxton in Caddo County. In the Marvel ABC series Agent Carter, the same town is used as the birthplace of antagonist Agnes Cully. The state was also twice used as a setting in The X-Files episodes “DPO” and “Invocation.”

Opportunities like that enhance our state’s image.

Tava Sofsky The examples above lean on the state’s established reputation as a wide-open, mostly rural state full of earnest townsfolk, but in the 2017 film Logan — the final solo film for Hugh Jackman’s X-Man Wolverine — the title character passes through a version of OKC that any local could spot as a fictitious reimagining.

“It felt a bit like the screenwriters created a version of Oklahoma based on the overheard conversation of people who had recently driven through it,” said Joshua Unruh, who hosts superhero and comic-book podcasts for Pulp Diction Press.

Unruh is a writer himself and said the importance of setting in a work of fiction cannot be overstated.

“Where you choose to set your stories impacts your story even if you choose a setting specifically for the purpose of creating the least impact,” he said. “But if creators want it to be, setting can literally set the trajectory for entire storytelling universes.”

It is no secret that Oklahoma is not the most popular setting for works of fiction, especially those consumed by global audiences. That means when the state does show up in pop culture, it can be a surreal feeling for locals. Provine can’t help but be sensitive to the way his home state is seen by outsiders.

“It’s always fun to be recognized or to recognize familiar sites,” he said, “but there’s always the nagging feeling that the story is just imagining Oklahoma based on some Wild West ideal that may miss out on some of the deeper truths about the strengths and struggles of our state.”

Unruh recognizes the state’s untapped potential as a diverse setting for fiction without a strong Western bent.

Take the popular AMC series Breaking Bad for example; it’s a show that uses its New Mexico setting to add rich layers of beauty and realism without focusing on the state’s most overt stereotypes.

“You do only see a very limited side of Oklahoma in pop culture,” Unruh said.

“Seeing it represented with real character, treated as an actual place with history and culture, would be a treat.”

Flash and Thunder

As a state with a strong musical heritage, Oklahoma is not too uncommon to be mentioned in the phrasings of history’s finest songsmiths, particularly across country music.

But in recent years, hip-hop has given the state some attention for things other than its rural areas and flat prairies.

This is mostly thanks to the presence of the Oklahoma City Thunder, which is given major name-checks by many of today’s most popular rap stars.

The Thunder’s arrival in OKC has done a lot to raise the state’s pop culture profile.

On his mega successful 2016 album Views, Drake gives an extended shout out to friend and former Thunder hero Kevin Durant, rapping on “Weston Road Flows” that he can relate to the star because they get the same kind of attention.

Of course, Durant departed OKC just a few months after the album’s release, sparking a cold war between the player and all-star former teammate Russell Westbrook. A similar chilly rift exists between Drake and the rap world’s polar opposite kingpin Kendrick Lamar, who uses the Durant-Westbrook relationship to quietly allude to his own feud on the 2017 single “The Heart, Part 4.”

“Tables turned, lesson learned, my best look; You jumped sides on me, now you ‘bout to meet Westbrook,” Lamar rapped. “Go celebrate with your team and let victory vouch you; Just know, the next game played I might slap the shit out you.”

Big-screen Oklahoma

Actress Meryl Streep said it best when she discussed the state with Oklahoma Film + Music Office (OF+MO) during the filming of August: Osage County.

“Oklahoma is a surprise; it’s so shockingly beautiful,” Streep said. “It’s really varied and mysterious. The sky is huge, and it’s kind of beautiful, spiritual.”

This wasn’t the first time staff from OK+MO heard big names in Hollywood or those in the film industry express delight in their experience filming in the Sooner State.

“We shock them,” OK+MO director Tava Sofsky told Oklahoma Gazette.

“They have no idea. … I don’t know if I would say nine out of 10 times. I would say more like 100 percent of the time if we can get them on a plane to come here and scout [locations] any length of time — one day or four days — they fall in love.”

With Oklahoma’s strong Western heritage, known for cowboys and Native Americans, along with its longstanding history of severe weather and destruction, the state has gained a national reputation that doesn’t paint the entire picture. While films like 1940’s The Grapes of Wrath, 1991’s My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys and 1996’s Twister play into that reputation, more recent Oklahoma-shot films have augmented the state’s image by showcasing charming towns like Guthrie, Pawhuska and Pawnee as well as Oklahoma’s tallgrass prairies, hardwood forests and plains.

Sofsky said that Oklahoma’s terrain and ecosystems, along with its vast diversity in culture, serve as the state’s greatest asset in attracting out-of-state moviemakers. The challenge lies in changing people’s perceptions and understandings about Oklahoma.

“They have no idea that we have 12 ecological regions, that we have some of America’s most diverse terrain,” she said. “We push that hard.”

Once they learn, moviemakers are hooked, Sofsky said. It’s not uncommon for OF+MO to hear of a director or writer adding a scene or filming on a location illuminating the state’s natural beauty or the distinctive architecture that dots Route 66.

“One example is Great Plains,” she said.

“The location scout took the director out to Pops in Arcadia. He thought it was the coolest thing ever and wrote it in.”

OF+MO, which dates back to 1979 and is part of Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, has a strong tagline for its mission: “Support, connect, promote.” Its commitment lies with both in-state and out-of-state film and music industry folks. Oklahoma City was among the best cities for moviemakers in 2018. MovieMaker magazine gave the city the No. 12 spot in their rankings

Jan de Bont’s 1996 film Twister was shot on location in Oklahoma. | Image Warner Bros. / provided

of the Best Places to Live and Work as a Moviemaker. The state’s rebate program, which offers 35-37 percent on qualifying in-state transactions, is largely responsible for enticing and continuing to build the film industry, Sofsky said.

Sofsky argues Oklahoma-made films are a renewable resource as movie fans watch and re-watch them, especially Christmas films during the holidays. A number of holiday films, including Christmas in the Heartland and So This is Christmas, have been filmed in Oklahoma.

Last week, I Can Only Imagine hit theaters across the United States. The Christian drama is based on the story behind the MercyMe song of the same name.

“That’s going to put Oklahoma in front of millions of people,” Sofsky said.

“Opportunities like that enhance our state’s image.”

True grit

Major film production remained absent from Oklahoma between 1954’s Human Desire and the rise of popularity of Tulsa author S.E. Hinton among Hollywood circles. Hinton’s The Outsiders is her most famous novel, but it was her book Tex, made into a film starring Matt Dillon, that ended Oklahoma’s film drought in 1982.

Director Francis Ford Coppola and Oklahoma producer Gray Frederickson arrived the next year to shoot the film adaptation of The Outsiders. The book is still required reading in school curricula across the country, and the film launched the careers of Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez.

Coppola and Hinton combined to write and produce Rumble Fish, which was also filmed in Tulsa, shortly after The Outsiders.

Coppola said the avant-garde film was going to be “what Apocalypse Now was to The Godfather” in comparison to The Outsiders, but the experimental film with homages to French New Wave hasn’t enjoyed the same staying power as The Outsiders.

Frederickson, who won an Academy Award with Coppola as a producer on The Godfather Part II, still lives in Oklahoma Rilla Askew author of The Mercy Seat, Fire in Beulah and 2013’s Kind of Kin, said new Oklahoma voices are essential to establishing a true Oklahoma image in popular culture. | Photo provided

City. He participated in a Q&A at Tower Theatre during a screening of the film in late 2017 and then went next door, where the bar Ponyboy has drink specials named after each character in the film, complete with actors’ headshots on the menu.

Cruise returned to Oklahoma alongside Dustin Hoffman for 1988’s Rain Man, which won four Academy Awards, including best picture. The film showcases Oklahoma at the start of Cruise’s character’s cross-country road trip with his estranged autistic brother played by Hoffman. Both rural and urban Oklahoma is shown in the film, as it was shot at an Oklahoma City hospital and a farm in Hinton.

A new generation of Oklahoma films began with 1996’s blockbuster Twister, which earned nearly $500 million, the second highest-grossing movie of the year.

Director Jan de Bont elected to shoot in the small town of Wakita after driving through and seeing the remnants of damage from a 1993 hailstorm, according to a 2016 story in Tulsa World.

Scenes were also shot in Pauls Valley, Ponca City, Maysville, Norman and Guthrie, but Wakita (population 344 in the 2010 census) has the strongest connection to the film. A Twister museum on Main Street includes a five-block walking tour of film sites and is filled with plenty of memorabilia, including a football brought to the set by star Bill Paxton.

There is plenty of behind-the-scenes footage of Paxton throwing the football with town residents, many of whom served as extras in the movie. The town honored Paxton in 2017 following his death due to complications from surgery.

We’re sort of a middle America tabula rasa.

Rilla Askew Interestingly, it was Oklahoma-born country star Garth Brooks who was originally offered Paxton’s role in the movie, but he turned it down because the tornado was the real star of the movie, according to a lawsuit filed by Brooks’ former business partner Lisa Sanderson.

As Oklahoma’s tax rebate on film production expenses expanded in the 2000s, more major studios have shot in the state.

The rebate was useful in luring production of the 2010 adaptation of Anadarko-born author Jim Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, starring Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba and shot in Guthrie.

Bartlesville and Pawhuska served as backdrops for the 2012 drama To the Wonder and 2013 dark comedy August: Osage County, based on the play by Tracy Letts. Both films showcased modern Oklahoma as a setting for familial drama with a personal connection for To the Wonder director Terrence Malick, who grew up in Bartlesville before moving to Paris. The film spotlighting his roots is one his most critically derided projects.

While not actually filmed in Oklahoma,

2016’s Hell or High Water showcased the importance of Oklahoma gaming in popular culture. Texas robbers played by Chris Pine and Ben Foster use an Oklahoma casino to launder stolen money.

The next big production set to shoot in Oklahoma is the Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio adaptation of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller Killers of the Flower Moon, which details the decades-long conspiracy to kill and cover up the murders of members of the Osage tribe after they became rich from oil. As of July 2017, the film was still in pre-production.

Novel interpretation

Setting a film in Oklahoma requires considerable preamble involving site selection, interface with state and local governments, application for tax incentives, locating in-state crew and facilities and countless other logistical concerns.

In contrast, novelists just have to know the place well enough to capture its true essence on the page. It’s a comparatively inexpensive proposition, but Oklahoma is not a place to take lightly in fiction. It is not just populated by the go-to archetype of simple country folk; it contains multitudes.

Rilla Askew, author of several novels and an assistant professor at University of Oklahoma, has set all her works to date in her native state. Those include her most recent novel, 2013’s Kind of Kin, a story about immigration and intolerance in a small, southeast Oklahoma town. She said that Oklahoma is rich material for writers familiar with its culture, varied topography and diverse population, like Billie Letts, author of Where the Heart Is. For out-of-state scribes parachuting in for some barbecue and a quick visit to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, or even not visiting at all, Oklahoma can be whatever it needs to be.

