Hometown Girl (Me) Shoves Off, Gets Press

Oh my, things are progressing at quite a disconcerting pace here.

Yes, as I hinted on Twitter, there is some knee-knockingly amazing comedy career news taking shape. I'm going to have to learn a lot in a big hurry and get over more of this shyness. More details forthcoming.

Among recent developments, my hometown paper has profiled me. The headline: "Everybody laughs at the shy girl."

I'm so (typically) embarrassed.

But thank you, Zionsville Times-Sentinel intern Kelly Shaw! You did a bang-up job.

And thank you, Nancy Beckett, for saying such nice things about me.

Indianapolis Museum of Art - Emily Kennerk: Suburban Nation

I am so hugely proud of one of my best friends, Emily, I'm seriously tearing up looking at these videos (courtesy of Nora). Emily and I have known each other since we were snotty nosed pony riding tomboys...and look at what she's doing now. Oh, Emily!

The first American museum exhibition featuring the work of Indianapolis native Emily Kennerk, Suburban Nation, includes large-scale installations influenced by the American landscape, which use mass-produced materials including vinyl siding, decking, roof shingles, and awnings. Transforming materials and forms found in suburbia, Kennerk freshly examines the public's relationship to these American icons.

Emily Kennerk's "Suburban Nation"

My hometown BFF Emily is kicking ass and taking names in the art world. Her big show at the IMA has opened and she's getting all kinds of attention. Here's a Nuvo article about her show, courtesy of our mutual friend Nora. Yay Emily!

Kennerk is fascinated with what she calls collisions: areas where land meets sky to form the horizon or where cultural structures impact natural orders. Suburbia becomes its own landscape in her four meticulous installations, three inside and one outdoors...Kennerk collaborated with installers to create three room-size gallery works to her exacting specifications. Viewers seemed amused yet puzzled by Kennerk’s art materials, such as pre-fab white vinyl siding, gutters and screen doors that might be found on their Hamilton County condos.

A Prophet in Her Hometown...Paper

My artist friend Emily Kennerk (who grew up with me in our hometown of Zionsville) is preparing to open her first big show at the Indianapolis Museum of Art very soon. It's called "Suburban Nation." Here's an article about her in the Indianapolis Star.

I just got a call from my hometown paper, the Zionsville Times-Sentinel, yesterday, letting me know that they'd gotten the press release about my stage fright auction and stand-up comedy kickoff some months ago, and would like to do a profile on me as an aspiring writer and comedian, which is very cool.

Of course, right now, all I can think is "everyone who ever knew me growing up is going to read this...and they won't be fooled into thinking I'm any cooler now than I was in junior high."

Fishing For Compliments

At left is a picture of my dad's latest fishing trophies, during a recent trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin. (The guy in the picture is not my dad.)

Two weeks ago, when my first article was published in the Indianapolis Star, my dad called me with a puzzling intro to a conversation.

"Hi, Dad, what's going on with you today?"

"Well, your mom's walking around the house looking for my buttons."

"What?"

"When I saw your article, I got so proud, my chest puffed up, and all the buttons popped off my shirt, so your mom's off looking for all of them."

How sweet is that?

Elizabeth McQuern in the Indianapolis Star

Surely, giant clouds of Pulitzer prizes will be swirling over my apartment building any day now.

Seeing Stars, Fuzzy Ducklings, Unfunny Bananas

I'm writing my first piece for the Indianapolis Star. It's going to knock your socks off. Well, not really. You're not going to read it, and it will likely be pretty dull. But I've convinced another reputable publication to pay me to write, so I'm thrilled.

Paramedics save ducklings from storm drain. My darling nephew the EMT and firefighter, who recently breezed through Chicago on an intense family bonding mission, told me that right before he left home to visit me, he and his colleagues had done the exact same thing. In a world full of pointless strife and senseless suffering, grown men will coordinate efforts to pull some tiny, helpless, and by some measures, insignificant little fuzzlings from a storm drain and reunite them with their squawking and panicky Mommy. Pardon me while I snuffle just a little bit. Damn it.

