Author Archives: Scott

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About Scott

A cultural thinker with a life long interest in the arts and humanities: theatre, music, architecture, photography, history, urban planning, etc.

Local Live tonight with Chuck Dodson and Joe McMahan

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At 7:30 tonight at South on Main, tweek’s installment of our Local Live concert series features Chuck Dodson and Joe McMahan! 

Presented by the Oxford American magazine, Local Live showcases the best of local and regional music talent and is always free and open to the public. 

Call ahead to South on Main to make your reservations and ensure a table: (501) 244-9660. Local Live is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Cosmic Cowboy Music.

Hailing from Hot Springs, Chuck Dodson (keys) has been a mainstay in central Arkansas for years. Joining him onstage is Nashville-based guitarist Joe McMahan. Mc Mahan is co-founder of the group Luella and the Sun. He is also a respected producer who’s helmed records by Webb Wilder, Patrick Sweany, Altered Statesman, Kevin Gordon, Mr. Hazelwood, and Jeff Finlin, among many others.

Little Rock Wind Symphony in concert tonight. 

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Getzov

After inclement weather last month, the Little Rock Wind Symphony will be in concert tonight at 7:30pm at Second Presbyterian Church with Diabolical! 

Under the baton of Israel Getzov, conductor candidate, it will feature guest artist Blake Tyson on marimba. 

The program includes: 

  • Leonard Bernstein: Three Dance Episodes from “On the Town”
  • James Barnes: Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Paganini
  • Hector Berlioz: “March to the Scaffold” from Symphonie Fantastique
  • Blake Tyson: Anubis for Marimba and Wind Ensemble World Premiere
  • Howard Hanson: Symphony No. 2 (“Romantic”), Third Movement
  • Julius Fučík: Thunder and Blazes

Sponsored by Robert and Jo Ann McQuade

Little Rock Look Back: Little Rock becomes a City of the First Class

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On March 9, 1875, the Arkansas General Assembly approved legislation  creating the classification of City of the First Class, and designating Little Rock as the first city with that nomenclature. 

This action by the General Assembly grew from the 1874 Constitution, which replaced the 1868 Constitution. 

In April 1875, Little Rock voters approved a new slate of City Council members and elected John Gould Fletcher as Mayor. 

“The Partisan Divide: Congress in Crisis” with Reps. Martin Frost & Tom Davis today at the Clinton School at noon

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Today at noon at the Clinton School, former Congressmen Martin Frost and Tom Davis will discuss their book The Partisan Divide: Congress on Crisis.

While the authors, Martin Frost and Tom Davis, share many common viewpoints, they come from opposite sides of the political spectrum. 

Tom Davis served in Congress from 1994 to 2008 representing Virginia’s 11th district. During that time, he chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee for two cycles (2000 and 2002), and was chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight before retiring, as he likes to say, “undefeated and unindicted” in 2008. 

Martin Frost represented the Dallas–Ft. Worth area of North Texas in Congress for 26 years, serving four years as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and four years as chair of the House Democratic Caucus. 

According to Frost and Davis, Congress is incapable of reforming itself without a good kick in the seat from the American public. They dissect the causes of legislative gridlock and offer a common sense, bipartisan plan for making our Congress function again. 

The preface by Pulitzer Prize finalist David Eisenhower, grandson of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, sets the stage for this powerful behind-the-scenes narrative that uncovers the road to the present political gridlock and then offers thought-provoking insights and possibilities for the way out.

Little Rock Look Back: City Park becomes MacArthur Park

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GOn March 9, 1942, Little Rock’s first public park was renamed by the Little Rock City Council.  By a vote of fourteen ayes, zero nays and four absent, the alderman approved Ordinance 6,388 which renamed the park in honor of General Douglas MacArthur. 

The text of the ordinance says that “it is fitting and proper that the bravery and glorious deeds of General Douglas MacArthur, a native son of Little Rock, should be commemorated.”  This was passed a few months after the United States’ entry into World War II. 

Though he was already a well-established military figure, most of the MacArthur legend during the war would take place after this naming. 