“We don’t have a dominant enough presence in the national narrative,” Askew said in an Oklahoma Gazette interview. “I think that’s one reason why people from outside here may choose to set their novels here. It’s like a blank slate in their minds. We’re sort of a middle America tabula rasa.”

That perception of a great, flat emptiness was exacerbated by outsider John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and perhaps given more dimension by Thompson’s hard-boiled noir fiction.

The cure for such one-dimensional depictions of Oklahoma could come from something as simple as the establishing shots of the Oklahoma City skyline during coverage of Thunder games, nationally broadcast proof of the state’s progress beyond sod houses.

But Askew said the most lasting change could come from homegrown talent, artists who can shift the narrative toward Oklahoma’s modernity and away from both its real and imagined past.

“The more voices that come out of this place in terms of literary voices, filmmakers, poets, that’s going to be less true as time goes on,” she said.

O kg a z e t t e . c o m | M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 1 8

23

ARTS & CULTURE

ART

Collage artist Marissa Raglin has been Skirvin Hilton Hotel’s artist-in-residence since October. Inset “Nest I” from Marissa Raglin’s Nesting series | Image provided

Cut above

Artist-in-residence Marissa Raglin holds free drop-in collage workshops through September at Skirvin Hilton Hotel. By Ben Luschen

Paper clippings of octopi, monkeys, plants, fruits, vegetables and butterflies sit in a tray of loose bits on Marissa Raglin’s studio table. At some point in time, someone who came to visit the collage artist during her Skirvin Hilton Hotel residency must have deemed each scrapped image as interesting or useful.

But for whatever reason — change of heart, mind slip, time constraints — visitors to the hotel’s free Cut & Paste workshop often leave without using all the pictures they’ve cut from Raglin’s large available collection of old book and periodical pages.

Raglin could just as easily have thrown away these bits of paper. But writing off any image as unneeded excess goes against the collage mentality. She saves past clippings for use by other guests at another time.

“I don’t really like throwing things away,” Raglin said during a recent Oklahoma Gazette interview. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

The studio, located on the historic hotel’s ground floor, includes shelves stocked with vintage illustrated nature, lifestyle and children’s publications.

Bins of old pages Raglin has found and filed away for future use sit in a corner.

Raglin is Skirvin’s sixth artist-inresidence and the first collagist to be given the yearlong honor. Her residency includes the free Cut & Paste program, in which she guides Skirvin guests and visitors through the process of creating their own collage postcards with provided materials.

The studio resides in Skirvin’s lobby and is open for drop-ins 2-7 p.m.

Monday-Friday and 1-4 p.m. SaturdaySunday. No advance reservation is necessary. All guest postcards are scanned and chronicled on Raglin’s website 24

M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 1 8 | O kg a z e t t e . c o m

mraglinart.com/cutpasteok.

Raglin’s residency began in October and lasts through the end of this September. She believes part of the reason she was selected as artist-inresidence — joining past honorees Romy Owens, Arsenio Corbishley, Kerri Shadid, Gayle Curry and Mike Wimmer — is the interactive element of her work.

Anyone with a desire to make a postcard can come in and do it, and Raglin is more than happy to guide guests.

I feel like I have to work a little harder with this medium.

Marissa Raglin “I enjoy the conversations that come about as they’re working on something,” she said.

There is no typical Cut & Paste session. Raglin has noticed each session is as distinct as the conglomeration of images composed by each guest. And she likes it that way.

“I’ve had people come in and take about 15 minutes and then I’ve had someone stay as long as three hours,” she said. “And I love it; I get to know them.”

Artistic refreshment

Raglin developed a passion for art and painting at a young age. She carried her art pursuits through high school and eventually to college at Oklahoma Baptist University, where she focused on studio art and art therapy with the intention of becoming an art therapist.

Her college art pursuits went well, but after graduating in 2012, Raglin faced a new problem for the first time.

Her work stalled without assignments and the creative constraints imposed by her instructors.

“I was looking at a blank canvas and I didn’t have that inspiration,” she said.

In search of a solution to her creative block, Raglin read a book by Danielle Krysa, known for her blog The Jealous Curator. The book interviewed several artists about what they did when they were at a creative impasse, and Raglin became particularly interested in the common idea of switching mediums. She knew she needed to find an art form she could enjoy just picking up for fun.

Raglin was drawn to collage because she loves placemaking and focusing on the design basics within the medium.

She loves the idea of taking images with their own intended context and meaning and giving them new life in her own work.

“They have things that are hidden and they’re tied to,” she said, “and I’m removing them from that atmosphere and placing them in another.”

Repurposed paper

The first book Raglin took images from was the 1984 illustrated hardbound ABC’s of Nature: A Family Answer Book.

The artist has always been drawn to vintage imagery and paper.

Things are printed differently now than they were years ago, Raglin said.

Ink tones were different, with more pastel hues. The paper was far more delicate.

“If you just look at something the wrong way it’s going to tear,” she said.

These ethereal qualities were all things she liked and wanted represented in her own work. She likes working with older books, even if it makes extraction more difficult.

In the past, she would have to buy her own materials at discount bookstores. But as her reputation as a collage artist has grown among family, friends and the art community, she no longer finds herself in short supply of source material.

“I’m getting books now for birthday presents, Christmas presents,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I know what she’d like.’”

Raglin sometimes tears up at the things people give to her, which have included personal postcard collections and family treasures. Working with images that she knows have meant something dear to another person adds sacred purpose to her work.

“Nest III” from Marissa Raglin’s Nesting series | Image provided

“For me, rather than being stored on a shelf or having your postcard collection underneath your bed, it’s now a work of art,” she said. “It’s reinterpreted. You can see it.”

Deep meaning

As elaborate and rooted in symbolic meaning as Raglin’s collages can be, her medium of choice is not one uniformly found across the nation’s art galleries.

Unreserved acceptance of her work can sometimes be hard to come across.

Raglin sometimes senses that viewers silently question the validity of her work as art, despite the great amount of thought that goes into the placement of each image and the respect given to the basic principles of design.

“No one has ever really told me that, but it’s a feeling I have,” she said. “I feel like I have to work a little harder with this medium.”

The artist’s most recent works, which she calls her Nesting series, focus on repurposing old depictions of ideal womanhood to fit more open-minded and modern views.

“The narrative I’m working with, I feel like, is very timely: the role of a woman in the workplace, at home and as a mother,” Raglin said. “And how fluid that role is. But in these domesticated woman advertisements, I’m finding it’s frustrating and appalling.”

In one of her pieces, Raglin included an old advertisement with words reading, “Lipstick can give a man ideas.”

“But what about my ideas?” Raglin said. “I wear lipstick because that’s the way I want to look, not to give men ideas.”

Some collage art is known for surface-level appeal, designed more for spreadability across social media than as an engaging and provocative piece of gallery art. Raglin wants to use her work to challenge existing conceptions.

“With the medium, I want to make sure the hidden narrative in it comes forward in some way,” she said. “It’s not just likable, clickable art.”

View mraglinart.com.

from left Brenna Betz as Lizzie Borden and Corrynn Englerth as a friend from New York City in Carpenter Square Theatre’s production of Blood Relations. | Photo Carpenter Square Theatre / provided.

to work with,” Cowley said.

The doubling of Lizzie Borden’s onstage identity is a fact underscored by her larger cultural reputation.

“When the audience leaves, they can make up their own minds — which is kind of [like] the case,” Cowley said.

“She was acquitted. She was convicted in public opinion, but she was never convicted legally.”

T H E AT E R

Hidden tableau

Being Borden

Blood Relations aims to investigate the fact and fiction of Lizzie Borden and her family. By Ian Jayne

The story of Lizzie Borden is both history and mystery, a tragic and violent narrative embedded in the fabric of American culture. An upcoming production of Blood Relations at Carpenter Square Theatre, 800 W. Main St., dramatizes the ambiguity of Borden’s story and interrogates possible motivations.

Written by Canadian playwright Sharon Pollock, Blood Relations takes place in 1902, ten years after the murder of Andrew and Abigail Borden, Lizzie’s father and stepmother.

“It’s a very interesting play,” said director Tom Cowley. “It deals with Lizzie Borden — whether she really did do the deed or didn’t do it.”

The narrative focuses on a short period in Borden’s life about nine years after she was acquitted for the murders of Abby and Andrew. Blood Relations jumps temporally between past and present, imbuing the show with a dreamlike quality. Rhonda Clark, artistic director at Carpenter Square, likened the show to a memory play.

Cowley said the play uses lighting as a conduit between scenes, with a small portion of the stage being lit at any given time. Instead of scene cutoffs, the light moves onto another area of the stage, allowing for a fluid transition between places and times. Lizzie remains

onstage for most of the play.

“Sometimes she’s just standing over in the dark, watching what is going on,” Cowley said.

In addition to its sense of temporal dislocation, Blood Relations also fractures the idea of Lizzie Borden as both historical personage and character, playing on themes of doubling and feminine community.

Lizzie and another character — known as The Actress — engage in performative role-playing. The Actress acts as Lizzie, while Lizzie pretends to be Bridget Sullivan, the Irish maid who discovered the bodies at the Borden house on August 4, 1892.

According to Clark, The Actress engages in such role-playing in order to get information from Lizzie, trying to discern what happened on that August day.

“It gives her a really close woman friend who may or may not also be her lover,” Clark said of the play’s narrative.

For Cowley, the doubling also represented a challenge to ensure that the audience can always track with who is who at any given time. He said he thinks of the directing process as a collaboration between writer, director and actors, giving the latter group a great deal of latitude in constructing their characters.

“The cast is really good. They’re easy

One of other ways that Blood Relations achieves its goal of asking questions about historical happenstance is by omitting the crucial moment when Lizzie allegedly killed her father, according to Cowley.

“We don’t show that. There’s no gore.

They talk about it a lot, but you don’t actually see it,” Cowley said.

By not showing the scene, Blood Relations offers up possible motivations — financial, familial and cultural — that might have contributed to Lizzie’s alleged actions. The Bordens were upper-middle class, Clark said, but welloff Mr. Borden created financial conflict through his remarriage to Abby.

Familial conflict in the play also shows how Lizzie might have felt discounted by her family and wondered about what would become of her in the world, Clark said.

Clark said that the play presents Lizzie as outspoken, not willing to get along for the sake of getting along, often talking back to her father or engaging in shouting matches. Other complicating factors in the play’s treatment of Lizzie include an unrequited love interest from a doctor who has long been interested in her.

Given the show’s complicated structure and heavy subject matter, Cowley and Clark said that the staging and costuming remain straightforward.

“The set and costumes are going to be relatively realistic for the time period,” Clark said.

