Indianapolis

“The whole downtown/midtown/uptown thing started in New York because that city is narrow and vertical,” says Matt Hale. “We’re a radial city growing out in every direction from the center, so it’s a stretch to say Indy has a midtown.”

Mike Terry, IndyGo president and CEO, claims that the benefits of expanding our public-transportation system would justify the cost. “This is about economic development, not social services.”

Says Jim Borthwick of Noblesville, “Notice the close attention to detail, the cerebral forehead of Peyton [Manning] and Andrew [Luck]’s glorious neckbeard.”

An author who spent a month working on a performance-art piece in Indianapolis reflects here on the upside of the city’s low profile.

As I crept farther, panic finally set in. I was lost! The scurrying animals, which I could never quite see amid the ankle-deep muck of the tunnel, seemed to get more numerous.

As a committed downtowner, I like to believe that Indy is the state’s cradle of cool. Sure, Bloomington mounts a serious challenge, and lately I keep hearing surprising things about Fort Wayne, but I never considered Carmel—stylish, yes, but not exactly hip—a hotbed of progressive sensibilities. Yesterday, I had to reconsider. Amid the news that the Indianapolis City-County Council has proposed domestic-partner benefits for municipal employees (28 years after Berkeley, California, became the first American city to do so), the Star pointed out that Carmel already has domestic-partner benefits in place. 

If you can’t get the city’s visionaries to attend your dinner party, go to theirs instead. Chew on This events are intimate dinners hosted by some of Indy’s biggest thinkers, and anyone can attend for just $20 (food included). Organized by Indiana Humanities, the events have been taking place—and selling out—for a couple of years, and the next one, Aug. 22, is filling up, too. As a main course, Indiana Humanities is serving up conversation about the Pan Am Games, held 25 years ago this month, a time when the city found itself at a critical crossroad. The table talk will focus on “what we decided to do in that era to bring the city back, what worked, what didn’t, and how we can carry it forward in the post-Super Bowl era,” says Brandon Judkins, programs director for Indiana Humanities.

Monday, Aug. 6, marked the six-month anniversary of our collective Super Bowl hangover. It seems like just yesterday, doesn’t it? Come to think of it, wasn’t the weather the same yesterday as it was that whole week in February? Remember the abundant and unnatural global-warming sunshine? That ZipLine? Those adorable football-shaped cake pops at Peyton’s party?

>> PHOTO: Bush Stadium’s loft apartments are to be available in August 2013.

The Indy Film Fest runs July 19-29, and a former IM staffer and current volunteer movie screener has the goods here:

Starved for a little culture, or perhaps a little starlight? This weekend, there is ample opportunity to satisfy your need for both. After a year-long hiatus, Heartland Actors Repertory Theatre’s Shakespeare on the Canal has happily returned to White River State Park.   This season’s play—Othello—is the fourth that HART has staged (for free) i

Tens of thousands came out for the annual Circle City IN Pride Festival on June 9, and the organizers’ final numbers are in. Per Indy Pride’s own by-the-numbers Facebook post on June 26 and Stephanie Swanson, chair of Circle City IN Pride, here are some figures from that Saturday festival and the week of events leading up to it:

Those old Doc Martens you haven’t worn since the 1997 Lilith Fair are back in style again—if only for this weekend, the final showings of Rent at Footlite Musicals. (For the record, wearing them to the theater would amount to a tribute, not irony. And rain on your wedding day is just bad luck.)

In a star-crossed meeting, NASCAR neophyte Danica Patrick and veteran newswoman Katie Couric collided (figuratively speaking) yesterday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway track. Outfitted in the popular driver’s Go Daddy attire, Couric took a spin around the IMS oval with Patrick at the helm of her No. 7 ride. See shots of their photo-op here and here.