There’s a subtle wave of optimism that gently buffets you when talking to director Olivia Newman and author Shelby Van Pelt, a sense that everything’s going to be all right if you simply sit back and let things take their course. Of course, this comes as no surprise, what with the former helming the big […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inArts & Culture
Kena Bere interview
Kena Bere is a young attorney working in downtown Springfield who is dedicating her career to building a more just and equitable legal system. She serves as a SAFE-T Act lawyer for the Illinois Office of the State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor. A 2020 University of Illinois Springfield graduate, Kena focuses on criminal justice and system […]
Posted inFilm
Deep Water better than expected, message gets lost in Animal Farm remake
Water deeper than expected In the spirit of giving credit where it’s due, my hat’s off to director Renny Harlan and screenwriters Pete Bridges, Shayne Armstrong, S.P. Krause and Damien Power, where their latest film, Deep Water, is concerned. All involved obviously embraced the notion of making the ultimate disaster movie, shamelessly cribbing from The […]
Posted inIT Picks
Meet the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden
Meet former Navy SEAL Rob O’Neill, known for firing the shots that killed terrorist Osama bin Laden, during this inaugural Heroes at Home Plate event. O’Neill, 50, will be the keynote speaker at the event. Heroes at Home Plate is designed to feature inspiring individuals who have shown courage, leadership and impact through their stories […]
Posted inPoetry
Relic
A friend helping clean my kitchenbrought me resting on her palmsa long rusty flat item. I said“Doesn’t everyone keep a bayonet in their pantry?”About that weapon: My dad pickedit up in France 1924 from Belleau Wood where was the worst carnage.The trenches now overgrown with weeds. Thousands killed here –They had to clamber over the slainto fire, though […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Jay Shanle interview
Jay Shanle, the new executive director of Downtown Springfield Inc., sat down with The Mosaic Project to talk vision, growth and what’s next for DSI. From bold ideas to addressing critics, this conversation dives into the future of downtown.
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
The Baha’i festival of Ridvan
The Baha’i Festival of Ridvan (pronounced Rez-vahn) is the holiest season of the Baha’i year. Beginning at sunset on April 20 and ending at sunset May 2, this 12-day period commemorates the time in 1863, when Baha’u’llah sojourned along with family and followers in the Najibiyyih Garden, situated on an island in the Tigris River. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Dana-Thomas House Foundation to demolish adjacent property
When Susan Lawrence and family moved to the neighborhood, it looked a lot different than it does now. The three houses across the street from the Dana-Thomas House (302, 306 and 308 E. Lawrence) were originally built as two-story homes. They were destroyed in the fire of 1916, and the current houses were built around […]
Posted inFilm
Body lasts too long, Mummy far more than a monster movie
Body becomes a bit ripe On Monday, April 20, an op-ed appeared in the New York Times with the headline “Movies are Bullying Us with Their Bloat,” by Frank Bruni. In it, the author harps on a complaint I’ve had with American movies for quite some time: their needless length. He points out the average […]
Posted inIT Picks
Voices of America
Voices of America Festival “I, Too, Sing America” | Fri., April 24, 7:30-10:30 p.m. Foundation Hall, Old State Capitol Voices of America Festival “This Land is Your Land” | Sat., April 25, 7:30-9:30 p.m. | First Presbyterian Church, 321 S. Seventh St. springfieldchoralsociety.org. Celebrate America’s 250th birthday with the Springfield Choral Society this weekend as […]
Posted inPoetry
Symphony
When I was small my mom would lie on the couch on Sunday afternoon with a cloth over her eyes and listen to the symphony on the radio. This made me uneasy: mothers shouldn’t lie down with their eyes closed. The domestic ship might run aground with no one at the tiller and who, who […]
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
Bar and bat mitzvah – marking the passage to adulthood
Next month I will be marking my 83rd birthday and the 70th anniversary of my bar mitzvah, the ceremony in Judaism marking a young person’s passage to adulthood. In recent times, some Jewish men of my generation, on reaching the age of 83, have been celebrating a second bar mitzvah. Psalm 90 notes that “the […]