Set in the parlor and dining room of an old New England mansion, Clark said that various Victorian furniture and wallpaper lend the production a “period flair.” Costuming creates a similar effect — the women wear long dresses and high collars, while men wear cravats and other historical pieces.

Packed into about 90 minutes, Blood Relations doesn’t draw out Borden’s story, but rather approaches it from a period of historical distance and reappraisal.

“I know a lot of people probably don’t know a lot about Lizzie Borden,” Cowley said. “It will cause them to think a little bit.”

Blood Relations runs March 30-April 21. Tickets are $5-$25. Call 405-2326500 or visit carpentersquare.com.

Blood Relations 7:30 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays March 30-April 21 Carpenter Square Theatre 800 W. Main St. carpentersquare.com | 405-232-6500 $5-$25

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culture

ARTS & CULTURE

Hunting dogs

Myriad Botanical Gardens invites furry friends to take part in its annual Easter festivities.

By Ben Luschen

Many watch as they dart across Myriad Botanical Gardens’ spring green lawn at the Doggy Easter Egg Hunt’s official start. Caught up in a sense of palpable competition, they occasionally growl at rivals who manage to reach an egg before them.

But that’s enough about the owners.

It’s the dogs at the other end of the leashes that make the unique seasonal hunt such a spectacle.

“I’ve found they’re really laid back compared to the parents that are with them,” said Ashley Elkins, Myriad Gardens’ director of public relations.

The fourth annual Doggy Easter Egg Hunt begins 12:30 p.m. March 31 on Myriad Botanical Garden’s Great Lawn, 301 W. Reno Ave. Dog registration is $5-$10 and can be done in advance at myriadgardens.com.

Around 2,000 plastic eggs will be stuffed with dog treats and other prizes donated by A1 Pet Emporium and Barking Dog Bakery Boutique.

Participating dogs use their high-powered noses to sniff out the eggs hidden across the Great Lawn area. Only after their sniffers have touched the egg may 26

M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 1 8 | O kg a z e t t e . c o m

the owners add them to the dogs’ haul.

Thumb-having handlers must also act as the dog’s official basket or bag caddy.

This is the first year the competition will be split into small and large dog categories. The small dog hunt begins at 12:30 p.m. while the bigger hounds’ search kicks off at 1 p.m. Each hunt is expected to last between five and 15 minutes. Dogs are encouraged to arrive early and avoid missing any of the competition.

Elkins said the hunt got its start several years ago when Myriad Botanical Gardens partnered with Midtown Vets to work on incorporating more animals into its programming schedule.

“We just realized that people love their dogs,” she said. “We tried this out and it was a huge success, so we’ve continued it ever since.”

In past years, entry was limited to 150 dogs, meaning they had to turn away a few pouty pooches.

“It’s really sad,” Elkins said. “People send in photos of their dogs in Easter dresses that they brought in and it was sold out. They’re like, ‘Please let Muffin in.’”

This year, Muffin, Fido and other

This is the fourth year Myriad Botanical Gardens has hosted an Easter egg hunt for dogs. | Photo Myriad Botanical Gardens / provided

dogs that turn out have a much better chance of getting in the hunt. The total field has been doubled, with 150-dog caps in both the large and small dog categories.

Many people who show up for the Doggy Easter Egg Hunt have no intention of entering a dog. Elkins said many families are mere spectators.

“A lot of people have come in the past just to watch,” she said, “because it’s kind of a funny spectacle to see in person.”

Full day

The Doggy Easter Egg Hunt is just one portion of what will be an action-packed day of spring activity at Myriad Botanical Gardens.

Immediately following the dog hunt’s end at 1 p.m., a family egg-dyeing workshop for children ages 6-10 will take place in the terrace room in the Crystal Bridge’s lower level. Admission is $12$15, and advance registration must be completed online by Tuesday.

Though now at full capacity for entrants, the annual children’s Easter egg hunt is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m.

New this year is the Easter Eggstravaganza — essentially a spring carnival that functions as both a fun after-party for families participating in the egg hunt and a good alternative for children who would like to collect their own eggs but don’t want to competitively hunt against others.

The Eggstravaganza runs 3-5:30 p.m. around the Great Lawn and Band Shell areas. Children with a $10 wristband can go around to different booths, playing games and making crafts as they gather a guaranteed 20 eggs.

Children are encouraged to come wearing fun and creative Easter hats and bonnets that incorporate garden, Oklahoma and Easter themes. Those with festive headgear will parade around the lawn 4:05-4:15 p.m. A panel of judges will vote on winners in categories like most creative, most colorful, largest (while still be able to be worn on one’s head), most Oklahoma and crowd favorite.

There will also be egg rolling and bunny hop sack races in which children can participate. Family-friendly “kindie rock” duo Sugar Free Allstars will wind down the festivities with a 4:30 p.m. show. Face painting, music, food trucks and tulips for sale will be available to guests throughout the event.

“It’ll be a big day with lots of people, food, family and fun,” Elkins said.

Visit myriadgardens.com.

Palm Sunday &

Easter Holy Week Services Guide Holy Week Holy Thursday Mass March 29 – 7:00pm Good Friday Service March 30 – 7:00pm

Easter Mass Schedule

Easter Vigil (Holy Saturday) March 31 – 8:30pm Easter Sunday April 1 - 8:00am, 10:00am, 12:30pm

Epiphany of the Lord Catholic Church 7336 W. Britton Road, OKC 73132 (405) 722-2110 | www.epiphanyokc.com

Doggy Easter Egg Hunt 12:30 p.m. March 31 Great Lawn Myriad Botanical Gardens 301 W. Reno Ave. myriadgardens.com | 405-445-7080 $5-$10

O kg a z e t t e . c o m | M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 1 8

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ARTS & CULTURE

s instagram U w o ll Fo to see all our #selfies! on

OKG

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@okgazette

Female firsts

Two south Oklahoma City teens reel in coveted scholarships after helping to build a thriving soccer program at Santa Fe South. By Laura Eastes

When national letter-of-intent signing days come around, usually Santa Fe South High School has no reason to celebrate, as no student-athletes from the charter school are inking letters of intent to play college sports.

While the south Oklahoma City school has had student-athletes graduate and move on to the collegiate level, the numbers are small. Few, if any, female students have had the chance to sit at a table with family, friends and coaches as they sign letters of intent with their choice of school.

On Feb. 7, the 2018 National Letter of Intent Signing Day, Santa Fe South soccer players María García and Alejandra Andrade joined student-athletes from across the nation to sign on the dotted line. The two soccer players, who began playing together in sixth grade at Santa Fe South Middle School, both signed to nearby Division II Southern Nazarene University (SNU) in Bethany.

“It was something that was very anticipated at our school,” Andrade told Oklahoma Gazette in an interview with teammate Garcia following a win over Crocked Oak on March 6. “They’ve been waiting for the longest time. I think they’ve been waiting longer than we have.”

The two are likely the first Santa Fe South girls’ soccer players to earn athletic scholarships. It’s quite an accomplishment for the teenagers who come from a program that has been on the upswing, although not traditionally thought of for girls’ soccer. Santa Fe South has made its name in academics as a successful charter school district serving a majority Hispanic student population.

A local club team’s coach recommend28

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ed the girls pursue SNU’s soccer program, which could include landing a college scholarship. In addition to their high school team, García and Andrade play on Norman Youth Soccer Association’s Oklahoma Celtic, a club team.

Last fall, both players made a visit to SNU, where they were invited to practice with the team.

“I was nervous at first,” Andrade said. “I was coming off a long week at club [soccer], but they were really friendly. I could tell everyone cared about each other, which is one of the main factors in choosing a team. The [players] were all close with their coach, which was another factor for choosing the team. The coach cared about them.”

It was something that was very anticipated at our school. They’ve been waiting for the longest time.

Alejandra Andrade What sealed the deal was witnessing the coach take an interest in her players’ academics. García, who wants to pursue either pre-medicine or athletic training, and Andrade, who plans to study nursing, see college as an opportunity to pursue their academic goals as well as play soccer.

Successful run

At a very young age, Andrade began to play soccer following the lead of an older brother. For García, it was a similar story. She comes from a family

from left Alejandra Andrade and María García are some of the first student athletes from Santa Fe South High School to sign letters of intent to play college soccer. | Photo Laura Eastes

in which all members played in their youth. At a young age, she found herself on the field, playing in the Oklahoma City Police Athletic League.

The two players began playing for Santa Fe South as sixth-graders. Four years ago, the two were on the high school’s girls’ soccer team, which was only a variety squad, as there was not enough interest to support a junior varsity team.

“Our freshman year, we didn’t get a crowd,” Andrade said.

She explained that now crowds even gather at cold games early in the spring season.

“It didn’t seem worth their time,” García added.

As freshmen, the two contributed to a Saints team that made it to the second round of the state playoffs before losing.

The next year, the team made it to quarter-finals. Last year, in the team’s first state championship appearance, they lost to Clinton High School in the Class 4A title game.

Losing was tough, but it marked an enormous accomplishment for the Santa Fe South program.

“Our program is kind of new because our school is kind of new,” said García, who plays as a defensive midfielder.

“The program, at first, I guess you would say it was terrible. It took time. As the years went on, each team got better and progressed.”

Both García and Andrade said while the team is packed with talent and experience this season, one of its greatest strengths is the strong bonds between teammates. As the team has captured wins and clinched post-season playoff appearances, it has caught the attention of their community and younger girls interested in following their lead and their teammates.

“Girls from middle school are seeing that this program is succeeding,” Andrade said. “They want to come here.

We’ve had players come from other schools to play on our team. That’s going to bring up this program. That’s what’s making a difference.”

As a public charter school, students apply to attend Santa Fe South. When no more seats are available, the school uses a lottery system to select students.

Both players are excited to continue to pursue their flourishing talents at the collegiate level; however, there is still a lot of high school soccer for them to play. This season’s team slogan is “Go hard or go home.” It motivates Andrade, García and the other players, as their school moved from Class 4A to Class 5A. The team’s goal is to make the playoffs once again.

“When we moved up to 5A this year, it messed with our heads a little bit,” García said. “We anticipated a faster pace game and more skilled girls. I think we can keep up with them as long as we can continue to do what we need to do.”

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CO MM U NI T Y

ARTS & CULTURE

Vibrant Vault

Citizens Bank of Edmond opens co-working space Vault 405. By Jeremy Martin

In more office spaces around the country, “co-workers” aren’t necessarily working for the same company, or even in the same industry. At Vault 405 in downtown Edmond, farmers, oil companies, consulting businesses, a geologist and a Presbyterian church all have offices and work side by side. Part of the appeal of shared office space, said Vault 405 project coordinator Marla Lance, is the convenience and lower initial expenses when compared to renting traditional dedicated office space.

