Old Louisville 5000 Celebrates Central Park Centennial The Cherokee Road Runners will hold their 26th annual Old Louisville 5K Run in Central Park on Saturday, November 20, 2004, starting at 9 am. The 3.1 mile run is a figure-eight course consisting of three loops in and around Central Park. New this year will be a non-competitive walk beginning on St. James Court and along Belgravia Court, Fourth, Magnolia, and Sixth Streets. A commemorative long-sleeve t-shirt celebrating Central Park’s Centennial and the Old Louisville 5000, designed by Old Louisville resident, Tim Bottorff, is being offered. Registration and entry fees are listed on the enclosed flyer. All entrants are asked to bring a canned food to the run/walk which will be donated to the homeless through the West End Baptist Church at Fourth and Magnolia. Refreshments will be available to all entrants at the Old Louisville Information Center after the run and walk. The Old Louisville Information Center (OLIC) is co-sponsoring the event this year as part of the year-long festivities celebrating Central Park. John Sistarenik, Chair of the OLIC, challenges block associations to enter the most members in the run/walk. “This is a great event to support the park, encourage healthful activity, and enjoy a late fall morning with friends and neighbors,” said Sistarenik. For further information, contact the Old Louisville Information Center, 635-5244.

House Tour Heralds the Holiday Season Mansions surrounding Central Park will be featured during the 17th annual Old Louisville House Tour presented by Don Driskell-Semonin Realtors on December 4 and 5, 2004, noon to 6:00 pm. Tourists will enjoy the ambiance of eight elegant homes and the Conrad-Caldwell House Museum decorated in all their holiday splendor. In addition, The Holiday Gift Boutique will be open in Caldwell Hall at the Conrad Caldwell House for shopping during tour hours. For everyone with a sweet tooth, the Old Louisville Dessert Sampler, at the home of Sharon and Scott Risinger on Fourth Street (formerly the Fleur de Lis Bed and Breakfast), will feature delicious desserts from the neighborhood’s fine restaurants for only $5.00 per person. Complimentary parking for the tour will be available at Cochran Elementary School, 500 West Gaulbert Avenue. Vans will transport tourists to the tour headquarters at the Conrad-Caldwell House Museum, where all tickets will be available on call. Tickets for the tour are $15.00 in advance and $20.00 days of the tour. Tickets and additional information are available at the Old Louisville Information Center (OLIC) and online at www.oldlouisville.org. Joan Stewart, Chair of the OLIC Holiday House Tour Committee, urges all residents and friends to support the neighborhood by purchasing tickets and enjoying this primary fundraiser for the Old Louisville Information Center.

Don Driskell-Semonin Realtors Sponsors House Tour

Don Driskell, Old Louisville resident, community activist, and realtor, has stepped forward as the major underwriter and sponsor of the 2004 Old Louisville Holiday House Tour.
Joan Stewart, Vice-Chair of the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council and Chair of the Holiday House Tour Committee, says, “We are thrilled and excited by Don’s generous support. His leadership and commitment will help make this year’s tour one of the most successful ever. Thank you, Don; we sincerely appreciate it!”
Don, a multi-million dollar producer as a Semonin realtor, says he views his support for the house tour as a way of giving back to the community where he has resided for 18 years. He sees realtors as ambassadors for their neighborhood. He is pleased that many of his clients buying in Old Louisville are young families with children and professional investors who are converting multi-family back into single-family residences. He notes that new residents from major metropolitan areas are especially attracted to the urban diversity and sophistication of Old Louisville.
As a member of the Old Louisville Information Center Holiday House Tour Committee, Don realizes how much this event showcases the neighborhood and adds to its attractiveness as a place to live and visit. He is happy to do his part in making it a success.
Don is active in the Toonerville and Ouerbacker Arts and Crafts Neighborhood Associations and the Old Louisville Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council Property Improvement and Zoning and Land Use Committees.
 

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Chamber Music Society features eighth blackbird

eighth blackbird, a sextet with flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, and percussion, will present the second concert of The Chamber Music Society of Louisville 2004-2005 season on Sunday, November 14, 2004, at 3 pm in the Margaret Comstock Concert Hall at the University of Louisville School of Music.
Formed in 1996 and the recipient of the 2000 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, eighth blackbird is considered one of the world’s premier new music ensembles, performing a wide variety of repertoire written largely for them. The ensemble is in residence at the University of Chicago and the University of Richmond. The members have been featured on “CBS Sunday Morning” and in The New York Times. A highlight of the 2003-2004 season was their Carnegie hall debut of David Schober’s Split Horizon, a concerto for sextet and orchestra.
A pre-concert talk is scheduled for 2 pm in the Bird Recital Hall.
For tickets and information, call 852-6907. For more information on eighth blackbird, access www.eighthblackbird.com.
 

