LEO, April 24, 2024

THE DERBY ISSUE: Reflections on ancient bison pathways and what we might learn from them

Where The Buffalo Roamed

LEO DEPENDS ON YOU

Your support can guarantee a long future for LEO weekly

Erica Rucker is LEO Weekly’s editor-in-chief. In addition to her work at LEO, she is a haphazard writer, photographer, tarot card reader, and fair-to-middling purveyor of motherhood. Her earliest memories are of telling stories to her family and promising that the next would be shorter than the first. They never were.

If you’ve been checking out the new LEO, you’ve seen the increase in content, the redesigned website and book, and a general invigorated spirit going into the paper. It’s quite nice.

Last year, our CEO had a tough choice: close LEO or invest. He chose the latter, and we’ve survived another day because of that decision. If we continue to survive, it involves you, the local public.

While we’d love to have the benefit of an endowment (taking all benefactor offers) and nonprofit status, we don’t have either of those but what we do have is the chance for each of you to take a small step in keeping your hometown paper going. If you go to leoweekly.com and scroll to the bottom of our webpage, you will see “About LEO Weekly.” Under that tab is a “Support Local Journalism” tab. That will take you to a page allowing you to make a monthly donation to your LEO Weekly. Three options: $5, $10, or $25 a month each are available for you to support LEO.

Where does your money go? Directly to the operations of the paper. That includes staff, who all work well under comparable salaries, supplies, printing, web fees, the future ability to hire new staff and grow the paper you love. Bottom line: the money keeps us alive and has the potential to help LEO thrive.

What your money doesn’t buy is our independence or our voices. Those remain true to the LEO brand and mission. But if you’re reading LEO, most likely you are interested in our perspective, even if it doesn’t necessarily

jibe with your own.

The hard fact is, the newsroom of yesteryear is gone. We’ve managed to be nimble, and do more with less but there comes a breaking point and we’ve teetered on the edge of it too many times.

We don’t have large teams, copy editors, staff photographers, and a team of 40 or more writers. Your LEO is (aside from the freelancers making almost no money) four editorial staff, 2 admin/sales staff and one intern strong. That’s it. That’s who makes LEO each week and we’ve only had that many staff since April 1. Before we were three editorial staff in February and March, and before that, one. LEO has been through it.

The LEO I dream of has at least two more editorial staff members for a total of six. Not a big ask but one that requires about $100,000 to properly hire and equip. That would give us a photographer on staff and another staff writer to help cover the amazing events in this city… especially the music scene which constantly amazes me, and is an area we just cannot cover enough.

Of course, a straight donation isn’t the only way to support LEO but it is the most direct. We have plenty of events, including the upcoming Margaritas in the ‘Ville which happens Thursday, Aug. 1.

Whichever method you choose to support our work either by visiting our “Support Local Journalism” page or by attending one of the events, we are thankful for you allowing us to continue serving the local community in a way that only LEO can.

UOFL PART OF NASA EFFORT TO MAKE SOLAR PANEL TECH MORE EFFICIENT

A Louisville-based experiment is on the International Space Station

This is part of an effort spearheaded by two J.B. Speed School of Engineering undergraduate students, to make solar panel energy more efficient with help from NASA. Many experiments are happening on the space station, but the Nano Particle Haloing Suspension experiment aims to advance the efficiency of solar panel technology for use on Earth.

This experiment, along with others highlighted by NASA during its 30th commercial resupply mission, consists of studying how micro and nanoparticles behave, but this is difficult to do on Earth, so the Nano Particle Haloing Suspension apparatus is currently in a “microgravity” environment on the ISS, according to NASA.

The experiment observes how microparticles should arrange together in certain ways when an electric field is applied, and the experiment looks to see if those particles are present when in that assembly.

“Electric fields could be used for precise assembly of particles to enhance quantum-dot synthesized solar cells (QDSS),” NASA stated on its website. “QDSSs use the unique optical properties of quantum dots, which are tiny spheres of semiconductor material that can convert sunlight into energy. Results could support development of more efficient solar cells for use in space and on Earth.”

This means that using electric fields to create a more exact arrangement of solar cells could improve the function of the panels, and how they use sunlight to convert into energy.

According to the experiment description, the main goal of the investigation is to “gain a better understanding of the fundamental

mechanisms that govern electrokinetic self-assembly of a bimodal nanoparticle haloing (NPH) solution and… apply these findings for such controlled assembly that would benefit QDSS technologies.”

Essentially, the experiment seeks to create a path to control how these particles arrange themselves to further control output for solar energy.

Dr. Stuart Williams, who oversaw the two undergraduate students’ research before the experiment was sent to space, shared how exciting it was for him and his students to see the project head to the space station.

“It’s like when you cross a finish line, though I know we’re not there yet,” he said in an interview with LEO Weekly. “It’s about the journey, and it’s good that students have that goal in mind, like it’s not just ‘Oh, I’m turning in a paper for a class.’ It’s ‘Oh wait, we can actually have something in outer space.’” He said the “allure” of having a project go further than the classroom enticed his students to go for a more intense project, adding that the success of the project could help in future research on how to make solar energy more efficient.

“When we look at how these particles interact with each other, we can think of it as a potentially novel manufacturing technique where these particles will assemble in a way that makes it more efficient,” he said. “If we can extract the physics of that, then that will make the solar panels — the quantum-dot synthesized solar cells — more efficient.”

If successful, QDSS technology could be used to make solar energy more efficient.

SO FRESH & SO CLEAN: BUILDING OUR BLOCKS WORKS FOR SUSTAINABILITY AND BETTER LIFE IN LUCKY HORSESHOE NEIGHBORHOOD

One month before the 150th Kentucky Derby, the Building Our Blocks program transformed the Lucky Horseshoe neighborhood around Churchill Downs.

Can a Louisville neighborhood be transformed in a single day? That’s the goal of the Building Our Blocks (B.O.B.) initiative, a series of one-day events being rolled out across District 15 (D15) over the next four years. The goal is to improve local neighborhoods, sustainability efforts, and resident quality of life.