“It gives you all of the office amenities that you would need, but you don’t have to sign up for a lease,” she said, “and you don’t have to have long-term commitment or the cost of adding all your stuff. Wi-Fi is included, there are utilities included in your monthly payment, and so I think it gives people a less expensive option, especially for startups and entrepreneurs.”

One thing all the people working at Vault 405 have in common, besides a mailing address and Wi-Fi password, is they’re all customers at Citizens Bank of Edmond. Citizens Bank president and CEO Jill Castilla was inspired to turn an empty office building into the co-working space after visiting Rise community offices in New York City to record a podcast. Vault 405, which hosted an official ribbon-cutting ceremony March 1, also features a podcast recording studio.

Though Lance said the customers utilizing Vault 405 have not been utilizing the studio — which includes four headphone and microphone sets, a Zoom audio recorder and an iMac with a 27-inch monitor — she said upcoming monthly equipment training sessions will hopefully encourage local businesses to start podcasts.

Vault 405 also includes two conference

rooms with 65-inch high-resolution screens and a presentation room with a large projector screen that can be rented by nonmembers. Nonprofit businesses with accounts at Citizens Bank can use these spaces free of charge. Monthly memberships are available at several levels, with individual personal workstations with locked storage renting for $275 a month and private offices starting at $400 with six- or 12-month contracts.

Office and desk rentals come with unlimited coffee and tea; high-speed Wi-Fi; conference room access; mail service; admission to workshops, classes and networking events; and printer, copier and scanner access.

Currently, businesses utilizing the offices at Vault 405 include Payne Exploration Company, Broncho Land and Investments, Leamark, Rollow Farms, web and branding consultants Unknown.Studio, interior designers Modern Whimsy, consulting and strategy firm NxtLevel Solutions and local grocer and food distributor Urban

Vault 405 features include a presentation room, meeting rooms, a podcasting room, personal workstations, storage, private offices, mail service and complimentary tea and coffee. | Photos Citizens Bank of Edmond / Vault 405 / provided

Agrarian, which Lance said plans to open a retail space in Vault 405 later this year. According to its website’s mission statement, Vault 405’s ultimate objective is to foster businesses to expand until a desk or even an office in a shared working space is no longer sufficient to meet their needs.

I think it gives people a less expensive option, especially for startups and entrepreneurs.

Marla Lance “We want our members to evolve from day pass holders to co-working members, from personal stations to private offices and from private offices to owning their own spaces,” the site reads. “Our goal is to help you outgrow Vault 405.”

Local inspiration

Outside New York City, Vault 405 also drew inspiration from similar spaces closer to home, Lance said, including 36

Degrees North in Tulsa, Rise Coworking in Moore and StarSpace46 in Oklahoma City. Uniquely to Vault 405, Lance said, the association with Citizens Bank offers clients a chance to meet with bank employees onsite to discuss financial matters. But beyond banking, the variety of businesses sharing the same space offers networking opportunities that can be beneficial to everyone.

“Like, if you know somebody that needs a website, ‘Hey, we know these guys and they work at the same place I work, and here’s their business card or here’s their information,’” Lance said. “Just being able to encourage each other but also maybe utilize each other’s businesses as well.”

As the internet allows more people to work from home, many have realized there are distinct disadvantages to doing so.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say, ‘Man, I work at home and I’m just getting really lonely or bored,’” Lance said. “It’s hard to work at home. So we’re building that type of community here, and networking possibilities for them has encouraged their businesses all the more because they see more benefits of meeting new people and getting trainings and events that they can go to and learning more about how to maintain a small business or how to do social media for your business and getting that type of involvement where they can’t get that at home. They just want a space they can go that they know that other people are there.”

Lance said she understands completely. Though Vault 405 officially opened at the beginning of this month, clients began moving in at the beginning of the year, and Lance said she was anxious to begin filling once-empty Vault with co-workers.

“Even when I was working in this building before people were actually moving in, I thought, like, ‘OK, when are these guys moving in?’” she said. “I was getting a little lonely down here. So it’s just kind of nice to know that other people are around and they’re people that you can also maybe work with in the future.”

Visit vault405.com.

Citizens Bank of Edmond opened Vault 405 March 1. | Photo Citizens Bank of Edmond / Vault 405 / provided O kg a z e t t e . c o m | M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 1 8

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2nd location now open!

Complimentary Beverages Upon Request

50%

2nd service of equal value or less *Monday-Thursday

OFF Walk-Ins Welcome

rds Gift Caable!

CALENDAR These are events recommended

by Oklahoma Gazette editorial staff members. For full calendar listings, go to okgazette.com.

BOOKS

Avail

The New Wine Rules, Jon Bonné signs his latest book on becoming a confident wine drinker and talks about his previous book The New California Wines, noon-4 p.m. March 24. Commonplace Books, 1325 N. Walker Ave., 405-551-1715, commonplacebooksokc.com. SAT Read for Adventure, the OKC Zoo and Metropolitan Library Systems have partnered to publish the children‘s book, Our Day at the Zoo and to create a community Read for Adventure program enabling readers to check out the new book from any of the 19 Metro Library locations, through March 31.

Metropolitan Library System, 300 Park Ave., 405231-8650, metrolibrary.org.

Manis • Pedis • Waxing • Eyelash Extensions • Tinting • Facials • Massages

13008 N. Pennsylvania Ave. Oklahoma City, OK. 73120 405-608-8886

Chris

Abani

6233 NW Expressway Oklahoma City, OK. 73132 405-720-1112

Oklahoma City University presents the 20th annual Thatcher Hoffman Smith Poetry Series.

The events,

poet•playwright•novelist free to the public,

include a 10 a.m. reading & conversation, a 6:15 p.m. community open mic and an 8 p.m. reading and Q&A session.

For more information on the events at OCU, visit okcufilmlit.org, call 405-208- 5707 or send an email to filmlit@okcu.edu Books for sale on site

Wed. April 4 | 10 AM and 8 PM

Art Adventures, bring your young artists ages 3 to 5 to experience art through books with related art projects, 10:30 a.m.-noon Tuesdays through June. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-325-3272, ou.edu/fjjma. TUE

FILM Railway Sleepers, (2017, Thailand, Sompot Chidgasornpongse), a documentary on the trains in Thailand taking the audience from the present to the past, 7:30 p.m. March 21. Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 415 Couch Drive, 405-236-3100, okcmoa.com. WED Sunny Side Up Film Festival, a new festival for indie film and screenplay brings a weekend of allday screenings with a red carpet award show finale, March 24-25. The Goddard Center, 401 1st Ave SW, Ardmore, 405-226-0909, goddardcenter.org. SAT

Pet Photos with the Easter Bunny, here‘s your chance to bring your furry friends to take a photo with the Easter bunny in the Macy‘s court, 6-7:30 p.m. March 25. Penn Square Mall, 1901 Northwest Expressway, 405-841-2696, simon.com/mall/pennsquare-mall. SUN Art for Peace, celebrate Women‘s History Month with Oklahoma artist DG Smalling and take home your own pen art with DG‘s guidance based on his shoe series, 5-7:30 p.m. March 27. Bossa Nova, 440 NW 11th St., Suite 100, 405-525-9779, ieew.org. TUE Introduction to Growing Plants for New Gardeners, an introduction to the basics of growing ornamental garden plants including trees, shrubs and perennial flowers and grasses, 6-7 p.m.

March 27. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. TUE Senior Wellness Wednesday, a 30-minute heart healthy exercise class, followed by a heart healthy cooking /wine demo and tasting with Kam‘s Kookery, 9-10:30 a.m. March 28. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. WED The Mayor‘s Development Roundtable, join the discussion on OKC‘s development with mayor Mick Cornett with experts, local panel members and attendees, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

March 28. Cox Convention Center, 1 Myriad Gardens, 405-602-8500, coxconventioncenter.com. WED Senior Fraud Conference, Oklahoma Insurance Department provides free seminars to teach seniors how to recognize, avoid and report fraud, 8:30 a.m.12:15 p.m. March 28. Tower Hotel, 3233 Northwest Expressway, 405-842-6633, ok.gov. WED Lewis & Clark Revisited, explore the journey made by the Corps of Discovery through journal entries, works of art, historical photos, and more, and learn about what became of the corps members and the people they met, 1:30-3:30 p.m. Thursdays.

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405-744-5868, education. okstate.edu/olli. THU

Paterson, (2017, USA, Jim Jarmusch),Paterson (Adam Driver) is a bus driver in New Jersey living the monotonous daily routine who writes poetry, 2 p.m. March 25.

Meinders School of Business, 2501 N. Blackwelder Ave., 405-208-5536, okcufilmlit.org. SUN

Unlocking the West, an overview of Glenn D. Shirley Western Americana Collection full of documents, photographs, movie memorabilia, books and magazines with a variety of guest speakers, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Thursdays. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405-744-5868, education.okstate.edu/olli. THU

HAPPENINGS

FOOD

The Orchid & Poetry Show, an orchid show curated

by Nate Tschaenn, director of horticulture and resident orchid expert features exhibits inspired by poetry, through March 24. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com.

Myriad Kitchen: Take Your Salads to a Whole New Level, learn how to make a tasty salad without compromising healthiness with demonstrations and sample sizes of yummy salads, 1-3 p.m. March 24.

Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405445-7080, myriadgardens.com. SAT

OKC Home & Outdoor Living Show, peruse vendors and hear from experts on advice for remodeling, cooking, decorating and outdoor entertaining, noon-9 p.m. March 23, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. March 24, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

March 25. Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, 3001 General Pershing Blvd., 405-948-6700, okstatefair.com.

The Lost Ogle Trivia, for ages 21 and up, test your knowledge with free trivia play and half-priced sausages, 8-10 p.m. Tuesdays through Nov. Fassler Hall, 421 NW 10th St. , 405-609-3300, fasslerhall.com. TUE

Kerr McGee Auditorium, OKCU Meinders School of Business NW 27th & McKinley

YOUTH Spring Break Camps, campers gain confidence and develop new skills in ceramics, cartooning, robotics and more, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Friday through March 23. Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, 3000 General Pershing Blvd., 405-951-0000, oklahomacontemporary.org. MON

A New Beginning Women’s Healthcare

Sprouting Chefs: Spring Break Cooking Camp, for ages 8-12, a hands-on cooking camp with themed days and a chance to create delicious dishes using fresh ingredients, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. through March 22.

Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405445-7080, myriadgardens.com. MON

Vaginal Rejuvenation | Hormone Management | Allergy testing & treatment Weight loss | In-house Pharmacy | Call for a full listing of services

20% off

Spring Break Drop-in Activities, includes activities such as exploring Native American beadwork, building a river raft craft, a cowboy challenge and more, through March 23. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org. MON

good through 03/31/2018

OKC STEAM Learning Journey, for kids aged 5-12, the camp offers diversity training and ethnography services and this year‘s theme is aviation and free, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. through March 23. Word First Ministries, 10220 N. Western Ave., 405-463-5729, thickdescriptions.org. MON

All laser procedures

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Cowboy Round-Up Put your boots on and cowboy up for a day of making rope, Dutch oven cooking, sideshows and more. The free roundup is open to all ages 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday at Oklahoma History Center, 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive.

