Evan West

It’s difficult to imagine a better setting for omelets and bellinis than Bloomington’s Cafe Django (116 N. Grant St., 812-335-1297), a charming boho bungalow just off of Kirkwood Avenue. While the regular lunch and dinner menus showcase an eclectic fusion of Asian, Mediterranean, and even Peruvian influences (owner Linda Eversoll hails from there), the breakfast menu relies more heavily on the traditional American morning fare typically found at upscale urban diners—with an accent. Along with such standards as smoked salmon, pancakes (with blueberries, chocolate chips, strawberries, or bananas), French toast, and a “House Breakfast” of two eggs, toast, potatoes, and bacon or sausage, for example, is a curried tofu scramble served with momos (steamed dumplings indigenous to the Himalayan region) on the side. A suggestion: Given a choice between the crispy “spicy potato wedges” and the mushier “Django potatoes,” go with the former. In any event, the tart Citrus Cocktail, a blend of lime and lemon juices served with bubbly, is a superb Sunday-morning thirst-quencher.

“Zach is the model of a modern LGBT candidate,” says one political observer. “He has done it all on his own. He didn’t wait for the party boss to tell him it was okay.”

Attendees who signed up for ExactTarget’s upcoming Indianapolis conference hoping to see pop-culture icon Stan Lee are in for a big disappointment, Circle Citizen has learned.   Last month, the interactive marketing company, headquartered next door to Circle Citizen’s 40 Monument Circle offices, announced in a splashy

Circle Citizen has important news to report from the world of comic books.   But first, a confession: Your Circle Citizen correspondent is a recovering comic-book geek. In the 1980s, he squandered many hours of his youth in a poorly lit basement comic-book store in Bloomington called 25th Century Five and Dime, digging in dusty boxes and

“This is not just for firefighters,” Hess says of downtown Indy’s 9/11 memorial. “We do need to remember the people who ran into those buildings. But nearly 2,700 other people died that day.”

The image was remarkable for its time, when most Civil War memorials focused on soldiers and neglected the issue of slavery altogether.

The dangers of visiting downtown Indianapolis have caused a lot of public hand-wringing lately. Turns out the perils are even greater for birds than they are for people.   According to the Amos W. Butler Audubon Soci

Danny Tunks was a blue-collar guy from Indiana, accused of killing a reputed mobster and facing a heap of evidence and life in prison. He was in serious, serious trouble. Then …

AGE: 41   GIG: New U.S. Rep   TALKING POINTS: Six months into his first term in D.C. and a member of the Republicans’ largest-ever freshman class, the former Indiana secretary of state is making waves, trimming fat, and crashing on his Capitol Hill couch.

On Wednesday, Circle Citizen reported that a design by two landscape architects from Paris had taken first place in the Monument Circle Idea Competition. But the second-place entry, “RE:Centering Indianapolis 1001,” by Urban Design Studio of RATIO Architects, is getting all the buzz—and for all the wrong reasons. Critics have pointed out that one of the idea’s renderings includes an image of La Tour Vivante (“The Living Tower”), a celebrated French building, without giving attribution to its designers at the Parisian firm SOA Architectes. And some of them are throwing around the dreaded “p” word. (That is, “plagiarism.”)

Earlier today, Circle Citizen joined a breathless crowd in the lobby of Chase Tower to learn who won the much-ballyhooed Monument Circle Idea Competition. He was not disappointed. “From Inertia to Inner Circle,” devised by two Parisian landscape architects, took top honors and a $5,000 prize—just enough, presumably, to cover the travel expenses incurred by the e

Had the pedestrians and shopkeepers of a less-enlightened metropolis complained about aggressive panhandling (as they did in Indianapolis a few years ago), their leaders might simply have opted for rousting the offenders. Not here. In 2008, we also got donation boxes on downtown sidewalks for the benefit of the homeless. They seemed an admirable symbol of compromise: While pledging to keep an eye on problem beggars, the city also acknowledged that combating homelessness is a cause worth raising money for. Even the boxes’ signage echoes the compromise, managing to scold (“No one should be bullied to give a handout”) and implore (“Give Real Help”) all at once.

Although First IB holds a lease on the prime street-level location until 2014, building management is shopping the space around–and evidently not having much luck. When CC emailed agent Stephen Adams, he replied, “Are you interested in leasing the corner space?” No, the Circle Citizen is quite comfy in his 40 Monument Circle digs, thank you. But he’d be delighted to call a bar his neighbor.

The next trip I’m planning is to the Himalayas. I will bring no accessories, except maybe something to tie back my hair. I like to pack light.

Taki Sawi smelled smoke early in the morning of October 12. It was a rude awakening made ruder by the fact that he was sleeping in a room across the parking lot from the ovens and burners of his Santorini Greek Kitchen. He rushed to the window to see white, then black, smoke billowing from the building and watched as his aspirations literally went up in flames. Firefighters arrived within moments, soon enough to save the building, but most of the restaurant’s interior was destroyed.