The initiative is led by the office of Louisville Metro Council D15 Councilwoman Jennifer Chappell. This includes B.O.B. Coordinator and D15 resident Alena Balakos and D15 Aide Amy Luckett. The first event took place Saturday, April 6 in the Lucky Horseshoe neighborhood surrounding Churchill Downs, a little less than a month before the 150th Kentucky Derby.

B.O.B. has a wide scope, including projects like tree planting, home repair, street safety improvements, beautification, and more. The project aims to achieve these goals by working with nonprofits as well as both individual and business volunteer efforts. They’ve made it a point to connect residents with city services they might not be aware of.

“With B.O.B., a big part of the work is to be a connector for people to their government,” Balakos said. “So that they can access resources available to them to create their own communities, feel safe, thrive, grow, and love the neighborhoods where they live.”

Chappell and her team see the initiative as an opportunity to show up for the community members they represent and serve. “We want people to see that Louisville Metro is working for them and cares about their quality of life in their home and in their neighborhood. It’s our opportunity to be proactive instead of reactive.”

Planting the seed

B.O.B.’s inspiration was born from a desire to greenify Louisville’s neighborhoods, and grew in scope thanks to the many services and organizations offered throughout Louisville.

“There’s a lot of great things happening in our city and a lot of really great folks driving those initiatives, so we’re glad we can help promote that,” said Chappell.

The initial idea came about thanks to

Councilwoman Chappell’s experience volunteering for Louisville Grows, an environmental non-profit and neighborhood-based urban forestry program focused on rebuilding the urban tree canopy. Louisville Grows’ neighborhood tree planting events and the canvassing beforehand gave Chappell an idea. What if her office could employ a similar strategy to offer tree planting services to her district? Why not include even more offerings like rain barrel installations, native garden plantings, and installation of recycling receptacles?

Then, after attending one of Mayor Greenberg’s Mayor’s Night Out events, Chappell realized that the event she’d been envisioning could be expanded even further to include a myriad of city services from animal vaccine and microchip clinics to smoke detector installations.

Going door-to-door in Lucky Horseshoe

With Derby just around the corner, the Lucky Horseshoe neighborhood was an obvious choice for the pilot program. Chappell’s team hoped that the upcoming event would bolster enthusiasm and excitement. However, other factors also played a role in choosing Lucky Horseshoe, including its size, location, and degree of need. It’s both the smallest neighborhood in D15, the center of the district, and has the greatest need for services.

Part of determining the needs and services included a survey sent to residents as well as door knocking and engaging one-on-one with locals. This initiative was spearheaded by Balakos who spent the weeks leading up to the event talking with other community members. With the help of volunteers, she went door-todoor handing out bags with donated supplies

and gathering feedback from residents.

“At the doors, many residents expressed that they simply did not know about the services our city provides such as Metro 311, smoke detector installations, exterior home repairs, and radon testing services,” Balakos said. “The list of completed projects, resources and information provided through B.O.B. is exhaustive.”

Chappell says she sees the door-to-door engagement as the most impactful piece of the program. There’s no substitute for getting the community’s direct input and interfacing with residents one-on-one.

Balakos agrees. “As a District 15 resident, I know and see firsthand how special residents of this district truly are and how take care of one another,” she said. “This work has been fueled by my passion for ensuring residents feel pride in where they live.”

A successful start

Throughout the course of one week, B.O.B. volunteers planted over 60 trees, installed speed humps, renovated homes, unveiled a Gallopalooza horse, and built a Little Library.

They also hosted a resource fair, litter cleanup, alley cleanup, a Louisville Metro Animal Services vaccine clinic, UofL Health checks, and a whole lot more.

With their first event recently concluded, the B.O.B. team is happy with the community reception and are proud of their progress.

“You can see a tangible impact being made,” said Chappell. “The community has had an overwhelmingly positive response to B.O.B. We have folks asking us when it’s coming to their neighborhood and other council members are trying to bring B.O.B. to their district.”

Barbara Hall-Gonzalez, a 6-year resident of Lucky Horseshoe, attended the April 6 event. She received pet food, gun locks, rain barrels, and “some really great swag.” She thought that the event had a great turnout and was full of neighborhood pride.

“Just having the focus on our little neighborhood was heartwarming,” she said. “We really do have some great neighbors. We love our neighborhood and want to keep it nice and just keep improving.”

What’s next for B.O.B?

After a successful first event, the B.O.B team is looking towards the future. “The goal is to make sure that we bring BOB to every resident in District 15,” said Chappell. “Right now, we have a plan to accomplish this by the end of 2028.”

They plan to make an official announcement as to the next B.O.B. neighborhood sometime after Derby, but planning is already in the works and a date’s being set for sometime in November. The team is excited to build on their successes and motivated to adapt their plan to fit the specific needs of each individual neighborhood.

“One of the beautiful things about B.O.B. is that each event will be the same but just a little different. For example, the next neighborhood has more commercial properties, so we’re excited to see how we can work with departments like economic development to enhance our small businesses.”

If you want to get involved, reach out to Alena Balakos at alena.balakos2@louisvilleky.gov.

Coordinator Alena Balakos and volunteers handdelivered supplies to all 435 homes in the Lucky Horseshoe neighborhood.

Opposite page, top: Louisville Free Public Library, TARC, Louisville Water Company, and more tabled at the B.O.B. resource fair on April 6.

Lucky Horseshoe Neighborhood Association

Opposite page, bottom: The Lucky Horseshoe neighborhood is bound by Central Avenue, Oakdale Avenue, Longfield Avenue and Taylor Boulevard. Louisville Metro Council

Reflections on ancient buffalo pathways and what we might learn from them The Trace

I’m standing on the levee above the Portland Wharf Park, facing north toward the Ohio River. Below me, a coal barge drifts into the mouth of the McAlpine Lock, at the tip of Sand Island, and a man stands alone on the steep bank, fishing. Beside me, to the east, the K&I Railroad bridge spans the river to Indiana, and in the scrub woods beneath it, homeless camps are tucked back among the thin trees. On the far side, behind the flood wall, a row of mansions stretches along New Albany’s Main Street.