Call 405-522-0765 or visit okhistory.org.

SATURDAY Photo Oklahoma History Center/provided

Hip-Hop 4 Kids, a hip-hop class for gradeschoolers and preteens to learn dance moves from the southside hip-hop dance crew, 3:30-5 p.m. March 23. Southern Oaks Library, 6900 S. Walker Ave., 405-631-4468, metrolibary.org. FRI Spring Has Sprung in the Children‘s Garden, plant seeds and decorate flower pots while enjoying the arrival of spring in the gardens, 11 a.m.-noon March 24. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. SAT Kid Inventor, design, test and build unique creations using a variety of materials and technologies such as Legoes, string, paper and more, through March. Science Museum

Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place, 405-602-6664, sciencemuseumok.org.

Easter Bunny Photos, celebrate Easter with the kids by taking a photo with the Easter bunny in Macy‘s court and take home a memento, through March 31.

Penn Square Mall, 1901 Northwest Expressway, 405841-2696, simon.com/mall/penn-square-mall. FRI Explore It!, answer all your questions of what, why and how about the natural world we live in, 11:30 a.m.-noon Saturdays. Sam Noble Museum, 2401 Chautauqua Ave., Norman, 405-325-4712, samnoblemuseum. ou.edu. SAT Discovery Time, a program for preschool and elementary-age kids with a hands-on activity of stories, crafts and discovery table specimens, 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Sam Noble Museum, 2401 Chautauqua Ave., Norman, 405-325-4712, samnoblemuseum.ou.edu. SUN Little Sapling Series, enjoy songs, games and interactive fun for the whole family exploring the world of gardens with mud pies, observing caterpillars and more, 10-11 a.m. every other Tuesday. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. TUE

PERFORMING ARTS The Good Doctor, a comedy with music by playwright Neil Simon adapting short stories written by Russian author Chekhov and 8 p.m.

Thursday-Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sundays. Jewel Box Theatre, 3700 N. Walker Ave., 405-521-1786, jewelboxtheatre.org. WED The Centennial Rodeo Opry, an evening of live music and the best performers representing country, folk, blues, gospel, rock, bluegrass and more, 6 p.m. Saturdays. Centennial Rodeo Opry, 2221 Exchange Ave., 405-297-9773, ohfo.org. SAT OKC Improv, enjoy weekly performances of improvised comedy theatre on Oklahoma City‘s premier platform for improv, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Noir Bistro & Bar, 701 W. Sheridan Ave., 405-208-4233, theparamountokc.com. SAT

ACTIVE Learn-to-Swim Program, giving residents of all ages and financial situations the opportunity to learn to swim with proper technique and basic water safety at their own pace offered by the King Marlin Swim Club, ongoing, Lighthouse Sports, Fitness and Health, 3333 W. Hefner Road, 405-8455672, marlinswimamerica.com.

Yoga with Art, relax and stretch in contemporary art-filled spaces with yoga instructed by This Land Yoga, 10 a.m. Saturdays. 21c Museum Hotel, 900 W. Main St., 405-982-6900, 21cmuseumhotels.com. SAT

Oklahoma Centennial Horse Show Competitors show their horses — American Saddlebreds, Morgans, Roadsters and more — to win prize money.

The free, multi-breed show is March 29-31 at Oklahoma State Fairgrounds, 3001 General Pershing Blvd. Call 502-295-7244 or visit okcentennial.com.

MARCH 29-31 Photo bigstock.com

VISUAL ARTS After Hours, consists of a select group of professionals’ artwork created after hours with Arden Barrett, european fashion buyer; Arjan Jager, senior urban designer and planner; George Benard, Division Director of ER at Saint Anthony and more, through April 1. JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker Ave., 405-528-6336, jrbartgallery.com.

New Shipment of Items warehouse only

50%off everything

Beyond ART: Artist Talk & Demonstration, bring your lunch to join artist Beth Hammack and make connections to art and other artists, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. March 21. JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker Ave., 405-528-6336, jrbartgallery.com. WED

Sunday Brunch & Yoga, get an hour of yoga in with 405 Yoga Certified Teacher Jordan Williams and grub out on some brunch after, 10:30 a.m. March 25. Stonecloud Brewing Company, 1012 NW 1st St., 405-602-3966, stonecloudbrewing.com. SUN

CAPAS, an exhibit featuring work by visiting artist Morgan Page bringing her family heritage to life with photography, video, collage and textiles, through March 30. The Lightwell Gallery, 520 Parrington Oval, Rm. 202, Norman, 405-325-2691, art.ou.edu.

Yoga in the Gardens, an all-levels class led by Lisa Woodward from This Land Yoga; class participants should bring a yoga mat and water, 5:45 p.m.

Tuesdays. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com. TUE

Cartoons & Comics: The Early Art of Tom Ryan, the drawings of acclaimed Western artist Tom Ryan are displayed showcasing his creativity, talent, and humor from his teenage imagination, high school and coast guard years and his school paper‘s sports

2717 W Reno Ave, OKC Tues-Sat 10a-6p Sun 12p-5p

List your event in

Lonesome Traveler: The Concert with Special Guest Peter Yarrow This theatrical concert with original folk songs celebrating Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and more is 7:30 p.m. March 29 at Oklahoma City Community College’s Visual and Performing Arts Center Theater, 7777 S. May Ave. Tickets are $49. Call 405-682-7579 or visit tickets.occc.edu. MARCH 29 Photo Oklahoma City Community College/provided

go to okgazette.com for full listings!

Submissions must be received by Oklahoma Gazette no later than noon on Wednesday seven days before the desired publication date. Late submissions will not be included in the listings. Submissions run as space allows, although we strive to make the listings as inclusive as possible.

Submit your listings online at okgazette.com or e-mail them to listings@okgazette.com.

Sorry, but phone submissions cannot be accepted.

O kg a z e t t e . c o m | m a r c h 2 1 , 2 0 1 8

33

CALENDAR page, through April 1, 2018. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org.

CONTINUUM, features 3-D sculptural work ranging from pop art teapots to abstract totemic sculptures, all exploring the diversity of ceramic art, through March 29. Melton Gallery, 100 N. University Drive, Edmond, 405-974-2000, uco.edu. THU

sat, MaR 24

frank fosTer w/ denny sTrickland thuRs, MaR 26

sylvan esso w/ suzi analogue tuEs, MaR 27

k. flay w/ yungblud

thuRs, MaR 29

badfish a TribuTe To sublime

thuRs, apRil 5

corey smiTh w/ kody wesT fRi, apRil 6

william clark green w/ corey kenT whiTe sun, apRil 8

leon russell birThday celebraTion tuEs, apRil 10

sleep w/ subrosa

sat, May 5

beach house

tuEs, May 8

scoTT bradlee's posTmodern Jukebox Mon, May 14

fleeT foxes w/ amen dunes Tulsa ok

423 norTh main sT

TickeTs & info cainsballroom.com

Decomposition: Discovering the Beauty and Magnificence of Fungi, the kingdom of fungi is on display at SMO‘s smART Space Galleries exploring the uses, benefits and beauty of fungi, through Aug. 12. Science Museum Oklahoma, 2020 Remington Place, 405-602-6664, sciencemuseumok.org.

Do You See What I See? Painted Conversations by Theodore Waddell, explores Waddell‘s abstract expressionism like never before by redirection the visitor‘s attention to the importance of what they do not see rather than what they do see on the canvas, through May 13. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, 1700 NE 63rd St., 405-478-2250, nationalcowboymuseum.org.

Fine Print! Posters from the Permanent Collection, arranged chronologically and thematically with five topics: artists, entertainers, patriotism, products and ideas reflecting the twentieth century‘s conflicting values, through May 27. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-3253272, ou.edu/fjjma.

Fragmentary Stories, Alicia “Saltina” Marie Clark uses charcoal, graphite and paint to tell historical stories from her Native American roots, through March 31. Paseo Art Space, 3022 Paseo St., 405525-2688, thepaseo.com.

Fringe at the Art Hall, hosts artists of Fringe Women Artists of Oklahoma providing various fine art mediums and provocative concepts to our communities, Feb. 2-April 1. Art Hall, 519 NW 23rd St., 405-231-5700, arthallokc.com. FRI Generations in Modern Pueblo Painting: The Art of Tonita Peña and Joe Herrera, documents and celebrates in particular the art of Tonita Peña (1983-1949), the only female Pueblo painter of her generation, and the work of her son, Joe Hilario Herrera, through April 8. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-325-3272, ou.edu/fjjma.

Jardin do Amor/Garden of Love, view works by Skip Hall with mixed-media drawings of tattoo expressive patterning, looping graphic lines and kinetic scribbling creating a sensual and sensory experience, through March 23. Myriad Botanical Gardens, 301 W. Reno Ave., 405-445-7080, myriadgardens.com.

Mentorship Exhibition, a program for high school students to learn more about printmaking, the book arts, and works on paper; the exhibit features linoleum relief prints, plexiglass monotypes and more, March 22-April 20. [Artspace] at Untitled, 1 NE Third St., 405-815-6665, 1ne3.org.

My Wildest Dreams, features Broken Arrow artist Micheal W. Jones; an artist from a young age, his paintings are created using water media, through April 27. The Depot, 200 S. Jones Ave., Norman, 405-307-9320, pasnorman.org.

Wed, March 21

adaM Miller

New Works, showcases color and black-and-white photography taken by

Uptown Uncorked Big Truck Tacos and more as well as beer from COOP Ale Works.

The funds are used for the district association’s revitalization efforts. The event is 6-9 p.m. March 29 at Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23rd St. Tickets are $50-$75. Call 405-7086937 or visit uptown23rd.com. MARCH 29 Photo Uptown 23rd/provided Renee Lawrence during a recent trip to New Mexico as well as mixed-media works inspired by Native American dancers, through March. Contemporary Art Gallery, 2928 Paseo St., 405-601-7474, contemporaryartgalleryokc.com.

Off the Page, local artists portray literary characters through paintings and sculptures that many readers know and love such as Edgar Allen Poe, through March 25. The Paseo Plunge, 3010 Paseo, 405-315-6224, paseoplunge.com.

OK Collects: The Art of Collecting Art, highlights works by contemporary art collectors in Oklahoma reflecting personal stories and interests of the collectors with a range of media, through March 24. Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, 3000 General Pershing Blvd., 405-951-0000, oklahomacontemporary.org.

