Arts & Culture

A: There are downtown city streets with free parking? If that’s what you’re implying, then The Hoosierist begs you to enlighten him. According to Marc Lotter, communications director for Mayor Greg Ballard, pretty much every bit of curbside asphalt in the Mile Square requires coinage for parking. And it’s not just to wring every last cent of revenue from motorists. Well, it’s not all about that. It’s also to keep commuters from monopolizing spaces from dawn to dusk, to the detriment of nearby businesses needing easy access for customers. “It encourages turnover and discourages long-term parking during the business day,” Lotter says.

“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.”

If you’ve recently spotted a few tiny green cars zipping around the Circle, then you’ve noticed IPL’s latest effort to promote the electric automobile. Earlier this year, IPL purchased three Think cars (manufactured in northern Indiana) and started parking them outside its headquarters in order to publicize IPL’s Time of Use program, which allows participants to charge electric cars at night for discounted rates. The company even takes people for rides on occasion.

No offense to The Three Muskateers (opening at theaters across the country this weekend), but we’re partial to our own trio. Time for Three will launch another ISO Stella Artois Happy Hour Series on Thursday, and the group leaked us the musical selections:

Editor’s Note: Somehow, despite his hailing from England, the loss of Dan Wheldon has hit our community close to home. For years now, we have felt especially attached to him. There are the two 500 wins, certainly—including this past edition’s dramatic and improbable finish—but it was his warmth and humor that made him a favorite with fans and media alike. Once, in July 2007, he even invited us in to his home, letting us showcase his condo in our pages.
As a tribute to his all-too-short life, we offer our May 2005 profile, published in the same month he first won our race. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the IRL and to his family.

A well-worn “tale as old as time” brought all of its truisms and talents to the Clowes Memorial Hall stage on Tuesday night. It was opening night for the NETworks production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, which yet runs Oct. 13 through 16 here. This latest nationally-touring take on the show jump-starts both the Broadway in Indianapolis 2011-12 season and the source material itself.

The American Planning Association has confirmed something that we at IM have known for years—nearly 35 years, in fact.

As a Ball State musical-theater grad, Emily Behny was prepared for drama—and she got plenty of it last fall when she auditioned for the lead in the Broadway touring production of Beauty and the Beast. At the conclusion of one callback in New York City, where Behny was living, she was asked to return the next day and sing for a musical director. She already had plans: She was getting married. In a rather Disney-esque sequence of events, Behny spent the evening waiting tables, went out for her bachelorette party, made the 10 a.m. audition for the part of Belle, and dashed off to her afternoon nuptials at City Hall. When she and her Prince Charming returned from their honeymoon, she learned she had landed the role. “I heard the good news from my agent on the tarmac,” Behny says.

Walking around the Circle, you may have noticed the faint etchings of names in the bricks. In the late 1970’s, Commission for Downtown began a revitalization project that included re-bricking Monument Circle and allowed citizens to have their names engraved there in return for a small donation. These are the stories of the individuals, families, and companies whose names can be found engraved along the most famous streets in the city.

A: Return with us now to that bygone year of 1950, when Harry Truman was president, a loaf of bread cost a nickel (or whatever), and every member of the male gender sported a Johnny Unitas–style crewcut. It was then that soon-to-be cafeteria magnates Charles O. McGaughey and George Laughner (of the famous Laughner clan that ran the late, great Laughner’s Cafeteria chain) got together to found the very first MCL. The Hoosierist supposes you can figure out the rest.

Then: Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream, 1995

Philly native Michael Tollin brought his first documentary to Heartland, where it won a Crystal Heart Award and became a calling card for the fledgling Tollin/Robbins Productions.

Frontman Michael Stipe filmed this 1987 video himself with no edits at an Indiana rock quarry. Rolling Stone readers ranked the tune No. 6 among all R.E.M. songs.

Life imitates art today on the Circle, where around 280 black-clad student-stylists from the south side’s Paul Mitchell school are embracing anyone within arm’s length. Even those with split ends. The mass squeezing is a national Paul Mitchell campaign in its third year, and a late shift will run from 7 to 9 p.m. Air kisses optional.

Transformers have nothing on these beasts. Monument Circle became a haven for guttural noise of the mechanical kind today, as three monster trucks from this weekend’s show at the Indiana State Fairgrounds revved up their engines for all to see. On September 16-18, it’s an entirely different story: 4,000-plus 4-wheelers will descend upon the Fairgrounds.   Gaping passersby witnessed (and snapped mobile photos of) these huge trucks, including Chalkboard Chuck, an

And another message, for the Colts defense: Mind the gap.   Your turn! Caption the photo in the Comments field.   (Poster by Art Press, a local screenprinter, spotted in the window of the WIBC studio on the Circle. Art Press donated a limited number of posters to People for Urban Progress, and we hear that the nonprofit organization will make them avai