A quote from a friend, who was disappointed in my less-than-enthusiastic response to her interpretation of a Family Guy joke: "It's funny, right? It's funny?" (Puzzled pause.) "Oh, I forgot, this part is important - you have to picture me doing all of this in a banana suit." And, because we can all use a laugh, the joke in question:

Better Days To Come

This is a sad weekend. With one phone call from my mom last night, a total of three (unrelated) family friends have passed away this past week back in my hometown in Indiana. I'll probably be packing a bag Monday to head home for services.

One was my father's best friend of about 35 years, a warm and big-hearted man with a constant and unforgettable laugh. One was a guy my age, who I grew up with on the swim team, himself a father of four. One was a friend's two year old baby who had been ill since her first birthday. I can't think of any way right now to put any of this in perspective. I'm only glad that today is sunny and beautiful and I have social outdoor things to keep me busy.

An offering of beauty - 500 years of the women of Western art:

Have You Seen My Marbles?

I moved this weekend and don't have internet at home yet. (Actually, I can't even find my modem yet, but whatever.) Forgive my silences. A few tidbits:

--I had something published on Jargon Chicago last week. "Deep Dish Games." Ever wonder what the Olympics would be like if we turned them into full-on Chicago experiences? It would be Chicago-tastic.

--Chicago Improv Festival week wrapped up last night. K-Rock and I are very tired. I have not performed any stand up in the past two weeks. Naughty comedian!

--My friend Emily's little brother is running what sounds like a pretty cool art gallery here in Chicago these days, which is astonishing, since in my mind, Rowley is still about eleven years old. Here's a NewCity Chicago article about that.

--Have I ever mentioned Emily before? I don't think I have, although I certainly need to now. Emily Kennerk and I have been really close friends since we were about eleven or twelve, when we met on the swim team and enjoyed occasional pony-related forays through the farms on the edge of town. We suffered through middle school dances and high school speech class together, and commiserated on the unique challenges of being one of five or six kids. We both moved from our impossibly quaint little hometown to Chicago at the same time, to pursue our creative ambitions. We've been forgoing regular dental care and living a starving artist lifestyle, with its attendant worries, fears, and uncertainties for quite some time now. And I'm happy to say that may be coming to an end.

Emily is an amazing artist who won a nice grant in 2005, the same year some of her drawings were exhibited at the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art. Oh, and she just beat out Anish Kapoor, the "Cloud Gate" guy, for a project that will permanently put her public art project, Marbles, on display in a very cool new art space being carved out in downtown Indianapolis. Yeah, I'll say it again, Emily beat the guy who designed one of Chicago's most recognizable landmarks. Her Marbles project is “…a new landmark and a monument to the fun and eclectic nature of the growing Mass Ave cultural district,” according to Mindy Taylor Ross, Coordinator of the Cultural Trail’s public art programming and Director of Public Art for the Arts Council of Indianapolis.

She is also opening a major exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on July 13, and I hope to catch a ride home with her to see her work, which is called "Suburban Nation" and, according to the IMA site, "...will include a series of four installations influenced by the American surburban landscape: High Density, Untitled: Porches, and Welcome Home will be installed in the Forefront galleries...The fourth installation, Boundaries, will be created on the museum's front lawn. An evocative earth work, the project will use traditional lawn striping techniques to reiterate the patterns of subdivision plots."

Cornfields, Cheese, and Golf Courses? Is Indiana Heaven Itself?

I'm stuck inside, sick and cranky, trying to at least do something productive. I backed up my hard drive and found some old videos I thought I'd lost. I'm slapping them up on my YouTube account and treating you all to an encore presentation.

First up: Sloan and I go to Indiana for my niece's high school graduation. I think it looks pretty cool for something I shot with a six year old digital camera that takes 30 seconds of low-quality video at a time, and edited with Windows Movie Maker.

I Left Indiana Just in Time

Fake Indiana police officer likes to frisk unsuspecting female motorists.