OKecoScapes, an exhibit by Douglas Shaw Elder observing the cycles of nature with an abstract perspective contemplated through experiential art making, and resulting in raw and organic finished drawings and carvings, through April 1. JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker Ave., 405-528-6336, jrbartgallery.com.

Porcelain Art Exhibit, World Organization of China Painters presents a free tour for the member porcelain art exhibit, March 21-June 22. Porcelain Art Museum, 2700 N. Portland Ave., 405-521-1234, wocp.org.

Powdered Graphite, highly detailed graphite works by artist Haley Prestifilippo depict ambiguously narrative scenes in which animals are trapped in moments of upheaval and uncertainty, through

thurs, March 22

clinT HardeSTy Fri, March 23

April 1. JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N. Walker Ave., 405-528-6336, jrbartgallery.com.

Share at the Showroom, join Grace Grothaus and Rena Detrixhe, the artists that created Wake, the current exhibit covering the entire top floor with water, 6-7:30 p.m. March 22. Oklahoma Contemporary Showroom, 1146 N. Broadway Drive, 405-951-0000, oklahomacontemporary.org. THU Space Burial, an exhibit using satellite dishes as a burial object for a space-faring culture and facilitates the dead‘s afterlife journey to the stars, through April 8. Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, 555 Elm Ave., Norman, 405-325-3272, ou.edu/fjjma.

Transitions, features graffiti and street art that celebrates Native American culture by artists Yatika Starr Fields, Hoka Skenadore and Josh Johnico, through June 20. Exhibit C, 1 E. Sheridan Ave., Ste. 100, 405-767-8900, exhibitcgallery.com.

Uncork Your Inner Artist II, during a wine and palette with Brad Price and create an oil painting; refreshments and supplies provided, 1:30-4:30 p.m.

March 24. The Depot, 200 S. Jones Ave., Norman, 405-307-9320, pasnorman.org. SAT Wake, a multisensory installation created by Grace Grothaus and Rena Detrixhe to animate water with waves through recorded audio, through March 31. Oklahoma Contemporary Showroom, 1146 N. Broadway Drive, 405-951-0000, oklahomacontemporary.org.

Welcome Home: Oklahomans and the War in Vietnam, explores the impact of the war on Oklahoma families as well as the stories of Vietnamese families relocated to Oklahoma, through Nov. 2019. Oklahoma History Center, 800 Nazih Zuhdi Drive, 405-522-0765, okhistory.org

aarOn Hale & THe HuMan beingS sat, March 24

MaTT SanderS Wed, March 28

JOSHua pOlecHek thurs, March 29

STepHen baker Fri, March 30

JuSTin lOgan sat, March 31

racHel lyncH Wed, April 4

blake lankfOrd thurs, April 5

clinT HardeSTy Fri, April 6

caleb Mcgee & cOdy barneTT sat, April 7

Jack waTerS & THe uneMplOyed Weekly events Mondays

Open Mic w/caleb Mcgee tuesdays

Tanner Miller 405.928.4550 34

m a r c h 2 1 , 2 0 1 8 | O kg a z e t t e . c o m

Festival of Spirituals Cimarron Opera presents a Palm Sunday tradition originating with Northern Oklahoma College choir led by Brandon Haynes, First Christian Church Choir, Langston University’s Bonita Franklin and more. The event begins 6 p.m. Sunday at First Christian Church, 220 S. Webster Ave., in Norman. Admission is free. Visit cimarronopera.org. SUNDAY Photo Cimarron Opera/provided

Submissions must be received

by Oklahoma Gazette no later than noon on Wednesday seven days before the desired publication date.

Late submissions will not be included in the listings.

Submissions run as space allows, although we strive to make the listings as inclusive as possible. Fax your listings to 528-4600 or e-mail them to listings@okgazette.com.

Sorry, but phone submissions cannot be accepted.

go to okgazette.com for full listings!

For okg live music

see page 37

MUSIC Rei Wang began learning classical bass at age 9 in Taiwan but didn’t start her formal jazz education until after earning her undergraduate degree. | Photo Song Schuler / provided

Thursday of the month in 16th Street Plaza District. She was the series’ featured performer during its March show.

Wang is scheduled to appear April 5 alongside featured artist drummer David Bowen at the bar, 1715 NW 16th St. Adam Ledbetter — who has played keys alongside Wang in the past and is known as half of the multi-genre singersongwriter couple Adam & Kizzie — said Wang is proof that the spirit of music comes from within.

“To have come from as far away from where our music was born and cultivated as Taiwan and to be on the scene, swinging like she is — it’s a soul thing,” he said.

“She’s a breath of fresh air and has a very commanding presence on the bandstand; a real joy to play with and for.”

event

Watch and learn

Free style

Taiwanese bassist Rei Wang transitioned from her classical training to jazz with a move to Oklahoma.

By Ben Luschen

Edmond-based jazz bassist Rei Wang can be seen dazzling happy crowds at jazz nights across the metropolitan area, which is hard to imagine considering less than 10 years ago, she was living in Taiwan with literally no idea the musical genre even existed.

“I didn’t know about jazz,” Wang said during a recent Oklahoma Gazette interview. “I didn’t have any concept of that.”

Wang, 31, began learning classical bass at age 9. In her native Taiwan, music education is very different from what one finds in the United States. Many American students are lucky if they begin their formal music education in middle school.

However, select Taiwanese students sometimes begin an intensive education in classical music before their 10th birthdays.

Before she ever handled a bass, Wang started learning piano at age 4 — not an uncommon starting point for children in Taiwan and some other Asian countries. In elementary school, she was

placed in a special class for students who showed musical promise. From that point to her high school graduation, classical music and technique was drilled into her memory.

Wang attended a college in Taiwan to get her undergraduate degree. She had a friend whose fiancé was studying jazz trumpet in New York, and during Wang’s junior year in college, he launched one of Taiwan’s first student jazz camps. She agreed to attend but was not enthusiastic about it beforehand.

“I went to that camp just because I wanted to support my friend and her fiancé,” she said.

But what she heard and saw during her time in that camp immediately grabbed her imagination and would eventually alter the course of her life.

Wang is highly regarded by many of her peers in the local jazz and music scene.

She can often be spotted performing at Saints’ monthly jazz showcase every first

The thing about jazz music that immediately caught Wang’s attention was the freedom and room for improvisation it afforded its players.

“In classical music, we need to do things exactly like the sheet and chart says,” she said. “In jazz, it’s not like that. You still have direction, but you can do a lot more.”

After her first introduction to jazz at camp, Wang had to start preparing for her classical recital ahead of graduation and wasn’t able to take any active steps toward actually learning more about jazz. But the new style never fully left her mind, and when she finally did graduate, she began seeking jazz instruction from the best mentor available to her.

“I tried to find a teacher in Taiwan, but we don’t have many jazz people,” she said.

“But, fortunately, we do have YouTube.”

Wang said she watched countless videos of jazz bassists like Ray Brown, Christian McBride, John Clayton, Paul Chambers and Esperanza Spalding, whom she calls a “goddess.” She learned a lot about the music from these videos, but she was still clueless about things like proper jazz posture and the genre’s vernacular, which is different from classical music.

The bassist knew if she wanted to become a good jazz player, it would require formal instruction in the U.S. She applied to schools across the country before picking University of Central Oklahoma (UCO), a choice she made partly due to price and partly due to the school’s strong jazz program.

New territory

Wang’s first day in Oklahoma was Aug. 1, 2014. She still remembers the culture shock that set in when she stepped off the plane at Will Rogers World Airport for the first time.

“In Taipei and even in, like, New York, we have tall buildings everywhere — it’s hard to see the sky,” she said. “When I got here, my first impression was, ‘Wow! This airport is small.’ And when I got out I was like, ‘Wow! There’s no buildings around this place.’”

Still, she soon adjusted to her new home. The harder adjustment was going from classical playing — a realm she was very comfortable in — to learning jazz.

In some respects, she was well behind some of her American classmates.

The hardest, most nerve-racking thing for her was attempting anything that went off-script.

“In the beginning, I liked jazz,” she said, “but every time they wanted the bass to take a solo, I always felt so terrified because I don’t have a chart or music to help me play.”

At first, Wang turned back to YouTube, transcribing different bass solos she saw and committing them to memory. This helped get her by until she finally got more comfortable with the thought of improvising.

New beginning?

Wang would like to stay in Oklahoma long-term, but there is no guarantee she will even be in the country past this summer. Having earned her master’s degree in jazz performance from UCO last year, the bassist is trying to secure a new artist visa before her current stay expires in August. Application and legal fees make it a very expensive process with a lot of uncertainty involved.

“It costs a lot of money,” Wang said.

“It’s just like putting all the money in the water and you just never know.”

Regardless of whether she is able to attain a visa that keeps her in the U.S. past this year, Wang’s goal is to one day reunite with her Taiwanese jazz band — a group of players that all met each other through college jazz camp. Wang said most of the band’s members are currently studying abroad at various schools across the U.S. “It’s good to have a group of friends that can practice together and talk about jazz,” she said. “When we talk about jazz to someone else [in Taiwan], they will just look at us weird.”

The players have a common goal: to one day return to their home country and develop their own jazz education program. While Wang learned a lot about classical music while growing up in Taiwan, she said the country’s thinking on music education is in need of some changes.

“Looking back,” she said, “I think that was awful because I only know how to play classical and I didn’t know anything about how to do anything else.”

Wang said it would likely take decades of education and work before her home country could field a jazz band comparable to the best high school bands in America. But she is up to the task of broadening her home’s horizons.

“A lot of kids in Taiwan, they don’t know anything else,” she said. “That’s really bad.”

Saints Sessions 8-10:30 p.m. April 5 Saints | 1715 NW 16th St. saintspubokc.com | 405-602-6308 $5

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EVENT

MUSIC

He’s money

Serial collaborator Ty Dolla $ign speaks with Oklahoma Gazette ahead of his Tower Theatre performance. By Ben Luschen

Many fans first became aware of Ty Dolla $ign following his inclusion on the 2014 edition of XXL’s annual “freshman” list, which traditionally features up-andcoming rappers who have yet to release an official debut album. In hindsight, one could label that inclusion as the beginning of the artist’s overly conflated image.

Though a multi-talented vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who clearly makes music informed by the rap aesthetic, Dolla $ign is not a rapper, nor does he claim to be.

The Los Angeles-born musician has recently been focused on clarifying his status as an R&B and hip-hop singer with an all-around skillset and appeal. Dolla $ign’s Don’t Judge Me Tour, which passes through Oklahoma City March 30 at Tower Theatre, 425 NW 23rd St., often features him performing solo on instruments like the guitar, bass guitar and drums. Even his recent studio album Beach House 3, released Oct. 27, was a concerted effort to show off more of his skill as a singer outside the hip-hop realm.

