Stick another feather in the Louisville dining scene's cap as Corbett's: An American Place has been named one of the 20 Best New Restaurants in America by Esquire magazine. I'd link to the article but Esquire, for some strange reason, likes to wait until the last freaking minute to put articles up online. So, instead, I'll just quote from the press release the Corbett's people sent round.
feel so fortunate to have been able to bring my vision to the historic
Von Allman mansion," said Corbett. "We've built on a foundation of
Kentucky history and my amazing staff works wonders with Southern
hospitality and top-quality ingredients to make every meal memorable.
Our patio, downstairs wine room and state-of-the-art interactive
tasting room are all elements that I think set Corbett's apart, and I
am thrilled that Esquire has acknowledged our unique dining experience."
Esquire writer John Mariani traveled across the country in search of the best
dining experiences, weighing cuisine, service and ambiance. Mariani
praises Corbett's for the stylish restoration of the over 150-year-old
mansion that houses the restaurant and for chef de cuisine Chris
Howerton's balance of locally informed and international flavor.
Mariani was particularly impressed with the hot-and-cold foie gras with
plums and Southern Comfort gastrique and "Vietnamese Coffee", a
chocolate mousse dessert with condensed milk, espresso jelly and
cinnamon meringue.
The article features a very nice young man who works as an agent at a modeling agency in New York but has recently purchased a condo in Louisville as a second home because he loves it here so much even though his work keeps him based in New York.
A quick plane ride on Friday afternoons finds Derek Saathoff back home in Louisville for extended and relaxed weekends. A couple choice quotes from the article:
"When I was growing up, I wanted to leave and move to New York as
quickly as possible," said Mr. Saathoff, 25, an agent at Wilhelmina
Models, whose primary residence is a studio apartment in the East
Village. "And now I find myself torn between the city and Louisville."
"It's just such a nice lifestyle," Mr. Saathoff said of his old - and new - Kentucky home, for which he paid just under $100,000. "My friends find it strange that I feel so deeply connected to it. They're from similar places like Arkansas or Ohio or Michigan and couldn't wait to leave and don't ever want to go back.
"But I get very emotional when it's time to leave Louisville and return to New York. It's hard for me to go back and put on my game face."
Louisville is just that kind of place. It puts a hold on you.
APA has singled out West Main as one of the Great Streets in America
for 2008 given the street's rich architectural legacy, unique sense of
place, and contributions to downtown Louisville's redevelopment, which
has attracted $1.8 billion in reinvestment since 1992.
The Downtown Development Plan, which was updated in 2002, also
recommended the creation of a Cultural Arts District along three blocks
of West Main Street to help generate interest and attract visitors to
the area. The district, which extends between Sixth and Eighth Streets,
includes the Louisville Slugger Museum with its signature 120-feet-tall
baseball bat; the Louisville Science Center; the Kentucky Center for
the Arts; the new Muhammad Ali Center; the Kentucky Museum of Arts and
Crafts; and the Images Friedman Gallery.
We in Louisville have the two most famous moments in sports, are home to the greatest boxer of all time, know what the secret 11 herbs and spices are and can appreciate the fine, fine beauty and eccentricity in your great aunt Beulah's oddly shaped old lamp. Gracious I do love it here.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Kentucky State Fair Board
The Washington Post was awfully excited (I refuse to copy the headline and say they were jazzed) about the Louisville Leopard Percussionists performance this past weekend at the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival. Of course they're absolutely right to be excited because these supremely talented musicians, who seriously rock are all between the ages of 7 and 12 and they learn all their music by ear.
The Leopard Percussionists, 60 children between age 7 and 12 hailing from Louisville, will be the youngest performers of the day. But, says founder and Artistic Director Diane Downs, "just because they're little people doesn't mean they're not capable of accomplishing amazing things." Indeed, to hear these kids play "Take 5" entirely on percussion is pretty stunning. (HBO Family has made a special about the group, founded in 1993, and the percussionists once even opened for alt-country band My Morning Jacket.) Did we mention they've learned songs by Santana and Duke Ellington by ear?
The kids learn jazz because "that's what I like," admits Downs, a music teacher. But she says that because so much of jazz is improvisational, it also lends itself to young performers: "Part of it is written down, but most of it isn't. You have a few rules, and you only have to keep the groove. It's the perfect thing to start teaching kids when they're little."
