Two-thirds of the way through a commanding performance that served as her introduction to the community, Jena Jones asked an audience to close their eyes and listen as she tells the story of two children. Recently installed as Director of Muscogee County’s Dept. of Family and Children Services, Jones held her 100-plus audience rapt as she introduced two siblings—the boy Malachi and girl...
When Najee Dorsey talks about Black Art in America, he talks not in the singular but in terms of “Us,” “We” and “Our.” “Our greatest strength is our flexibility, our agility,” the 45-year-old Arkansas native says of his critically, culturally and commercially booming business. “If we were a corporation, it would take too much time to cut through all the bureaucracy. If we’re more agile...
“I’ve written one song off Reflections of a Golden Eye from the passage where the main guy takes his wife’s horse out riding,” Aimee Bobruk says of a songwriting process that led the Austin, Texas musician to where she sat Tuesday night, sipping wine on the front porch of Carson McCullers’ childhood home. “He’s riding, loses control and finds his bliss,” she continues, talking during a quick...
“It’s a struggle to keep a supply of food at home,” Marion Mitchell explains of why she picked up three bags of groceries from the Uptown Food Pantry earlier this month. A personal-care nurse dressed in her red medical scrubs, Mitchell calls the food—frozen meat, cereal, fresh produce, bread, butter, eggs and more—”a blessing donated out of the goodness of people in Columbus’ hearts.”...
Though established by an act of the state legislature in 1931, the Poet Laureate of Alabama has no specified official duties. “People have done different things with it,” Jennifer Horne, honored with the four-year designation last November, says of the position. “In general, it’s been developed to be the public face of literature for the state, one that strives to show how important the literary...
Benjamin Dallas Redding grew up in the Chattahoochee Valley, but it’s his new musical theater production that sustains his sojourn in his hometown. “I made it for Columbus,” Redding (Ben to those who know him) explains of r + j theory, his wild reimagination of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Already an accomplished theater professional in his mid-20s, Redding discusses the project—slated to...
Fresh from summer break, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra returns to the RiverCenter stage tonight eager to share its new star attraction. While plenty of excitement surrounds the return of classical piano phenom Clare Huangci to perform with CSO, the buzz building inside Bill Heard Theatre is not about a person or a player. It’s about a piano. A really, REALLY nice piano. This elite concert...
“Columbus taught me everything,” Rachel Joy Baribeau says of a hometown that will never drop that Joy, no matter how much her remarkable success works to streamline a given name. “Columbus taught me hustle and grind, dreams and passion,” Baribeau continues, speaking by phone during a break for from taping her ESPNU show on SiriusXM that reaches up to 10 million listeners. “It taught me to not...
“We don’t like to dwell on the past,” Frank Lumpkin IV answers when asked why Columbus isn’t connected to I-85. “It was definitely a mistake,” the 20-year-old Columbus native, University of Georgia student and president of the Youth Infrastructure Coalition (YIC) continues during a recent interview at Iron Bank Coffee. “Some of our leaders didn’t want labor unions coming to Columbus and made sure...
The monthly gathering of Peachtree NORML at Mellow Mushroom Thursday night brought together a table for 15 that included an attorney, a political operative and a dude tribe-identified in tie-dye. Past guest speakers at the meeting have included Jose Guzman, an attorney with the city’s public defender office, Libertarian Party candidate for Georgia governor Ted Metz and Dr. Eric Codner, a...
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