Big Band Music…
Swinging at the Conrad-Caldwell House Museum

The Conrad-Caldwell House Museum will offer an evening of music and dance in Caldwell Hall from 8:30 p.m. until 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 20, 2004.
The Museum is located at 1402 St. James Court; entry will be on the street level addition, west side of the museum, on Magnolia Street.
Price of admission is $10.00 per person with Museum members receiving one free ticket. Tickets will be sold at the door. Beverages and snacks will also be for sale.
The Doctors of Swing will perform. Trombonist is Old Louisville resident Dr. Aaron Lucas, who is a thirty-year member of the band. Dr. Lucas and his fellow band members performed to rave reviews at the First Sunday Concert in Central Park in September.
This event is designed to further interesting activities taking place at the Museum for Old Louisville residents and the public.
Call 636-5023 or e-mail info@conradcaldwell.org for more inform

TRASH
Premieres at the MeX
SQUALLIS PUPPETEERS returns to the MeX Theatre at the Kentucky Center with the world premiere of TRASH, a funky contemporary parable about a young girl coming of age and struggling to find herself amidst her dumpster-diving family, the mean kids at school, the lure of the mall, and the devilish temptation of crass consumerism. Will she choose to embrace her recycled self or to sign on the dreaded dotted line? Fun for the whole family!
TRASH is written by Tanya Palmer, with original music by local band, a.m. Sunday, and directed by Steven Rahe, Old Louisville resident.
Performance dates: November 5,6, 7,11,12,13, at 8pm, with a matinee at 2pm on Sunday, November 2. Tickets are $10.00 at the Kentucky Center, 584-7777.
 

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Make a Wish Come True
Jefferson County Public Schools (JCPS) has started a new program called School Wishes.
Educators throughout the district post online wishes for classroom supplies, books, furniture, technology and extracurricular items. Parents, civic and neighborhood groups, and corporations can directly impact the quality of education in the community by granting a wish.
Those with useful unneeded items are also encouraged to make them available to a classroom in need. For example, after completing a project, a recent donor had an extra gallon of Lizzie McGuire hot pink paint and made it available through the JCPS School Wishes website. It was quickly claimed by Tammie Vest, a teacher at Roosevelt-Perry Elementary School.
While many of the wishes require the donor to purchase an item, there are also many needed items that can be found around the house: old shirts to be used as art smocks, yarn, paper printed on only one side, VCRs, camcorders, fish tanks, and golf clubs.
Visit the JCPS School Wishes website at http://www.schoolwishes.org/jcps

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2004 St. James Court Art Show
High School Art Scholarship Awards

Six outstanding high school seniors received $7,200 in college scholarships at a presentation ceremony held during the 2004 St. James Court Art Show. The 2004 scholarships were underwritten by the St. James Court Association, Third Street Association, 1400 Fourth Street Association, and family and friends of Betty Cory.
The 2004 scholarship recipients are:
Robby Burgess - $3,000 Ann Higbie Memorial Scholarship
Emily Browne - $1,500 David Salyers Memorial Scholarship
Kenyatta Hinkle - $1,000 Third Street Association Scholarship
Sean Ludwig - $800 St. James Court Art Show Scholarship
Maja Salipur - $500 Fourth Street Association Scholarship
Tate White - $400 Betty Cory Watercolor Award
All 2004 finalists are Jefferson County Public School students. Ms. Browne is a senior at Ballard High School. The other five students are enrolled at Du Pont Manual High School.
The annual St. James Court Art Show Scholarship Competition is open to seniors from public and private high schools with full-time art teachers in Louisville and surrounding counties. This year nineteen students from six schools submitted art portfolios. Portfolios were evaluated and finalists selected by a three-person jury of regional art educators.
The schedule for the 2005 competition will be posted on the Art Show web site and also will be mailed to regional high schools in August 2005.