While I love the praise the Post is heaping on the Louisville Leopards I do have one qualm with the article which is the description of My Morning Jacket as an alt-country band. Seriously? Um, no.
Dear Washington Post writer Lavanya Ramanathan,
I offer to give you lessons on both alt-country and My Morning Jacket cause they are two distinctly different things. Have your people call my people.
This designation is one with real meaning--it is difficult to earn and
important to renew. There are now 96 awarded communities in 32 states.
Since the program's inception in 2003, 245 communities have applied.
"In this round, 10 communities were given honorable mentions," Clarke
said. "It is important to recognize communities as they begin to build
bicycle friendliness into their network. But a designation only goes to
communities with established records in two or more of the five
categories."
I'll be the first one to admit that Louisville still has some work to do in the bike friendly department but the city has made huge strides and continues making huge strides to make Louisville an even more bicycle friendly community. See the recent grants of nearly $5 million the city received to make bicycle and pedestrian improvements for the city for evidence of this continuing improvement.
The investment will add miles of bike ways and sidewalks in
Louisville, which will benefit an increasing number of people who are
commuting to work and running errands without cars.
Funds will also be used to add safety signage along narrow roadways,
educate citizens about bicycle safety and improve crossings near
schools.
I just want to brag on Louisville Public Media a little bit. While many traditional media outlets are complaining that the internet and new media are siphoning off viewers/readers/listeners but are doing little to reach out to those potentially lost customers. Louisville Public Media is doing just the opposite and is embracing new media. Louisville Public Media is giving people content in new and different ways. New and different ways that those potential lost customers happen to be interested in by the way.
With twitter streams, archived and streaming video performances, video interviews and more Louisville Public Media is expanding the idea of what public radio can provide. I'm very impressed. WFPK, the adult alternative public radio station, has always been a feather in Louisville's cap
Idea Festival
just about wore me out with all the excitement. Lots and lots of
interesting presentations, speakers and ideas. And also? Juggling.
I was twittering and photographing
a bit during the festival so I didn't liveblog or take a great deal of
notes during most of the sessions I attended. But I thought I'd share
some of the highlights from my Idea Festival recollections.
First
though I've been thinking about the best way to describe Idea Festival
for people who tell me they still don't "get" what it is or what it is
all about. I've come up with three "elevator pitch" descriptions:
1.
It's like SXSWi for grown ups. That sounds kind of condescending though
(even though I don't mean it to be at all) so I changed it to SXSWi for
nerds of all stripes, not just web nerds.
2. 3 days of smart people talking about interesting things on the widest variety of topics and subjects you can imagine.
3.The
place you absolutely need to be in September if you enjoy smart people,
big ideas and getting lots of new things to think about and discuss.
Any other suggestions?
On Thursday the first session at Idea Festival I hit was called Another Day in the Frontal Lobe. It featured Dr. Katrina
Firlik, a really interesting neurosurgeon. She was an engaging and
funny speaker. She started her presentation by saying brain surgery is
not rocket science. Heh, heh. That's science nerd comedy gold. Oh and a
word of advice, viewer discretion advised on any presentation that
includes the words "frontal lobe" because, you know, that means there's
going to be a little bit of gore. Not too much, I didn't get queazy or
anything but there were some slides of brain surgery going on there.
Dr. Firlik talked about some really complex and interesting things
regarding brain health and morbities in easy to understand ways. And
she gave great answers in the q/a part of her session. I enjoyed her
presentation very much.
Next up for me on Thursday was Mark
Beasley's presentation on public art. I love art but I admit to be not
so much up on or into performance art and having some kind of boring
and stuffy conceptions about what public art is or should be. Beasley's
presentation had a few points of inspiration for me but in terms of my
thinking about public art I've actually got to give credit to 21c. The
gigantic monkeys downtown at first perplexed me, then amused me and
then made me think about my relationship with art. Seriously. I've been
thinking about what art is and isn't and my relationship to it these
past several weeks because of gigantic inflated monkeys hanging around downtown. Isn't that crazy?
Next
on Thursday was Will Shortz's presentation. I don't do crossword
puzzles, I don't play sudoku, I barely even listen to Will Shortz on
Sunday mornings on NPR so I'm not sure what I was expecting from his
talk. What I found though is that Mr. Shortz is awesome. He talked
about the history of crosswords, his newest puzzle obsession (something
called kenken), how he chooses what puzzles to run in the New York
Times, the varying levels of difficulty in the puzzles (Mondays are the
easiest puzzles) and the error in a puzzle that he's received the most
feedback on ever. That error involved indicating Rupp Arena was located
in Louisville not Lexington. Then we played some group puzzle games. It
was festive.