Known as one of popular music’s most prolific collaborators with guest appearances on songs by artists like Post Malone, Jason Derulo, Kanye West and Fifth Harmony in the last two years, Dolla $ign recently spoke with Oklahoma Gazette about floating between genres, tracking down a vocal feature from John Mayer and avoiding the powerful grip of fame.

Oklahoma Gazette: On the Don’t Judge Me Tour, I’ve been seeing you photographed onstage with a guitar and some other instruments. Is that something you usually do on tour?

Ty Dolla $ign: Yeah, I’ve always been playing bass, but this is the first time I brought out the guitar. Now I’ve got my guitar and I’m doing a lot more singing — a more melodic vibe and less of a rappy vibe.

OKG: Is that a vibe you’ve been wanting to bring to your show for a while?

one of the best artists of all time. It was definitely a pleasure working with that dude. We’re going to work together again soon, hopefully.

Beach House 3 | Image provided

Where did that idea come from?

Dolla $ign: It was just time. Coming off of Beach House 3, I have a song called “Famous” on the guitar. And I’ve done that with a lot of my projects, like on [Nov. 2015’s] Free TC, I had a couple of guitar joints. Now I just felt like it was time to really sing more. On the project Beach House 3, I really wanted people to know that it’s not like the rapper Ty Dolla $ign, but it’s Ty Dolla $ign the musician, the singer, the instrumentalist. That’s what I want.

It was just like that time where it was like, ‘Wow! Some people just want to be famous. Ugh.’ Ty Dolla $ign OKG: You do get put into a lot of different musical categories, and there are a lot of places where you do fit in.

But maybe some people get confused.

You’re more of a singer than a rapper.

Dolla $ign: Yeah. It’s all good though.

Anybody out there who is checking the music out, I appreciate them. I want to get that clear though. I’m not a rapper.

OKG: The list of all the amazing artists you’ve worked with throughout your career is so impressive. Is it an honor that so many artists are not only willing to work with you, but even request you on their own stuff?

Dolla $ign: Yes, it’s a big honor. It just feels good to be recognized by my peers and people that I look up to. I couldn’t wish for anything more, man.

OKG: What’s the most excited you’ve ever been about an artist reaching out to work with you for the first time?

Dolla $ign: The most exciting time an artist reached out to work w it h me?

Recently, it was when John Mayer hit me up on Instagram. He hit me up in the comments when I put out the art for the single “Love U Better.” He was like, “Dope artwork,” and I’m like, “What the fuck? You follow me? Oh shit!” So I hit him up because I knew he was going to be in LA at the same time I was going to be in the city.

I’m like, “Bro, me and a couple of other people want to come to your show. Is it cool?” He’s like, “Bro, come through!

Here’s my tour manager’s number; he’ll sort you guys out.” We pulled up, man, and that show was so good, but I was kind of late to that show and I missed a couple of the songs I really wanted to hear. I really didn’t know if they were in the setlist for sure or not. So I was like, “Bruh, I want to come to the Anaheim show as well.” So I went to the Anaheim show like a day or two later, and he killed that shit. The next day, I read his schedule and it said it was an off day, so I just assumed he might still be in LA. I hit him up, and he was. He shot me his number, and I texted him.

I was like, “Bro, come by the studio right now. I got some fire I think you would sound good on.” So he pulled up! He was like, “I’m coming” and he really came!

I didn’t tell anyone in the studio. Me and my boy Poo Bear (producer and songwriter Jason Boyd, best known as a frequent collaborator with Justin Bieber) were there, and a couple of other people. He just walked through the door, bruh — solo; no security guard, no cameraman, no extra shit. I played him the record, and I rented him a guitar too, in case he didn’t have a guitar on him. He heard the record, and he was like, “Yeah, I hear some guitar parts, but I really want to do the singing on it.” So he did the guitar parts, and I was like, “Bruh, just try something on the mic.” And then he did that whole background part that you hear at the end. So, shout out to John Mayer,

OKG: Yeah, that’s really cool. So you just read his schedule and saw that free day? That’s crazy.

Dolla $ign: Yeah, man. I did my research.

OKG: You were talking about the song “Famous” earlier. That’s a song I really like off the new album. What was on your mind when you were working on that song?

Dolla $ign: I made that song with my brother Poo Bear. There’s just a point in your career where everyone sees you’re on and some of the people are happy for you and some of the people, you’re like, “Hey, wait a minute. Why are they really around me?” It just sort of feels like people are trying to be around for the clout or trying to be around for a fucking like on Instagram.

It was just like that time where it was like, “Wow! Some people just want to be famous. Ugh.” You know what I’m saying? We made a song about it and all the interludes — “Famous Lies,” “Famous Excuses,” “Famous Friends” — were “famous” this and “famous” that. It’s a cool album, and it was time to show off my solo vibe. I also read a lot of comments and tweets like, “Oh, Ty always got to do a feature; Ty Feature $ign.” So there’s 10 songs that are solo and 10 collaborations.

OKG: On this project and a lot of your other music too, it seems like you have this great respect for the musicality of everything. On Beach House 3, all those “Famous” interludes really add to the feel and vibe of the album.

Dolla $ign: Yes. OKG: You see a lot of interludes and skits that are half-baked filler, but these really added something.

Dolla $ign: Thank you, bro. I’m glad you paid attention to that and considered where I’m coming from. The way music is — and a lot of the stuff that goes super big — is so simple and so trash in a real musician’s eyes. It makes me feel like, “Wow! Do people even appreciate real music?” The fact that you just said that lets me know that there are people who are still listening.

Ty Dolla $ign | Photo Gabe Shaddow / provided

Ty Dolla $ign w/ 24hrs 8:30 p.m. March 30 Tower Theatre | 425 NW 23rd St. towertheatreokc.com | 405-708-6937 $39-$46 36

M A R C H 2 1 , 2 0 1 8 | O kg a z e t t e . c o m

LIVE MUSIC These are events recommended

by Oklahoma Gazette editorial staff members. For full calendar listings, go to okgazette.com.

The Lacs, Tower Theatre. COUNTRY Tony Foster Jr., Saints. R&B Tyler Lee Band, Iron Horse Bar & Grill. COVER Wicked Shimmies/Shrinking Giants/ The Venditos, HiLo Club. ROCK

WEDNESDAY, 3.21

SATURDAY, 3.24

Colter Wall, Tower Theatre. COUNTRY

Eric Johnson, Tower Theatre. ROCK

Don C, The Venue OKC. HIP-HOP

Grant Wiscaver, Lumpy‘s Sports Grill - S. Western. COUNTRY

Knocked Loose/Terror/Jesus Piece and more, 89th Street - OKC. METAL Riff-Raff, OKC Farmers Public Market. HIP-HOP

THURSDAY, 3.22 Bruce Robinson/John Baumann, The Blue Door.

FOLK

Couch Jackets/Wild Frontiers, Red Brick Bar. INDIE

Jarvix/Beau Mansfield/Sarah Reid, The Venue OKC. POP Jessica Tate and The Flat 5ths, UCO Jazz Lab. JAZZ New Tribe/Andy Pickett, The Blue Door. ROCK Soulfly/Lody Kong/Unureed and more, Diamond Ballroom. METAL The Night Tribe, The Blue Door. COUNTRY

Jake Miller, 89th Street - OKC. POP The Dead South, Tower Theatre. FOLK We Came as Romans/The Plot in You/ Oceans Ate Alaska and more, 89th Street - OKC. METAL

Voodoo Dolls/Heartbreak Heroes/God In A Machine and more, 89th Street - OKC. ROCK What She Said, Okie Tonk Cafe. ROCK Dustin Cooper, Full Circle Bookstore. FOLK

Zac Lee, Saints. JAZZ

SUNDAY, 3.25

FRIDAY, 3.23

Bad Idols, Blue Note Lounge. PUNK

Amanda Cunningham/Kent Fauss, Anthem Brewing Company. COUNTRY Brett Landry and The Night Shifts, Bison Witches Bar & Deli. ACOUSTIC Chad Sullens, Grady‘s 66 Pub. COUNTRY Chloe-Beth, The Root. SINGER/SONGWRITER Full Tilt, Mooney‘s Pub and Grill. ROCK Helen Kelter Skelter, Opolis. ROCK

presents

FANG/Chokehole Stab, The Drunken Fry. METAL Social Creatures/Crooked Feet/Walking Relic, Sauced on Paseo. INDIE The Grahams, The Blue Door. FOLK

MONDAY, 3.26 Judith, Commonplace Books. FOLK

TUESDAY, 3.27

Jab e e The So h e lp M e ’S bow lS e y Gabri e lle b .

F e aT u r i n G D J J o n M o o n e y h a M

Hosty, JJ‘s Alley. BLUES Janice Francis-Smith, Full Circle Bookstore. FOLK Kelly Price, Ice Event Center & Grill. R&B

Thuille Sextet, UCO Jazz Lab. JAZZ

Moneybagg Yo/BlocBoy JB, The Criterion. RAP

WEDNESDAY, 3.28

Muck Savages, Blue Note Lounge. PUNK

Elizabeth Speegle, The R&J Lounge and Supper Club. JAZZ

Randall Coyne, Grand House. JAZZ Sam Riggs, Graham‘s Central Station. COUNTRY

Vox Vocis/Magic Munchbox/Overcast, Red Brick Bar. INDIE

$

5

T ow e r T h e aT r e a p r i l 12 , 2 0 18 D o o r s aT 7 | s h o w aT 8

T i c k e T s o n s a l e aT T o w e r T h e aT r e o kc .c o m Pink Martini Enjoy a multilingual performance with several musicians and lead singer China Forbes. Pink Martini’s latest album Je dis oui! was released in 2016. Showtimes are 8 p.m. March 30-31 at Civic Center Music Hall, 201 N. Walker Ave. Tickets are $26-$75.

Call 405-297-2584 or visit okcciviccenter.com. March 30-31 Photo Pink Martini/provided

Live music submissions must be received by Oklahoma Gazette no later than noon on Wednesday seven days before the desired publication date.

Late submissions will not be included in the listings. Submissions run as space allows, although we strive to make the listings as inclusive as possible.

Fax your listings to 528-4600 or e-mail to listings@okgazette.com.

Sorry, but phone submissions cannot be accepted.

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puzzles New York Times Magazine Crossword Puzzle IF FOUND, CALL …

By Matthew Sewell | Puzzles Edited by Will Shortz | 0304

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86 Last seen chasing down clues. If found, call ____ 1 Heading on a neighborhood poster

[see 24-Across] 8 Radio personality Glenn 90 Poet who wrote of Daedalus 12 Bump, as from a schedule 91 ____-green 19 Standing closet 92 Theme song of Milton Berle 20 Poison-ivy soother 93 Forms, forms and more forms 21 Huts 96 Sash supporter 22 Anti-mob tool 97 Any of the Baltic states, once: Abbr.

