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.

JAWS at Movies in the Park

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The ultimate Summer movie — beach, action, special effects, and a hearkening back to simpler times. The 1975 classic JAWS will be featured at Movies in the Park tonight.

Directed by Steven Spielberg, the film features Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gray and Murray Hamilton as well as Bruce the Shark. It also features the iconic score by John Williams. Nominated for four Academy Awards, it won three: Score, Sound and Film Editing. The only Oscar it lost was Best Picture.

Movies in the Park is a free outdoor movie series in Little Rock’s River Market. The mission of Movies in the Park is help foster a sense of community and enjoyment in downtown Little Rock and throughout Central Arkansas by bringing people together to enjoy a movie in a unique setting along the scenic banks of the Arkansas River.

Movies start at dark.You’re welcome to bring picnics but please no glass containers and pick up afterwards. If you choose not to bring your own picnic we do have concessions available for sale. Bring your bug spray, picnic and family and have a good time!

The park opens at 6:30 pm.

The Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau Technical Services department provides all the equipment for the movies.

Legacies and Lunch tomorrow (7/11)

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The Butler Center’s monthly Legacies and Lunch program (normally the first Wednesday of the month) is the second Wednesday this month.  The July program features Ruth Hawkins discussing her latest book, Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow: The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Marriage.

The program will take place at 12 noon on Wednesday, July 11 in the Darragh Center on the main campus of the Central Arkansas Library System.

It was the glittering intellectual world of 1920s Paris expatriates in which Pauline Pfeiffer, a writer for Vogue, met Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley among a circle of friends that included Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and Dorothy Parker. Pauline grew close to Hadley but eventually forged a stronger bond with Hemingway himself; with her stylish looks and dedication to Hemingway’s writing, Pauline became the source of “unbelievable happiness” for Hemingway and, by 1927, his second wife.

Pauline was her husband’s best editor and critic, and her wealthy family provided moral and financial support, including the conversion of an old barn to a dedicated writing studio at the family home in Piggott, Arkansas. The marriage lasted thirteen years, some of Hemingway’s most productive, and the couple had two children. But the “unbelievable happiness” met with “final sorrow,” as Hemingway wrote, and Pauline would be the second of Hemingway’s four wives.

Hawkins’ book was published in June by the University of Arkansas Press.   She has been an administrator at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro for more than 30 years and established its Arkansas Heritage Sites program, which includes the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center in Piggott. She has been recognized at the state, regional and national level for her work in historic preservation and heritage tourism.

Tobi Fairley on the Tin Roof at Tales from the South

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Tobi FairleyStarving Artist Café

Dinner 5pm-6:30pm
Show starts at 7pm
Admission is $5

You MUST purchase your ticket before the show

This week’s program is the monthly “Tin Roof Project” which features a Southerner in conversation.  This month’s featured guest is designer Tobi Fairley.

Traditional Home Magazine predicts “Tobi will be like Cher or Oprah- of those women for whom one name says it all”. Selected as one of Traditional Home’s Top 20 Young Designers in America, Tobi Fairley has a signature look that is fresh and simple combining colorful, large-scale prints with classic furniture styles for a beautiful and functional result.

Since establishing her design firm more than a decade ago, Tobi’s projects have spanned the Southern region and the nation from Charleston to Los Angeles. Her award winning designs for high-profile and celebrity clients have been featured onHGTV, have been published on the cover of House Beautiful and in Traditional Home, Better Homes and Gardens special publications, Southern Living, and have graced the cover of At Home in Arkansas Magazine 9 times.

Audrey Kelly and blues guitarist Mark Simpson will provide musical entertainment.

Tales From the South is a radio show created and produced by Paula Martin Morell, who is also the show’s host. The show is taped live on Tuesday. The night is a cross between a house concert and a reading/show, with incredible food and great company. Tickets must be purchased before the show, as shows are usually standing-room only.

“Tales from the South” is a showcase of writers reading their own true stories. While the show itself is unrehearsed, the literary memoirs have been worked on for weeks leading up to the readings. Stories range from funny to touching, from everyday occurrences to life-altering tragedies.

Tales from the South airs on KUAR Public Radio on Thursdays at 7pm.

Sculpture Vulture: Michael Warrick’s CORAL

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Today’s Sculpture Vulture feature is Michael Warrick’s Coral which was installed in the Vogel Schwartz Sculpture Garden in 2010. Using bronze, Warrick highlights the many facets of that material in an abstract piece. It features roughness, smoothness, broad surfaces and delicate tendrils.

Warrick is a longtime faculty member at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and has sculptures placed as far away as China in addition to appearing in many public and private collections in Arkansas and throughout the United States.

Cheetahs in Little Rock!

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Zazi and her daughter Maggie moved into the new Laura P. Nichols Cheetah Outpost Monday night and became the first two cheetahs to reside at the new exhibit.