History is largely hidden here. Beneath the field of the park, for example, the remains of a town are buried under the silt — the paving stones and iron mooring rings of the wharf, streets, cisterns, and house foundations. Archaeologists have gathered artifacts here: porcelain, bottle glass, smoking pipes, nails.

The railroad bridge, which opened in 1886, supports two roadways hung along the trusses, though it’s been closed to traffic for more than forty years. Any crossing is deterred by barriers and sprays of bushes obscuring the metal ramp. Today all that crosses here are the freight trains. But more than two centuries ago, this was where herds of bison crossed the shallows and stamped a path into the Kentucky country.

In Big Bone Lick State Park in Boone County, northern Kentucky, there is a hiking trail called Bison Trace that sets off downhill from the visitors center toward a meadow. Past the woods, where the trail ends at a fence, you can see a herd of bison in a prairie. The largest of all North American land mammals, what early Europeans once erroneously called buffalo, their herds traversed Kentucky for at least hundreds of years before they entirely disappeared from the commonwealth by around 1800. The few animals at Big Bone Lick are reintroduced.

But the bison were in no way relegated historically to that corner of the state. So the question I begin with is this: How many of us know that buffalo once passed through what is now the city of Louisville?

There seems, at first glance, little indication here that buffalo were a part of the landscape on these plains along the Ohio River, what is now almost entirely urbanized. If it seems amazing that there are coyotes in the city limits, let alone foxes, deer, and other quadrupeds, imagine processions of American buffalo, the Bison bison, which can sometimes weigh up to two thousand pounds and more, crossing the Falls of the Ohio onto the floodplains on which downtown is built, grazing a landscape that has been completely transformed and lost.

A number of years ago, I saw my first indication of the buffalo’s former presence at the junction of South Shelby Street and South Preston Street, in Parkway Village, at the edge of Shuffitt’s Automotive lot where the Preston Highway begins. There, a tall banner, resembling a stretched animal hide, towers over the lot. On it, drivers can see representations of two adult buffalo and a calf. Several local news outfits reported on this project of the Saint Joseph’s Area Association, which raised money for a number of years — two thousand dollars in all — to create an artwork that will commemorate the fact that the Preston Highway is the original buffalo trail, more commonly called a “trace.”

I’d lived in my house in Germantown for over half a decade before I discovered this fact: the bison, an animal we usually historically associate with the Great Plains, once migrated within less than a mile from my home.

I don’t know of many people who retain a historical memory of the bison, and even the land itself seems to have forgotten them. If there is one place, though, that the buffalo remains, even as a kind of ghost, it is in our roads.

The plains bison, B. b. bison, one of the subspecies of the American bison, once roamed a massive territory on the continent, extending from the high plains of Saskatchewan to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the deserts of the Great Basin to the Blue Ridge Mountains. All of Kentucky, as well as most of its neighboring states, fall entirely within this historic bison range. It’s impossible to ascertain the numbers that were in Kentucky — though some reports suggest smaller herds, nothing quite like the enormous herds of the plains — but the estimation of the animals in the late nineteenth century, by then relegated to the Great Plains, was about 60 million buffalo. By 1889, following the astounding mass killings of the bison — a campaign of terror waged against the Plains Indians, destroying not only their primary food source but their spirit animal — the number dwindled to 541.

Bison are migratory animals, and in our region they moved between the prairies of what is now Illinois and Indiana to the salt licks of Kentucky, the main ones being just south of Louisville, along the Salt River. The paths they blazed between each place were probably used for thousands of years (many think they were pounded out by prehistoric mastodons), so worn and easy to navigate that they were followed by the early indigenous people and, later, by pioneers emigrating from Virginia. The Cumberland Gap was one such route, and the Wilderness Road followed much of it, too. Today, we drive our cars atop routes the buffalo pioneered.

I was in the Bullitt County History Museum in Shepherdsville, researching a number of abandoned roads in the area — the Courthouse Road, which connected the Salt

River and Elizabethtown, and the old stagecoach road, the Louisville-Nashville Turnpike — when one of the volunteers asked me if I knew about the buffalo trace. He showed me an article by Robert McDowell, published in 1967 in Louisville Magazine, which describes the route of the Wilderness Road, which ended in Louisville.

McDowell studied documents from the courthouses of Louisville and Shepherdsville, and the archives of the Filson Club, and began to reconstruct the route of the Wilderness Road, famous, of course, for Daniel Boone’s initial blazing of the path through the Cumberland Gap in 1775, which followed Thomas Walker’s exploration a quarter century before that. Even earlier, the longhunters were following this path that was used by the Cherokee and, before that, not only the bison but likely mastodons. It remains one of the oldest paths in the country. The Wilderness Road was improved in 1796, with money from the Kentucky legislature, but was abandoned by 1840. In his article, McDowell writes that a major buffalo trace extended southward from the Falls of the Ohio to Bullitt’s Lick, which lies just north of the Salt River. “The pioneers claimed that buffalo could lay out a road as well as any man,” he wrote, and it was that very buffalo trace that developed into the northern track of the Wilderness Road.

Later, I found an earlier article McDowell had written for the Courier-Journal Magazine in 1962. A number of early pioneers, he wrote, were summoned by the Bullitt Circuit Court in 1811 to show the county surveyor where the original Wilderness Road had run. Those original depositions and surveys were filed away in the courthouse, forgotten for a century and a half, until McDowell began to research them. He mentions, here again, that the end of the Wilderness Road followed the original buffalo trace. In fact, there were a number of these traces, he wrote, “converging on Bullitt’s Lick like spokes.”