After Mr. Shortz came Amy Chua's talk on The Rise
and Fall of Hyperpowers. I'd gotten up before 6AM on Thursday so I
started to lose it a little bit here so while it was an interesting
topic and Chua was a good speaker I don't have a lot of recollections
on this session. Bad Michelle, bad Michelle.
Because of the aforementioned badness on my part I went home and rested a bit before returning downtown for Taste of Innovation.
Food, drinks, cooking and mixology demonstrations, mingling were what
Taste of Innovation was all about. It was a good time. The only
negative was that a couple booths ran out of food before I got a chance
to sample their wares. I'm not going to lie, that was a downer.
Highlights from Taste of Innovation included master mixologist Joy
Perrine's bourbon cocktails, the Findlandia vodka cocktail Brown-Forman
was serving (it was absolutely delicious but I can't remember what is
was called), corn chowder from The Patron, truffles from Hollyhill Inn
and pumpkin risotto from...someone. I want to say the sign on the
risotto booth say The Marketplace or just Marketplace. If anyone
remembers who was serving the yummy pumpkin risotto please help my
failing memory.
OK now onto Friday. I'm not generally a fan of
Penn and Teller so going into it I wasn't that excited about Teller's
presentation on The Science and Wonder of Magic.
How very wrong I was. He was an exceptionally intelligent and
entertaining speaker. He kept a packed house absolutely captivated for
his entire presentation.
Teller politely asked for a voluntary
embargo on spilling the beans of his presentation. He essentially said
"let's just keep this as a conversation between those of us in this
room" and I and all the other bloggers present have done that. We
didn't twitter or blog specifically what he was talking about. It
irritated me that the Courier-Journal didn't show the same respect. I
know the specifics of what Teller talked about aren't some really huge
secret that must be protected at all costs but there's value in a) not
pulling the current back all the way and b) respecting a polite
request. Anyway.
After Teller was the crazy energetic Danish
architect Bjarke Ingels discussing Designs on the Future City. The
projects he described in his presentation are the very definition of
innovative. That said I totally admit to be superficial and being most
geeked about what he and his group did with 250,000 legos.
The last session I went to on Friday was the most powerful one of the day. The session was called Surviving Rwanda
and the speaker was a woman named Immaculee IIibagiza. She and 7 other
women surived for 91 days while hiding in a 3x4 bathroom during the
storm of genocide that engulfed Rwanda in the mid 1990s. The
presentation was mostly about how she found religion from this
experience and while her religion isn't exactly my cup of tea her
thoughts on being able to find the good in people and to be able to
forgive were incredibly profound and moving to me. I mean if a woman
who hid in a bathroom for three months because people literally 5 feet
away at times want to kill her for her ethnic background can find a way
to forgive her would be killers (and the people who slaughtered her
entire family) how in the world can I hold a grudge against someone for
a business or personal slight. I can't. Well I can't and then be, in
any way, happy with myself.
An slightly different version of this post originally appeared on Consuming Louisville.
Idea Festival 2008 is going on right now here in Louisville. I have heard some fascinating speakers, had some amazingly innovative thoughts and visuals pumped into my brain and even watched the world's greatest juggler. If you're not in Louisville in September you're definitely missing out. I feel for you though so let me share a slideshow of images from the festival and give you a couple important links.
First the Idea Festival blog has all kinds of event recaps and liveblog transcripts. Second the Idea Festival twitter stream has great little snippets of info from various events and the festival at large.
Are you curious about those red penguins you saw during Ryder Cup coverage? I have the scoop for you. World Golf calls them "mysterious and large red penguins" while US captain Azinger wanted people to "forget about the red penguins and focus on the guys in the red shirts." If they confused or excited you I've got the scoop.
21c Museum Hotel in downtown Louisville is part boutique hotel, part contemporary art museum. Red Penguin sculptures, the work of Italian artist Omar Rond, are exhibited throughout the hotel. The sculptures were commissioned for a public art project at the 2005 Venice Biennale. The red penguins are the mascots, nay, ambassadors, of 21c. They greet you from the entrance and roof of the building, they line the halls and you can buy stuffed versions in the gift shop to take home with you. They also, apparently, like golf.
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