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Conference Explores the History of U.S. Antiques

The 12th Public Conference of The Filson Institute will explore America’s interest in American antiques, Thurs.-Sat., Nov. 11-13, at The Filson Historical Society. The conference, “The Art of History: The ‘Antiques’ Craze and the Colonial Revival Era, 1890-1918,” includes the opening of a new gallery exhibit at The Filson, a guided bus tour to Cincinnati museums, and a series of lectures by noted historians from various universities and cultural institutions.
In the aftermath of the 1876 U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Americans became more interested in “collecting history.” Previously, most Americans considered the material evidence of the American past as used goods. Following the exposition, even the most modern homes sought “heirlooms” with historical associations. Tall clocks and pewter spoons vied for attention in the popular imagination resulting in a series of museum collections. This Institute conference explores what certain individuals began to collect, from whom, and to what purpose.
Advance registration is required. For conference registration information, please call The Filson at 635-5083
Thursday, November 11 – Gallery Exhibit Opening & Reception
The conference begins on Thurs., Nov. 11 with a wine-and-cheese reception and the opening of a new gallery exhibit curated by The Filson’s visiting curator of portraiture Estill Curtis Pennington. The exhibit shares the same title as the conference. The display showcases The Filson’s collection of Colonial Revival artifacts. The reception begins at 5:30 p.m. Curator’s remarks begin at 6:00 p.m. Cost: $5 (Free for Filson members)
Friday, November 12 – Bus Tour to Cincinnati Museums & Evening Reception, Lecture
Bus Tour: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. (Departs from the Sears parking lot in the Oxmoor Shopping Center)
Pennington leads a guided tour to Cincinnati’s Taft Museum and the Cincinnati Art Museum. Lunch is provided aboard the Mike Fink, a steamboat docked beneath the Suspension Bridge in Covington.Cost: $65 ($55 for Filson members)
Evening Reception: 5:30 p.m., David Warren Lecture: 6:30 p.m. “A Bridge to the Past: Miss Ima Hogg’s Collection at Bayou Bend” (both at The Filson Historical Society)
David Warren is the founding director emeritus of the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas.
Cost: $10 ($5 for Filson members)
Saturday, November 13 – Lectures by Historians
9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. at The Filson Historical Society
Estill Curtis Pennington – “The Climate of Taste in Old Kentucky”
Pennington is the visiting curator of portraiture at The Filson Historical Society.
John Michael Vlach – “Chester Harding in Kentucky: The Progress of an Plain Painter”
Vlach is a professor of American studies and anthropology at George Washington University.
Tuliza Fleming – “Deconstructing the Myths and Realities of Charles Webber’s ‘The Underground Railroad’”
Fleming is an associate curator of American art at the Dayton Art Institute.
Amy Dehan – “Reviving and Refining Tradition: The 19th Century Decorative Arts in Cincinnati”
Dehan is an assistant curator of decorative arts at the Cincinnati Art Museum.
Cost: $20 ($15 for Filson members), $7 for optional lunch.

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Old Louisville author…
U of L instructor writes fantasy
By ERIC BUTLER
Cardinal Staff Writer

Michael Williams has been teaching Humanities and English courses at the University of Louisville off and on for the last 17 years, “or some incredibly long span of time like that,” he says. But what many of his students might not know is that aside from doling out class assignments all those years he’s also been hard at work crafting some serious literature of his own.
Williams has been authoring fantasy fiction since the mid-1980s. His first three novels were published as part of TSR’s “DragonLance: Heroes” and “DragonLance: Meetings” series, and his next three for a Time-Warner trilogy entitled “From Thief to King.”
Two others have followed as independent novels: 1996’s “Arcady” and its sequel, “Allamanda,” the following year. Along the way he has also written a couple of titles un­der a different name, but is reluctant to identify them.
“You know the rules about pseudonym books,” he said. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
While recovering from a bad back injury at age 14, Williams became intrigued with J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” series, which instigated his passion for the fantasy genre.
He said, “I knew, with that surprising intuition that you have only a few times in your life, that not only was this something I enjoyed reading, but that I very well might like writing it as a kind of life’s work.” Reflecting on these beginnings, he added: “Funny that things happened that accidentally.”
It’s no accident, however, that Williams’ work has been acquiring a more substantial audience with each new release.
“I have quite a bit of critical acceptance,” Williams said. Locus Magazine, the principal trade magazine for the Science Fiction and Fantasy publication industries, even nominated “Arcady” for its Fantasy Novel of the Year award. “Several of the books have sold well,” he added, “so I know I have some readers out there.”
Reviews of “Arcady” on websites like Amazon.com affirm his talents, insisting that Williams’ stories “should be included in any library of serious fantasy,” and even “should be the cornerstones of modern fantasy literature.” When asked to comment about these assertions, a humble Williams simply replied, “Well, those are reviews.”
And yet his stories are anything but modest. In his work, Williams tries to establish elaborate environments, a good plot and strong characters, while seeking what author Nathaniel Hawthorne called the “truth of the heart.” Williams feels that these qualities are the mark of any good fantasy literature.
“The genre explores worlds ... in which the laws of physics and nature are bent,” Williams said. “It is often a fantasy writer’s task to introduce and immerse a reader in the world being created.”
In regard to his trade, Williams said that fantasy “renews and refreshes my apprehension of the here and now. It has at its core a sense of estranging reality so that we see things from new angles and from a new light.”
Still, Williams fears that the fantasy genre is often stigmatized and overlooked. “Readers should not approach the field with the preconceived notion that all of what they will find is going to be a sort of second-shelf fiction,” he said. Instead, “[readers should] bring their best expectations to a fantasy novel, just as they would anything else they read: read in the hope that what you are reading will be good.”
Indeed, that is all any good writer could ask for.
Reprinted by permission from The Louisville Cardinal.