Squire Boone once killed a buffalo at Bullitt’s Lick, three miles west of Shepherdsville, in the spring of 1779. The Saltworks founded at the lick that same year are long gone, and the original trace once used to transport salt to Louisville was abandoned. I set out to follow the route myself, from the Ohio River to Bullitt’s Lick, to see, best I could, how our settlement has changed it.

The buffalo trace seems to have begun, once it had crossed the Ohio, at the Kentucky & Indiana Terminal Railroad Bridge, west of the Falls of the Ohio, at the entrance to the McAlpine Locks. If this is the case — and I am tracing McDowell’s map from the CourierJournal piece — it seems to have followed the banks, past the modern canal and through Lannan Park, paralleling Interstate 64, toward downtown.

In his Louisville Magazine article, McDowell says the buffalo came fully ashore near where Fort Nelson once stood, along Main Street on Museum Row, then banked southward toward the courthouse, cutting across Jefferson Square Park and following what is today Armory Place, picking up where Fifth Street gently bends toward Fourth Street, turning again somewhere in the vicinity of St. Catherine through Old Louisville. The square grid tends to hide the route, but once the trace meets Preston Street, one begins to see how the track trended southward in graceful curves.

Less than a mile from my house, I parked my car on East Burnett Avenue, near the warehouse of a metal fabricator, and walked back to Preston Street. The railroad, the CSX line, cuts Preston in half here, and Interstate 65 roars overhead. North of this intersection, Preston Street runs in a straight line, almost directly north toward downtown and the river. But southward, the road veers from this line and begins to meander toward the southeast, and it’s this portion that the buffalo trace most accurately follows.

From here, I followed the route, paralleling the interstate past St. Stephen’s Cemetery and a few neighborhood businesses I know — Zanzibar, Nord’s Bakery, Sunergos Coffee — and several acres of apartments, crossing Eastern Parkway and joining with Shelby to become Preston Highway. The trace passed to the east of what was known as the Poplar Level — though no one can say exactly where this plain of poplars was — and what is today George Rogers Clark Park, where the Clark family lived on Mulberry Hill, starting around 1785, though even by then the buffalo trace had been forgotten.

From there, continuing south, the commercialization along the route is all too familiar, the Kentucky Fried Chicken, the McDonald’s, the Aldi, as well as the fairgrounds, the airport, and further on, the landfill. South of the Watterson Expressway, the trace immediately passes the new Amazon warehouse and Male High School. Soon it begins crossing the ditches — Greasy Ditch, Spring Ditch, the Northern and Southern Ditch — on the way to Fern Creek, Okolona.

Two hundred years ago, this area was dominated by the “wet woods,” a marshy forest where thieves lurked — even today, along the interstate, you can see the flooding in those woods, a remnant of ecological history. Along Preston, you’re more likely to note the car lots, auto parts dealers, shopping centers, restaurants, smoke shops and liquor stores. Many of the buildings are boarded up, empty, the lots overgrown with weeds.

I parked in a lot by the Rent-A-Center and walked back along the highway — there is no sidewalk, only grass — to see the Northern Ditch. It was hard to imagine the landscape from two or three hundred years ago, what it might have looked like as a marshy area that these ditches eventually drained.

On the corner of Blue Lick Road and Preston Highway, I stopped to look for the historical marker that stood on this location, marking the Wilderness Road. I couldn’t find it. I later learned that during recent road construction, it was taken down, if temporarily. It tells of the thousands of pioneers that traveled the road from 1775 to 1811, its fashioning into a wagon road by an act of the legislature in 1796, before being abandoned in 1840. “It followed ancient buffalo path,” it reads.

From this corner, the trace follows Blue Lick Road, curving like a country lane toward the Gene Snyder Freeway and beyond, toward the small municipality of Hunters Hollow, and crossing the headwaters of Brooks Run. At Highway 1526, I turned west at the Subway and Comfort Inn and crossed over the interstate, and at the Pilot truck stop, continued south on East Blue Lick Road, past new

Road, and certainly the Shawnee would have used it. It is said to have been 20-feet wide in places.

It generally follows U.S. 150 from Floyds Knobs on the highway designated as one of “Indiana’s Historic Pathways,” the signs on the shoulder illustrated with a buffalo. Along the way, too, there is ample evidence of people’s familiarity with what the route once was — the statue of a buffalo in a schoolyard, more signs, the Buffalo Trace Park at the edge of Palmyra where there is one preserved stretch of the actual trace. I’ve driven the stretch through Greenville, Fredericksburg, Paoli, Loogootee, all the way to Vincennes, to the Lincoln monument on the far side of the river in Illinois. I thought, when my third great-grandfather, Henry Henson, joined the Indiana infantry during the Civil War, he followed this route from French Lick to Louisville, before continuing on to the Battle of Perryville. He’s buried up there, outside French Lick, not far from the trace itself.

The buffalo traces, McDowell wrote, were present when long hunters roamed Kentucky. “Woodsman after woodsman deposed that the buffalo had made no new roads within his experience,” he wrote. “Apparently these game trails had endured for centuries, perhaps for thousands of years.” What does it mean to follow their roads now?

warehouse facilities and an LG&E substation, crossing first Clear Run then the railroad tracks. I drove a short distance south on Coral Ridge Road, then turned west onto West Blue Lick Road, crossing Bluelick Creek and headed into the Blue Lick Gap, where even more thieves once hid.

This stretch, when viewed from a map, is clearly a wandering trail. The road becomes Chillicoop and then Raymond Road, crossing Gravel Creek and Bullitt Lick Creek before finally gliding down to Shepherdsville Road, Highway 44, and the location of what was once Bullitt’s Lick.

At the Lick, there is a historical marker beside a fence, detailing its discovery by Captain Thomas Bullitt in 1773, and that the commercial production of salt here provided for settlements in Kentucky and even as far as the Illinois Country. Behind the fence are rows of household appliances — stoves, refrigerators, washers and dryers — where, through an open gate, I could see what looked like a marsh. Perhaps that was the lick. I knocked on the door of the house that stood there. No one answered.

