They say music soothes the soul. It also can boost the mood and well-being, according to health professionals. Need a dose of well-being this weekend? Then Buzz Bomb Brewing Co. is the place to be Saturday as it hosts the Healing Arts Festival. Several inspirational speakers, health experts and musical acts will present beginning at […]
Arts & Culture
Posted inPoetry
Violin Lessons
My sister Pat, a gifted Violinist gave lessons at her home, she also taught her daughters. My niece Jackie Jo says when her lesson time arrived she had to put on her hat and coat gather up her fiddle in its case along with her music, went outside and knocked at the front door, just […]
Posted inCommunity & Lifestyle
Pushing back the tide
In 2019, six students and I spent a week at the South Texas Family Residential Center – a remote, for-profit private facility and the country’s largest immigrant detention center. We worked with women and children seeking asylum from unimaginable violence. We heard stories of rape, kidnapping and mutilation, including against children; gang extortion, brutal gender-based […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Rev. Dr. Blythe Kieffer retiring as pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church
The Rev. Dr. Blythe Kieffer is retiring from Westminster Presbyterian Church, 533 S. Walnut St., after serving as pastor and head of staff for 12 years. She will give her final sermon, “Gratitude,” on Sunday, Aug. 24, at 10 a.m. in the church sanctuary. Special music will be presented by the Westminster Choir and Dale […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Relay a smart thriller, Map that Leads to You a predictable rom-com,
Relay a throwback to smart thrillers Smart, well-acted and containing a narrative switchback I didn’t see coming, Relay from director David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) is a pleasant surprise. This slow-burn thriller revolves around an intriguing premise that would have been right at home during the era of paranoid thrillers from the mid-1970s. Hitchcockian […]
Posted inPoetry
Award
I was a counselor (girls period) at Phantom Lake Y Camp I took my goat, still a kid. The campers all joined the “Rocky Club” to keep Rocky out of trouble. They could not keep her from skidding out onto the dock during swimming, sometimes even falling in! The last night of camp when all the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Robert Moore reflects on his life
To track Robert Moore’s life and career is to study one person’s successful journey in the Great Migration of the 20th century. To see this Springfield man’s connections to other major events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Civil Rights Movement adds a personal dimension that makes history feel more real. Born in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Golden Seed
This Liturgical Arts Festival program will be a dramatic performance with musical interludes. The theatrical component, from playwright and director James Compton Bockmier, features three figures from Springfield’s history. An in-character “trialogue” will take place among Susan Lawrence Dana (played by Arlene Cooney), Frank Lloyd Wright (Patrick Foster) and Vachel Lindsay (Keegan Otwell). The trio […]
Posted inFall Guide
Fall Guide
The annual Fall Guide issue has info on family friendly activities, fall gardening, upcoming theater and art shows and an expanded three-month calendar of events.
Posted inArts & Culture
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people
The reading of Scripture at Sabbath and holiday prayer services has been a feature of Jewish congregational worship for nearly two millennia. The precedent for a public reading of Scripture goes back to Moses’s instruction to the Israelites to read the Torah aloud once every seven years to all the people – men, women and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Weapons an unnerving look at missing kids, Red Sonja falls short
Weapons worthwhile despite questionable choices Zach Cregger’s Weapons is getting a great deal of press and it’s easy to see why. Not only did the film bring in nearly $43 million in its first weekend of release, an impressive number for a film of this sort, but its ending has left many viewers with a […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Astronomer
A tribute to Charles Schweighauser, a University of Illinois professor emeritus of astronomy and physics who died July 14 at the age of 88. We audited Charlie’s classes from Mercury to the Oort Cloud and beyond; we helped burn his prairie so that new prairie could prosper. We kept secret where his telescope, (state-of-the-art) was […]