The park land had originally served as a horse racetrack in the early days of Little Rock.  By 1836, the federal government purchased the land for construction of a military arsenal.  The flagship building, the Arsenal Tower building, is the only remaining structure from that time period.  

The land served as a military outpost until 1892.  On April 23, 1892, a land swap took place where in the City of Little Rock was given the property with the stipulation that it would be “forever exclusively devoted to the uses and purposes of a public park.” (Never mind that the federal government took part of the land back for the construction of the Wilbur Mills Freeway.)  

In return for giving the City this land, the federal government took possession of land on the north side of the Arkansas River (then part of Little Rock) – that 1,000 acres became Fort Logan H. Roots. The park opened on July 4, 1893, with the name Arsenal Park. Since it was the City’s first and only park at the time, residents started referring to it as City Park. In time, the designation Arsenal Park fell from use.  In fact, it is referred to as City Park exclusively and officially in City documents throughout the first 42 years of the 20th Century. 

The action of the City Council in March 1942, was accompanied by petitions encouraging the action which were submitted by the Arkansas Authors and Composers Society, the Arkansas Engineers Club and the Pulaski County Republican Central Committee.  

City records do not indicate if anyone registered opposition to the name change. It would be another decade before General MacArthur would return to the site of his birth, a place he had not visited since his infancy.MacPark ordinance

Lights! Camera! Arkansas! book signing with Robert Cochran and Suzanne McCray

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The authors of a new book that explores the legacy of Arkansas on film will be center-stage for a panel and book-signing at the Old State House Museum. 

On Sunday, March 8, at 2 p.m., Robert Cochran and Suzanne McCray will be discussing their new book, “Lights! Camera! Arkansas!” on a panel hosted by Ben Fry, general manager of KUAR and host of Second Friday Cinema. 

“Lights! Camera! Arkansas!” traces the roles played by Arkansans in the first century of Hollywood’s film industry, from the first cowboy star, Broncho Billy Anderson, to Mary Steenburgen, Billy Bob Thornton and many others. 

The Arkansas landscape also plays a starring role: Crittenden County as a setting for Hallelujah (1929), and various locations in the state’s southeastern quadrant in 2012’s Mud are all given fascinating exploration. 

Cochran and McCray screened close to two hundred films—from laughable box-office bombs to laudable examples of filmmaking – in their research for this book. 

They’ve enhanced their spirited chronological narrative with an appendix on documentary films, a ratings section and illustrations chosen by Jo Ellen Maack of the Old State House Museum, where “Lights! Camera! Arkansas!” debuted as an exhibit curated by the authors in 2013.

 The exhibit will close on July 31, 2015. 

It’s a Bolly Holi Day at Ron Robinson

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Zokkomon

Celebrate the festival of Holi on Saturday, March 7, during Bolly Holi Day, a day of Bollywood films, at the Central Arkansas Library System’s (CALS) Ron Robinson Theater, 100 River Market Avenue, on the Main Library campus. All Bolly Holi Day films are free and open to the public.

The day, designed by the Main Library Adult Non-Fiction department, includes three Bollywood films which are in Hindi with English subtitles and Bollywood dance performances.

  • Qurbani (NR)
    noon
    Two best friends and the woman they both love are caught up in a plot to steal a fortune from a powerful crime boss and find themselves in mortal danger.
  • Zokkomon (PG)
    3:15pm
    With the help of a scientist hermit, an orphan poses as a ghost to haunt the uncle who abandoned him and becomes a hero to the abused children attending his uncle’s school.
  • Dance Performances
    5:15pm
  • English Vinglish (NR)
    5:30pm
    During a visit to Manhattan, a woman decides to learn English and gains new friends who are on the same transformational journey to find confidence and master the language.

Holi is a popular Hindu festival that celebrates the arrival of spring. The festival coincides with the full moon in March, and begins on Friday, March 6, 2015. It is traditionally celebrated by throwing vibrantly colored powder and water, playing music, dancing, and eating special treats. During Holi celebrations the strictness of social structures is loosened, closing the gaps between classes and bringing people together. Legends associated with the festival depict triumph of good over evil.

For more information on Bolly Holi Day or other CALS programming, call 918-3000.