Across the highway, Cahaz Knob looms over a small Baptist church — a beacon as much for the bison as me. From there, the trace apparently followed the Castleman Branch Road south toward the headwaters of Woodland Creek, and ultimately into Fort Knox and the banks of the Salt River.

To the northwest, the buffalo trace reached to the Wabash River, to Vincennes, on what is generally known as the Vincennes Trace. It was sometimes known as the Old Indian

The historian John Filson wrote, “The amazing herds of Buffaloes which resort thither, by their size and number, fill the traveller with amazement and terror, especially when he beholds the prodigious roads they have made from all quarters, as if leading to some populous city…” The buffalo, which he referred to as “cattle,” would “reduce high hills rather to valleys than plains” and that the lands around the salt lick springs were “desolated as if by a ravaging enemy, and hills reduced to plains…these are truly curiosities, and the eye can scarcely be satisfied with admiring them.”

It would be droll to joke of the irony of this statement, when we see what has become of not only the salt licks and the plains but the traces themselves, now beds for our roads through a largely commercial environment. Even the ditches are crossed without a thought, the wet woods sped through on the morning commute. Waiting at the light, where Preston intersects Burnett, even I am locked into the present, my attention drifting between the passing trucks and the passing train and the homeless camps beneath the overpass. This is what our roads pass by now, and what passes on our roads. It’s what passes for our roads.

Why, then, is it important to know this? To know that once such an animal as the bison carved a path that we found useful to follow? Perhaps there is another way to follow, a way we have not yet imagined. We might, traveling there, hold the buffalo in our mind. We might imagine it knows where we are going. Like it, we too carve deep ruts, both in the earth and in our minds and behaviors. It will take effort to find a new road, but should we find it, it might lead us somewhere utterly new.

EAT, DRINK AND SEE IN THIS WEEK’S STAFF

PICKS

FRIDAY, APRIL 5 – MONDAY

MAY 6

Win, Place, Art Show

Revelry Boutique + Gallery | 742 E. Market St. | revelrygallery.com | Free | hours vary

For the 150th renewal of “The Fastest Two Minutes in Sports,” Revelry challenged artists to depict the energy of Derby. Each piece in this exhibition evokes motion and rhythm across a spectrum of media, methods, and styles. Attendees are encouraged to “bet” on their favorite pieces by filling out a racing ticket to determine which should win, place, and show.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24

WFPK Waterfront Wednesday featuring: Phosphorescent, Dehd, and Tyrone Cotton

Big Four Lawn at Waterfront Park | 1101 River Rd | lpm.org/music | Free | 6 p.m. | All ages

91.9 WFPK’s Waterfront Wednesday returns for its 22nd season in grand style when Nashville-based Americana singer/songwriter Matthew Houck, (better known as Phosphorescent), headlines this stacked bill that also includes Chicago based indie rock trio Dehd, and local blues legend Tyrone Cotton, (who’s album, “Man Like Me,” was called a “masterpiece” and “easily one of the greatest albums ever to come out of Louisville” by LEO Weekly). Bring the kids and visit Waterfront KidsDay, a dedicated area for kids and families to do hands-on activities. The lawn open at 5 p.m., and music begins promptly at 6 p.m.

SUNDAY, APRIL 28

The Pegasus Parade

3 West on Broadway from Campbell to 9th St. | discover.kdf.org | 3 p.m. |

TUESDAY, APRIL 30

502’sday

Churchill Downs | churchilldowns.com | $5 | 11:30 a.m.

THURSDAY, APRIL 25 – MAY 3

Kroger’s Fest-A-Ville

Waterfront Park | discover.kdf.org | 11 a.m. –11 p.m. | Sundays 12 – 10 p.m.

Fest-a-Ville on the Waterfront will return for its 18th year in 2024. Sponsored by Kroger, the party starts on the Great Lawn and runs through Derby Eve. It promises to have something for everyone – and admission is free with a 2024 Pegasus Pin. The 900,000-square-foot venue will host several Festival events, including the L&N Federal Credit Union Great Balloon Glow, Chow Wagon, Ohio Valley Wrestling Run for the Ropes, HappyTail Hour, Ken-Ducky Derby and more. Fest-a-Ville also offers a wide variety of activities for children, featuring midway-area and attractions at Pegasus Play-Ville Presented by Norton Children’s, including merry-go-round, ships ahoy, a giant slide and much more.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1

Derby Delights Burlesque

Hereafter | 119 S. 7th St. | Search Eventbrite | $25 | 8 – 11 p.m.

The 2024 Zoeller Pump Company Pegasus Parade returns to Broadway in Downtown Louisville on Sunday, April 28. This family-friendly annual event showcases some of the nation’s finest marching bands and equestrian units, along with inflatable characters and colorful floats. The 2024 theme is “Celebrating Derby 150” in honor of the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby. The parade marches west on Broadway for 17 blocks and lasts approximately two hours.

502’sDay returns for its second year, keeping the spotlight on what truly makes this city special – the community. This is a day for the locals and the local businesses we love. Head to the track for a day filled with 9 races as for just $5. You’ll also have an opportunity to meet the wonderful people behind some amazing Louisville businesses through interviews and featured highlights on the big board throughout the day.

A classic burlesque show that fits right in with the wild and raucous Derby happenings. Performances by Miss Beverly Blanc, Kay’Tastrophe, and Odette Cash. We recommend taking the rest of the week off and enjoying this and other Derby events.

THURSDAY, MAY 2

Thurby is Punk featuring: The Vibrolas, The Char, and FMK

Zanzabar | 2100 South Preston St | zanzabarlouisville.com | $15 | 8 p.m. |Ages 18 and up

A trio of punk power trios, all with inventive aggressive guitarists, badass women bassists, and positively propulsive drummers. The mighty Vibrolas, led by power couple Chris Hosner and Leila Coppala, bring their Kentucky-fried, high octane, fully-leaded burnout, greasy-riff punk into the city for the bash. The Char throws down the electrifying upbeat and fun trash punk that “Rocks fucking balls” with edgy originals and frontman Chuck Baxter’s nuggets from Louisville’s acclaimed alternative scene. FMK may be the hardest working band in Louisville, combining garage punk energy with comedy and chaotic shenanigans to fuck, marry, AND kill everyone.