23 Dryer buildup 98 What’s left on TV? 24 1984 superstate 100 Last seen being mocked by 25 “Get ’em!”

a cat. If found, call ____ 26 Power up?

[see 46-Across] 27 High land 103 Gambling mecca 28 Last seen riding in a basket.

104 Increase

If found, call ____ [see 105 Lilt 106-Across] 106 Proceed enthusiastically 32 Mix with 109 Symbol gotten by typing 33 Fall off Option+Shift+2 36 Pizzeria chain, casually 110 Hit straight to the shortstop, 37 Like a certain Freudian complex perhaps 39 Graduation attire 114 Promo 41 It goes around the neck 115 War loser, usually 42 Doesn’t just assume 116 Declared 44 Last seen in the nursery.

117 Storied journey

If found, call ____ [see 118 Puts the kibosh on 84-Across] 119 Algebraic variables 46 One who can’t keep weight

off for long 50 Tempe sch.

DOWN 51 Scream or bawl, e.g.

1 Rowing muscle, for short 52 Like most holidays 2 Iron Range product 53 Reverses, as a deletion 3 Wee, to a Scot 55 “Darn it all!”

4 Chests’ places 58 It may hold the line 5 Sudoku entry 59 Toll rds.

6 Herb resembling spinach 61 Yokohama “yes” 7 Some kitchen appliances, for 62 Tijuana setting, informally short 63 Postal abbr. for a rural address 8 Adele’s “Someone Like You,” e.g.

64 Last seen with a red-haired 9 Hebrew for “My God! My God!”

girl. If found, call ____ [see 10 Idea 119-Across] 11 Etta of old comics 68 Drone, for one 12 Sister of Ariadne 69 Cyclotron bits 13 More hoarse 70 “Here’s an idea …”

14 Snares 71 Some bygone theaters 15 List-reducing abbr.

72 Bleat 16 Prefix with play and place 73 Confrere 17 Charlottetown’s prov.

74 Food-cart offerings 18 Checkpoint org.

76 One of the Marcoses of the 21 Post Philippines 26 Discharges 80 Alphabetically first American 28 43

Idol judge across all 16 29 Kind of dip seasons 82 Go from bud to blossom, to a poet 30 One-named Swedish singer

with the Grammy-nominated 84 Pretend

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global warming 63 Up 64 Pacer 65 2000s corporate scandal subject 66 Heavenly sound?

67 Vagabond 68 Coddles 72 Marriage announcement 73 Some centerfolds 74 Golden Globe-winning actor for Chicago 75 Visit during a trip 77 Vision-correcting procedure 78 Big battery 79 Subtitle of Hawthorne’s Fanshawe 81 Former part of the U.S.S.R.: Abbr.

83 Alternative to boeuf or jambon 85 [continued]

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88 Actress Faye 89 Stop for now 94 Saw the sights 95 Ruffles 96 Moviedom 99 My word, maybe 101 Lures 102 Utah’s ____ Mountains 103 Some greenery that’s not grass 104 Parcel (out) 106 ’60s Pontiac 107 Webster’s Third competitor, for short 108 Scotland’s longest river 110 Start of Yale’s motto 111 Chicago terminal code 112 Double-back move

113 QB’s tally

Stumped? Call 1-900-285-5656 to get the answers to any three clues by phone ($1.20 a minute).

Sudoku medium | n°2147455573 Fill in the grid so that every row, column and 3-by-3 box contains the numbers 1 through 9. www.printmysudoku.com

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T E N U R E

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L I O N T A M I N G S I T T B O N E

E N A A M E S L U G H T A S B O N S I N S V O N I T W E D S I N C A T D I N T H E F E Y S T R I N C O N G Q U A O L I H L E N A I N G D A E D R S T A R O H M A Y E S Y

C O S M O

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S A G L A M A L A N R A M M I S G E R A N R A T S H K E H I P E D I S A A N G L I O I S A S T

P R O B L E M S E C T I O N S S I N E W

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New York Times Crossword Puzzle answers Puzzle No. 0304, which appeared in the March 14 issue.

S T I F F S

Accounting/HR Manager Marian Harrison Accounts receivable Karen Holmes

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song “Dancing on My Own” 31 It goes around the neck 32 Inn stock 33 The U.S., to Mexicans 34 Hallux, more familiarly 35 Stationed (at) 38 Clicking sounds?

40 Gold medal, to an Olympian 42 Repurpose 43 Dressy accessory 45 Boxing champ Roberto 47 Navel type 48 Cultural values 49 Where the engine is in a

Porsche 911 54 A bit stiff 56 A bit cracked 57 Modest two-piece swimsuit 60 Sharply sour fruit

Associate Publisher James Bengfort VP, CORPORATE AFFAIRS Linda Meoli

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publisher Bill Bleakley

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free will astrology Homework: Imagine a bedtime story you’d like to hear and the person you’d like to hear it from.

Testify at Freewillastrology.com.

ARIES (March 21-April 19) The “School of Hard

love extravagant creativity and poetic whimsy, I think it’s also important to cherish and nurture the basics.

In accordance with the astrological omens, that’s my advice for you in the coming weeks. Experiment with fanciful fun, but not at the expense of the fundamentals.

Knocks” is an old-fashioned idiom referring to the unofficial and accidental course of study available via life’s tough experiences. The wisdom one gains through this alternate approach to education may be equal or even superior to the knowledge that comes from a formal university or training program. I mention this, Aries, because in accordance with astrological omens, I want to confer upon you a diploma for your new advanced degree from the School of Hard Knocks. (P.S.: When PhD students get their degrees from Finland’s University of Helsinki, they are given top hats and swords as well as diplomas. I suggest you reward yourself with exotic props, too.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22) According to Vice

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Europeans used to think

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Booze has played a crucial role

that all swans were white. It was a reasonable certainty given the fact that all swans in Europe were that color.

But in 1697, Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh and his sailors made a pioneering foray to the southwestern coast of the land we now call Australia. As they sailed up a river the indigenous tribe called Derbarl Yerrigan, they spied black swans. They were shocked. The anomalous creatures invalidated an assumption based on centuries of observations. Today, a “black swan” is a metaphor referring to an unexpected event that contravenes prevailing theories about the way the world works. I suspect you’ll soon experience such an incongruity yourself. It might be a good thing!

Especially if you welcome it instead of resisting it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20) Crayola is one of the

world’s foremost crayon manufacturers. The geniuses in charge of naming its crayon colors are playful and imaginative. Among the company’s standard offerings, for example, are Pink Sherbet, Carnation Pink, Tickle Me Pink, Piggy Pink, Pink Flamingo, and Shocking Pink. Oddly, however, there is no color that’s simply called “Pink.” I find that a bit disturbing. As much as I

magazine, Russian scientist Anatoli Brouchkov is pleased with the experiment he tried. He injected himself with 3.5-million-year-old bacteria that his colleagues had dug out of the permafrost in Siberia.

The infusion of this ancient life form, he says, enhanced his energy and strengthened his immune system. I can’t vouch for the veracity of his claim, but I do know this: It’s an apt metaphor for possibilities you could take advantage of in the near future: drawing on an old resource to boost your power, for example, or calling on a well-preserved part of the past to supercharge the present.

in the development of civilization, says biomolecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern. The process of creating this mind-altering staple was independently discovered by many different cultures, usually before they invented writing. The buzz it provides has “fired our creativity and fostered the development of language, the arts, and religion.” On the downside, excessive consumption of alcohol has led to millions of bad decisions and has wrecked countless lives.

Everything I just said is a preface to my main message, Leo: The coming weeks will be a favorable time to transform your habitual perspective, but only if you do so safely and constructively. Whether you choose to try intoxicants, wild adventures, exhilarating travel, or edgy experiments, know your limits.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) The astrological omens

suggest that the coming weeks will be favorable for making agreements, pondering mergers, and strengthening bonds. You’ll be wise to deepen at least one of your commitments. You’ll stir up interesting challenges if you consider the possibility of entering into more disciplined and dynamic unions with worthy

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LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) If you want people to know who you really are and savor you for your unique beauty, you must be honest with those people. You must also develop enough skill to express your core truths with accuracy. There’s a similar principle at work if you want to know who you really are and savor yourself for your unique beauty: You must be honest with yourself. You must also develop enough skill to express your core truths with accuracy. The coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to practice these high arts.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Your journey in the

coming weeks may be as weird as an R-rated telenovela, but with more class. Outlandish, unpredictable, and even surreal events could occur, but in such a way as to uplift and educate your soul. Labyrinthine plot twists will be medicinal as well as entertaining. As the drama gets curioser and curioser, my dear Scorpio, I expect you will learn how to capitalize on the odd opportunities it brings. In the end, you will be grateful for this ennobling respite from mundane reality!

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) “Love is the only

sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence,” wrote philosopher Erich Fromm. I would add a corollary for your rigorous use during the last nine months of 2018: “Love is the only effective and practical way to graduate from your ragged, longrunning dilemmas and start gathering a new crop of fresh, rousing challenges.” By the way, Fromm said love is more than a warm and fuzzy feeling in our hearts. It’s a creative force that fuels our willpower and unlocks hidden resources.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) My goal here is to

convince you to embark on an orgy of self-care -- to be as sweet and tender and nurturing to yourself as you dare to be. If that influences you to go too far in providing yourself with luxurious necessities, I’m OK with it. And if your solicitous efforts to focus on your

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own health and well-being make you appear a bit self-indulgent or narcissistic, I think it’s an acceptable price to pay. Here are more key themes for you in the coming weeks: basking in the glow of self-love; exulting in the perks of your sanctuary; honoring the vulnerabilities that make you interesting.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) One day, Beatles’

guitarist George Harrison decided to compose his next song’s lyrics “based on the first thing I saw upon opening any book.” He viewed this as a divinatory experiment, as a quest to incorporate the flow of coincidence into his creative process. The words he found in the first book were “gently weeps.” They became the seed for his tune “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” Rolling Stone magazine ultimately named it one of “The Greatest Songs of All Time” and the tenth best Beatle song. In accordance with the astrological omens, I recommend you try some divinatory experiments of your own in the coming weeks. Use life’s fun little synchronicities to generate playful clues and unexpected guidance.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Millions of you Pisceans

live in a fairy tale world. But I suspect that very few of you will be able to read this horoscope and remain completely ensconced in your fairy tale world. That’s because I have embedded subliminal codes in these words that will at least temporarily transform even the dreamiest among you into passionate pragmatists in service to your feistiest ideals. If you’ve read this far, you are already feeling more disciplined and organized. Soon you’ll be coming up with new schemes about how to actually materialize a favorite fairy tale in the form of real-life experiences.

Go to RealAstrology.com to check out Rob Brezsny’s expanded weekly audio horoscopes /daily text message horoscopes.

The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700.

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