Editor’s note: Michael’s wife, Rhonda, is President of the West St. Catherine Street Neighborhood Association and Treasurer of the Old Louisville Neighborhood Council and Information Center

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Centennial Dinners: An Evening to Remember

Saturday, October 16, 2004, 7pm:
A clear, crisp evening in Old Louisville. The sidewalks are full of elegantly-attired residents and visitors wending their way to 18 homes and venues to celebrate the Central Park Centennial at gala dinner parties.

Saturday, October 16, 2004, 10pm: Guests gather at the Filson Historical Society’s Italianate mansion on Third Street for after-dinner champagne, dessert, and a toast to Central Park. The silky smooth jazz sounds of the Ray Johnson Trio float over the glittering crowd. Photographers record the scene.

Sunday, October 17, 2004, 12am: The caterers gather up glasses, plates, and napkins; the band packs up; the last guests depart. Consensus: this has been one of the most successful and entertaining evenings in Old Louisville’s history. And the dinners, attended by over 200 guests and hosts, raised over $10,000 for the improvement and maintenance of Central Park.
The Old Louisville Information Center Friends of Central Park sincerely thanks everyone who helped make the evening a smashing success.

A special thanks to the dinner hosts who graciously opened their homes for the celebration: Charles and Anne Arensberg; Billy Bradford; Linda and Jim Brooks; Dick and Fran Callaway; Susan Coleman and Jeff Layman; Mark Eliason, Carla Sue and Brad Broecker; Ken Herndon and Paul Wilkes; HBH Insurance Group, Tim Hyland; Doug and Karen Keller, and Gary and Diane Kleier; Michael Mawood and Douglas Ardry, and John Impellizzeri; Middleton Reutlinger, Hank Alford; Mike and Missy Murphy, and Madonna and Doug Wilson; David and Deborah Stewart; Jon and Wendy Timmons; Dot Wade; Herb and Gayle Walters Warren; Bruce and Shannon White and Allen and Chris Corbin; and Thomas and Nancy Woodcock.

Thanks also to contributions from: Jeff Jarfi’s Bistro, Jeff Jarfi; The Jazz Factory; Crane House, The Asia Institute Inc.; Royalty Concierge Service, Inc.; Buck’s; Ermin’s French Bakery & Café; The Old Louisville Coffee House; and Old town Liquors.

Special thanks go out to Susan Rostov and sr/pr. As the marketing and events coordinator for Friends of Central Park, Susan planned, created, and coordinated a challenging and exciting event in a thoroughly professional manner.

White roses were the focal point of Billy Bradford’s table.


A toast to Central park at the Keller-Kleier dinner.

Central Park Exhibit will be open Weekends in November

The historical exhibit, Central Park Centennial: 100 Year Retrospective, opened with a reception at the Old Louisville Information Center on October 10, 2004.
Neighborhood residents and friends gave rave reviews to the collection of photographs, maps, drawings, and artifacts tracing the park’s history.
Madonna Wilson, exhibit curator, Patrick Neel, exhibit historian, and Dorothy Heick, who visited the park frequently as a child in the early 20th century and who is featured in several of the photographs from that era, were the guests of honor.
The exhibit will run at the Old Louisville Information Center through December during business hours, Tuesdays-Fridays, 1pm-5pm. Additional weekend hours are scheduled for November 6-7, 13-14, and 20-21, from 2pm-5pm.
Take this opportunity to acquaint yourself with an important part of the neighborhood’s history.

Above:
Madonna Wilson and Patrick Neel welcomed Dorothy Heick back to Central Park.

Below: Visitors attending the opening enjoyed refreshments and
conversation in addition to the exhibit.

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Old Louisville Information Center
1340 S. Fourth St., Louisville, KY 40208.
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E-mail: olnc@bellsouth.net
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Please submit “Letters to the Editor” to the above address.
The 15th of each month is deadline for submission of all ads and articles.

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