SUNDAY, MAY 5

Derby City Carshow

Carrie Gaulbert Cox Park | 3730 River Rd. | Search Eventbrite | $10/$25 to show car | 12 – 8 p.m.

Nothing beats a good classic car show and this one promises all the bells and whistles of a good time checking out the best of classic vehicle engineering. Cars will range from the class to “modern marvels” and will be a treat for anyone, young or old. There will be food trucks, music and fun.

THURSDAY, MAY 2

502 Beer Day

Citywide + Ten20 Craft Brewery | 1020 E. Washington St. | louisvillealetrail.com | Free | All day

Raise your glasses for yet another 502 Beer Day to celebrate the rich beer culture and its deep-rooted connection with the Kentucky Derby. Before the mint julep held the spot as derby’s iconic drink, it was the Kentucky Common beer that held the spot for derby-goers. 502 Beer Day celebrates the long tradition of the mixture of beer and derby. Look out for the special $5.02 tappings from participating breweries all over Louisville.

SATURDAY, MAY 4

Adina Howard

The Palm Room | 1821 W. Jefferson St. | Search Eventbrite | $25 | 8 p.m.

Freaks everywhere are going to need to get to the Palm Room to see the Queen Freak herself, Adina Howard as she brings her show to Louisville. Joining Ms. Howard is Junior J, opening the show. DJ Lifesaver will provide sounds before and after the event. If there is a call to post, Howard’s “Freak Like Me,” is a call to the dance floor like no other.

SUNDAY, MAY 5

Brunch and Beats

Mellwood Arts Center | 1860 Mellwood Ave. | Search Eventbrite | $20 | 12 – 5 p.m. | 21+

You will have a hangover after Derby and there is nothing better than a brunch event with good food and great tunes to recover. This Derby Brunch and Beats promises a good time for those leftover Derby revelers and the locals who need a place to revive. There will be no tickets at the door so get them in advance.

SUNDAY, MAY 5

Pink Carpet Affair

The Local Seltzery Nulu | 828 E. Main St. | Search Eventbrite | $20 with Pink/$50 without | 6 p.m. – 12 a.m.

Derby goes hard even in the days after. The 3rd annual Pink Carpet Affair is not messing around. First off, Pink is mandatory and fashionable is also required. Catch the best in Afrobeats and R&B for a night of dancing. If you’re one of the miracle children with gas in the tank after Derby, ride it til the wheels fall off at this event.

KENTUCKY’S NEXT SUPERSTAR?

Anonimuss Rose Talks

About Signing To Universal Music Group

And Her New Album

If you don’t recognize the name Anonimuss Rose right away, that’s OK, you will soon enough. Recently signed to Universal Music Group, Lexington, KY’s self-described country soul hop artist Anonimuss Rose is set to release her third full-length album, (and her first for UMG), The Anonymous Tape, on Friday, April 26 and is poised to become Kentucky’s next superstar. Drawing inspiration from musical luminaries such as Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu, Anonimuss Rose infuses her music with a distinctive blend of soul, R&B, and country hip-hop, creating a sonic landscape that is uniquely her own. Anonimuss’s absolutely stunning vocal talents make her impossible to ignore, as evident in the hundreds of thousands of streams her previous albums and singles have already garnered. But this is no overnight success story — Rose and her husband/ manager Clay “Supreme” Borne of LexBrand Development have worked tirelessly over the years to get this far, and they are far from done. LEO recently had the honor of meeting both Rose and Supreme in person and spoke with Anonimuss ahead of her album release.

(This interview has been edited for length and clarity)

LEO: It’s been less than a year since your last record, Lincoln Lounge pt. 2: The Juliet, came out, but listening to the new album, The Anonymous Tape, it sounds like you’ve grown as an artist. Would you agree?

Anonimuss Rose: I would definitely agree. And it’s crazy because I asked my husband the other day, “Where would you place The Anonymous Tape vs. the Lincoln Lounge pt. 2 album?” And he said; ‘It’s really up to you. Lincoln Lounge pt. 2 is my favorite, but I’m not a dancer.’ But I come with the element of dancing because I used to dance when I was younger. And with this album, I wanted to have fun. I wanted to be able to express myself; still embody me, but let Lincoln Lounge pt. 2 be the precursor to the evolution. So yes, I definitely will say I’ve grown this album. It’s definitely more assertive of me and the sound that I want to go with.

What are some of the songs on The Anonymous Tape that you’re most proud of?

AR: The songs I’m looking forward to everybody hearing are “Misery,” “Last Time,” and “Closer” because I know that those are a different sound for me and a lot of people won’t be expecting it.

Especially “Closer,” it has a great Latin feel to it.

AR: Yes, the Latin Afro-pop with the country guitar underneath. I love being able to genre-blend. Shout out to Beyoncé because she has shined a huge light on what it means to be an artist. You’re not labeled by just your genre. For awards, I have to submit myself

underneath a genre. But who I am as an artist, I just play, being able to be free and express exactly what I want to portray, and I definitely think that The Anonymous Tape is a big part of that.

There are a few recent singles that didn’t make the new record, why is that?

AR: Simply because they didn’t flow with the element I was looking for on the new album. I love the songs, but they just didn’t match the element I was going for, so I’ll just let those be, stand on their own, and I’ll do this. [laughs]

So how did you get hooked up with Universal Music Group?

AR: So back in probably last August, Sensei Nowa — who’s an A&R Rep for Universal, and shout out to him — he hit me up because Lincoln Lounge pt. 2 had hit over 50,000

streams and 20,000 listeners. And he was like, ‘Yo, if she can keep going, we’ll definitely tap in with her,’ because they have the highest of highest standards. I definitely have something to prove now. The Universal Music stamp can definitely change things, and it can change people too. So I definitely just try to be myself and to be grateful, thankful, and glad that they saw me.

