Arts & Culture

Editor’s Note, Feb. 21, 2013: Ahead of the 2002 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis—and before his New Orleans Saints bested the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV—IM asked former Purdue quarterback Drew Brees to give some advice to outgoing IU QB Antwaan Randle El. Brees’s responses (below) originally appeared in the February 2002 issue. Randle El was selected in the second round of the 2002 draft and went on to play eight seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Redskins. The 2013 combine officially commences this Saturday in Indianapolis.

Editor’s Note, Feb. 19, 2013: This past Sunday at Daytona International Speedway, driver Danica Patrick became the first woman ever to qualify in the top spot for a NASCAR Cup race. She will start in the pole position of the Daytona 500 on Feb. 24. The following profile, noted in The Best American Sports Writing series, originally appeared in the May 2006 issue of IM, a year after Patrick’s fourth-place finish in the Indianapolis 500.

UPDATE, Feb. 17, 2013: Private Timothy McCormick’s colleague, 22-year-old specialist Cody Medley, has also died as a result of severe injuries sustained in the Feb. 16 car-ambulance accident downtown that claimed McCormick’s life. A tribute video celebrating their lives was posted to Facebook here.

You might see a familiar face in Assembly Hall during today’s rivalry matchup with Purdue (2 p.m., ESPN): former North Central High School phenom and IU star Eric Gordon.

Former Lance Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu tells IM that Dr. Larry Einhorn, esteemed oncologist with the IU School of Medicine and Lance Armstrong Foundation, was not present in the Indianapolis hospital room where Armstrong allegedly admitted to doping in 1996. But he wants to know the identities of the people who were.

LOS ANGELES — On Friday, Feb. 8, at the Playboy Mansion, a memorial service honoring the late Mary O’Connor had this underlying theme: Once a Hoosier, always a Hoosier. O’Connor, a 1946 Marion (Ind.) High School graduate, worked as Hugh Hefner’s secretary for 40 years. She was born Mary Eugenia Feuchtinger. When she passed away on Jan. 27, Hefner tweeted “We loved her more than words can say.”

Editor’s Note, Feb. 15, 2013: Hugh Hefner’s personal secretary, Mary O’Connor, was James Dean’s fellow Fairmount, Indiana, native. She died on Jan. 27. Mark Roesler, CEO of CMG Worldwide (headquartered in Indianapolis) manages the intellectual property rights of Dean and other celebrities, and he gave closing remarks at O’Connor’s memorial service on Feb. 8 at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, noting also that the service was taking place on Dean’s birthday. Here, our June 2005 feature story about another Hoosier who went to Hollywood, about Dean’s craft and legacy.

The laws of nature dictate that the fainter the light source, the longer the shadow. Given his brief career and long-ago death, Dean’s light should have been all but extinguished by now. But in Fairmount his shadow looms large, his name and image a currency to be traded. The Rebel Rebel gift shop and the Giant Bar & Grill and the Boulevard of Broken Dreams scene painted on the side of the antiques mall distinguish Fairmount from other Grant County map dots like Jonesboro and Gas City and Swayzee.

Editor’s Note, Feb. 15, 2013: The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame will announce the finalists for its Class of 2013 inductees today, and Pacers broadcaster Bobby “Slick” Leonard is one of the contenders. The following originally appeared among IM’s “23 Reasons to Love the Pacers—Again!” in the November 2012 print edition.

Circle City IN Pride Festival has announced by way of its new mobile app that the organization will welcome multi-hyphenate artist Mýa to its stage on Saturday, June 8, 2013, as the main event’s headliner. The singer-actress-dancer has released such hit tracks as “Case of the Ex,” “My Love Is Like Wo,” and—with Christina Aguilera, Pink, and others—a cover of “Lady Marmalade” for the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, among other songs. She has also starred in the movie musical Chicago and appeared on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars program. “Lady Marmalade” won her a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration in 2001.

IU is up for a notable social media award—and it would only further bolster the school’s penchant for No. 1 finishes lately.

This Ash Wednesday, as we live in an increasingly busied world (for better and worse), the pastors at Christ Church Cathedral are once again making it simple and easy to receive a Lenten blessing downtown. For the second straight year, they are presenting “Ashes on the Go” in front of their beautiful, historic parish, an opportunity to mark the beginning of Lent. Per the church’s website, “It is a time for introspection, reflection, renewal, and amendment of life. We receive the sign of the Cross in ash on our foreheads to remind ourselves both of our own mortality, and of God’s abundant grace and immortality that raises us to new life.”

An unlikely but passionate rift has heated up in a Southern Indiana school district over the concept of prom events for opposite- and same-gender student pairs. First, Diana Medley, a special education teacher in the Northeast School Corporation in Sullivan County, made remarks to a WTWO-TV (Terre Haute) reporter that set the Internet and regional and even national media atwitter. Outside of a planning meeting for a strictly opposite-sex-dating prom in the school district, she said, in response to the interviewer’s question about whether she thinks gay people have “some purpose in life”: “I don’t. I personally don’t, I’m sorry. I don’t understand it.” In the same TV news report, Bill Phegley, a pastor at Carlisle Christian Church, makes statements considered incendiary by some and to be treasured by others, saying Christians are always “prepared for a fight” and that Jesus gives them “armor for the front, not the back” so as not to run away from that fight.

If you’re still scratching your head over how Indiana lost a big game and sole lead of the Big Ten in under one second—less time than you’ve already spent reading this post—then check out Buzzfeed’s frame-by-frame analysis of that final, unforgivable play, and trust that Cody Zeller will never let that happen again.

“They may have a good race over there,” says Lucas Oil Raceway GM Wes Collier. “But I guarantee it won’t be better than it would have been at our racetrack.”