The exhibit is set for a grand opening on July 7, 2012 at 10:30 a.m.

Maggie and Zazi come to the Little Rock Zoo from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. The institute facilitates and promotes conservation biology programs at the National Zoo in Washington,D.C. Zazi is 11-years-old, and her daughter, Maggie, is 18-months-old.

Maggie

The grand opening of the new exhibit on July 7 will include a special address by Anne Schmidt-Kuentzel, Research Geneticist and Assistant Director for Animal Health and Research at the Cheetah Conservation Fund, a worldwide non-profit dedicated to saving the wild cheetah and its habitat.  Schmidt-Kuentzel will give a special presentation on her work with CCF later that day.

The new exhibit is a long, linear exhibit that develops a large portion of the Zoo’s new African Savannah area.  It features two yards for the cheetahs and two new observatory decks for viewing the cheetahs in their habitat.  The African Outpost exhibit was also renovated as part of the new exhibit and features new habitats for the naked mole rats and some African reptiles.  This air-conditioned indoor space also features interactive educational displays about the plight of the wild cheetah and the work of CCF to save the cheetah.

Although the exhibit will open with two cheetahs, the exhibit is fit to hold up to five and is designed to allow for breeding.  The Zoo is currently working with the Species Survival Plan for the cheetah to develop a breeding program.

The grand opening of the new Laura P. Nichols Cheetah Outpost marks the second major exhibit opening for the Zoo in the past year.  The Laura P. Nichols Penguin Pointe exhibit opened in the spring of 2011.

Both the cheetah and penguin exhibits are sponsored by the Laura P. Nichols Foundation inArkansaswho provided funding for both exhibits.  The cheetah exhibit is also partially funded through private donations collected through the Arkansas Zoological Foundation and through the 2009 refinancing of park bonds by the City ofLittle Rock.

About the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute

The Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute plays a key role in the Smithsonian’s global efforts to understand and conserve species and train future generations of conservationists.  Headquartered in Front Royal,Va., SCBI facilitates and promotes research programs based at Front Royal, the National Zoo in Washington D.C. and the at field research stations and training sites worldwide.

About the Little Rock Zoo and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums

The Little Rock Zoo provides engaging experiences that inspire people to value and conserve our natural world.  The Zoo was founded in 1926 with a timber wolf and a circus trained bear.  Today the Zoo boasts more than 700 animals representing 200 species, many of which are endangered.   Located in the heart of Little Rock at War Memorial Park, the Zoo consists of 33 acres of manicured land and animal exhibits.  The Zoo is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.  Look for the AZA logo whenever you visit a zoo or aquarium as your assurance that you are supporting a facility dedicated to providing excellent care for animals, a great experience for you and a better future for all living things.  With its more than 200 accredited members, AZA is a leader in global wildlife conservation and your link to helping animals in their native habitats.  For more information, visit http://www.aza.org.

Improv Little Rock Season Finale This Weekend

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Fri 7/6 at 10pm: ReQuest 20/90
ILR kicks off it’s Season VII finale weekend with ReQuest 20/90. Watch as ILR attempts the unthinkable–performing 20 short-form scenes and games in only 90 minutes. And the best part, you the audience, picks out which scenes we perform from beginning to end.

Sat 7/7 at 10pm: Oregon Trail
ILR rings out Season VII with a bang as we present Oregon Trail. That’s right. We’re bringing the classic computer game to life in this new long-form show. Watch our improvisers hit the Oregon Trail in our Conestoga Wagon train, as we hunt, get snake-bit, and face the real, and not so real, plights of pioneer life. Just don’t die of dysentery.

Both shows 7/6 & 7/7 take place at the PUBLIC Theatre. Admission is $8 at the door.

Birthday of first Little Rock Mayor

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Dr. Matthew Cunningham was born on July 5, 1782 in Pennsylvania. After receiving his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania, he ended up in New York City. It was there he met and married a young widow, Eliza Wilson Bertrand. After a brief stint in St. Louis, Dr. Cunningham was one of the first settlers of Little Rock in February 1820. He became the first physician in Little Rock.

In September 1820, Mrs. Cunningham and her children joined him. She became the first female in the Little Rock settlement. Dr. and Mrs. Cunningham had a son, Chester, who was the first baby born in Little Rock. They also had a daughter, Matilda, who would later marry Peter Hanger.

In 1831, Dr. Cunningham was elected the first Mayor of Little Rock. He won the race 23 to 15 over Rev. W. W. Stevenson. The first City Council meeting took place at the Cunningham house at the southwest corner of what is now 3rd and Main Streets (where Bennett’s Military Surplus is located).

Dr. Cunningham served one year as Mayor. He lived until June 15, 1851 and is buried at Mt. Holly Cemetery. His wife, son, daughter and her family are buried next to him.