During your speech when you were signing to Universal, you said you’ve been at this over 11 years now and at one point you were homeless and struggling to get studio time. Can you take me back to those days?

AR: I was a young girl that made stupid, dumb decisions and let love knock me upside my head a few times. Some of those situations were domestically violent, and I always say I lost it all by my own hand because I allowed it. Understand that self-care is also

acknowledging when you’ve messed up your own life, and knowing when someone is a danger to you, you should take that as heed. So I lost the car, lost the house, and had to move around for a little bit. Actually, I did that twice! I lost everything twice. But I eventually got back on my feet and recovered from alcoholism and drug usage. And when I say drug usage, it’s not the hard stuff, but hard enough. I wanted something better for myself, and I also had people looking at me like ‘Yo, this is not you. You know this ain’t you,’ and I always have that to look back on. Now that I have something to weigh it on, now I know that I have so much to lose that I can’t lose it this time. So I work hard day and night, in and out, with barely any sleep to make sure that I keep my foundation tight, and also stand on what I’ve learned over these years. It was a dark time, but I’m glad because I can look back on it and know I did that.

I know you paid out of your own pocket to record The Anonymous Tape, but is Universal helping you all financially, or is it still on you and Supreme?

AR: It’s still just us, and I think that’s the shocking thing when people hear that because everybody was like, ‘OK, so you got a distribution deal, now what?’ I’m like, ‘We work harder!’ I have Universal on my side to help enlarge my marketing, enlarge the rooms that my name is in. I am grateful for that because that can take me to the next level. So I’ll definitely exercise those avenues and perks, but it’s still me clocking in at Noni’s Crown, [ed: Noni’s Crown Service is the natural hair care business Anonimuss Rose owns], working, doing hair, and making the best of it.

Speaking of that, what are you going to do about Noni’s Crown Service if you blow up?

AR: I’m always asked that. ‘Who’s gonna do my hair?’

I’m like,” I’m still gonna do your hair.” In my eyes, I see myself as a mogul. I don’t do just hair, I don’t do just music, I don’t do just things that relate to spiritual counseling, or being a mom, or fashion design. I even take pictures in my free time for people because I love photography. There are so many hats that I wear, and I love being able to create in all those different elements. So I’m hoping to hold on to my business, enlarge it and expand it. And not just for the money, but for myself because natural hair and the business of it is kind of frowned upon. So making it to stay up here in Kentucky, but we got to open up some doors.

I admire that about you. You’re not trying to be someone you’re not just to make money. AR: And it comes from my past. Being a person that had to sleep couch-to-couch, ask for rides to get here and there. I don’t need you to hand anything to me because then you have something over me. Just understand and

respect that integrity about me and I’ll give you the world. I’ll make us some money, but I want to work for it. Don’t just hand it to me. It’s a hard thing, but it’s so worth it. Look how far I’ve come. And it’s like are you willing to risk it all? Hell yeah I am!

Have you ever tried out for “American Idol” or any of those types of shows?

AR: No, because they put you under a contract that’s two-to-three years long and you can’t release any music. ‘That’s my music! You’re going to tell me what I can and can’t do with my own music?’ So I guess I’m not an American Idol then. I guess I’m not “The Voice.” But I’m grateful to say these words: I’ve never had a co-signer. Everything I’ve worked for, I’ve done hand-to-hand contact, my own money, my own character, my own being, who I am, and it has helped me build this brand. So the day that I do get that co-sign, I’m outta here! [laughs]

Do you think people in Kentucky’s music scene will get behind you and help push you to be Kentucky’s next superstar?

AR: I saw a post that said, “I don’t beg for support, I’m networking with strangers,” and it changed my whole view on things. I’ve never been one to beg for support. Have I been upset about it? Hell yeah, who hasn’t? But at the same time, I’m realizing now that it’s not that nobody likes you, you just have to be known on a larger scale. So that way the number of people that don’t like you is smaller than the number of people that do. So I smile, take it with a grain of salt, and I keep it moving. I know that one day it’s all going to fall together.

Are there any good tour stories from last year when you went out to the West Coast?

AR: [Referring to herself and her backing band The Gardiners], Picture it: we hit the road to go home right after performing at Winstons on Ocean Beach in San Diego. I let my mom drive and I told her to follow Supreme because he knows the route to take. So I hop in the back and go to sleep because I’m going to take the next driving shift in the morning. The next morning I wake up, the sun’s up, and we’re in Arizona. Well, I realized my husband (Supreme) is not in front or behind us, so I text him and say ‘Yo, where you at?’ He was like ‘I’m still trying to find you all!’ I asked my mom, ‘Momma, where are we?’ She’s like ‘Baby, I thought I was taking the route that I was supposed to take.’ So we pull over to a gas station, and come to find out we’re on I-10, which is very close to the [Mexican] border. So while I went to sleep, she was supposed to lag back so that my husband could use the bathroom, but she hopped on I-10, not I-40. So now we’re riding adjacent (to Supreme) the whole time all the way back to Kentucky. Fast forward, so now I’m driving through New Mexico getting ready to get to Texas, and I’m hot. I’m trying to find a way to get to

I-40, but I don’t know how to not obstruct from time because they had us still arriving at the same time, so I just keep driving. Then I see this brown tent, and the traffic is slowing down, and I look up and there’s a sign that says ‘Have immigration papers ready.’ I was like ‘Everybody wake up, we’re at the border!’ [laughs] Now, mind you, I am marijuana-friendly and marijuana-positive for the sake of a few of my family members’ lives, and it just so happens that my mother is a patient of it, so we had marijuana in the car. Now, I’m thinking we’re safe, so I keep continuing to drive past the checkpoint, and it was like, ‘Woah, stop the car!’, and like ‘Oh god!’ So the border patrol surrounds the car and it was like, ‘Ma’am, we need you to come out of the car.’

I’m like, ‘Okay, what happened? What’s wrong?’ He was like,’My dog picked up the scent, we’re just looking for immigrants, marijuana, or any type of illegal substance.”’I was like, ‘OK.’ So we’re getting out of the car and my drummer was like, ‘I love y’all. It was nice knowing y’all.’ My mom was like, ‘Oh my god, what’s going on?’ Mind you, our guitar player was asleep. So he’s still trying to wake up to the idea that we’re stopped and the dog was about to search the car, and he’s taking forever to get out of the car. And border patrol was like, ‘What’s going on with him?’

I’m like ‘Man, I don’t know. C’mon, c’mon.’ So they check the car everything was cool, and I’m looking at him like ‘Of course. We came from California. What did you expect? I’m Black. I don’t have no little children in my car. There’s drums, a guitar, a sub, some speakers, a microphone. I got an old lady and my band in the car with me.’ So guy was laughing at us because I’m freaking out. He’s like, ‘Everything’s good. You’re good to go,’ and we hop back on the road, but we had to stop at the next gas station and just take a break and breathe. I could not wait to get home! [laughing] It was hilarious! I was like ‘Oh my god, I will never take I-10 ever again!’ I was so mad!

So what future plans do you have coming up? AR: Right now is to push The Anonymous Tape the same way we did Lincoln Lounge pt. 2. There wasn’t anything broken with the mold so we’re gonna keep the same motion, just 10 times bigger and better. Other than that, the band and I are preparing for our DiverCity Festival performance in Lexington, [on May 25]. It’s basically a really large festival of all different kinds of cultures, different food, different music, acts, dancing. I performed at it two years prior, so this year I’ll actually be headlining, so I’m excited about that. And I’m also working on a new music project with the band too. So, there you go. We busy, man!

“I could not wait to get home! [laughing] It was hilarious! I was like, ‘Oh my God, I will never take I-10 ever again!’ I was so mad!”

The Anonymous Tape releases Friday, April 26 on all streaming platforms. You can find out more about Anonimuss Rose by visiting her website at anonimussrose.com

LOOKING FOR MR. GOODPIZZA: THE POST

I love pizza. You know that. I consider it one of nature’s most perfect foods, a balanced and nutritious blend of fat, protein, and mmm, mmm. carbs in a delicious meal on a plate that you can eat with your fingers or, if you must, knife and fork.

I’m so fond of this treat from Naples by way of New York City, widely modified across the United States and made indisputably our own, that I could review it every week if only my editors would let me.

But lately, it seems, I’ve been striking out on pizza just often enough to make me wonder if

my tastes are changing or if pizza is. I’m feeling the need to ingest some really good pizza to restore my faith in humankind. So this week we headed over to The Post in Germantown, a place widely celebrated as one of Louisville’s best.

The Post gets its name from its location in an old Germantown shotgun house that was long home to Lone Wolf Post #5636 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. The vets’ heritage remains in a large 48-star American flag respectfully hung on a back wall and in a stylized wingand-star logo that one imagines might have once adorned a World War II aircraft.

You can make it easy with a dozen pre-designed combinations in 12-inch, 16-inch, and 20-inch sizes, priced from $10 (for a small Lone Wolf pie with pepperoni, sausage, ham, bacon, and more) to $39 (for the 20-inch, veggieloaded Victory Garden). This selection ranges from the familiar (The Italian Campaign, a standard Margherita pizza) to the offbeat (The Chicken Dinner, with chicken, bacon, cheddar and blue cheese with buffalo or barbecue sauce). If none of those ring your chimes, you’re welcome to build your own, from plain cheese to your pick among 30 toppings ($12, $18, or $23 for the base pie, plus $2, $3, or $4 per topping choice).

In addition to pizza, seven hot sub sandwiches are all $10 for a half-size sandwich or $18 for the full deal on a 10-inch baguette. Calzones are $12 for mozzarella and ricotta filling plus $2 each for any of the pizza toppings. Full bar service offers liquor, wine, and an impressive list of 15 regional craft beers plus, er, Coors.

The Post

1045 Goss Ave.

635-2020

thepostlouisville.com

facebook.com/louisvillepost

instagram.com/thepostlouisville

caps and range in price from $10 to $14.

We went with the two salads available in smaller (but still generous) sizes for $7: A house salad and a caesar. The two looked so much alike that I wondered for a second if they had accidentally given us both the same salads: A pile of bright green, fresh baby spinach and field lettuces topped with shredded cheese and a few croutons, dressing in a small tub on the side.

On closer inspection, though, the caesar was loaded with a large amount of small, salty black olives that the house salad lacked, and it came with a tangy, creamy caesar-style dressing. The house salad added tomato bits and choice of dressing; the blue cheese was just right. Both salads included a few really delicious croutons, light, scented with garlicky oil, and impressively crunchy. And, happily, the greens were perfectly fresh, with none of the unappetizing blackened and slimy bits that too often creep into restaurant salads. Two thumbs up.

The slice of the day ($5) was a tasty treat, a foldable, NYC-style triangle cut from a 20-inch pie, topped with eight hefty chunks of spicy sausage, rounds of crisp pickled banana peppers, and dabs of feta on a discreet spread of tangy tomato sauce and mozzarella. The crust was thin and crisp with dark heat spots dotting the breadlike edge.

A whole 10-inch pizza, the White Flag ($17) murmured scents of the Mediterranean with spinach, roasted red pepper, and red onions on a garlic olive oil base dotted with bites of ricotta and snipped fresh basil. The crust was very thin and crackery, and the toppings extended almost all the way to the edge. It was a very good pizza, and I was able to restrain myself sufficiently to save a few slices to take home for another day.

A hearty pizza meal for two, with salads to make it healthy, came to $38.16, plus a $9.54 tip.

The White Flag, one of The Post’s dozen standard pies, is an appetizing Mediterranean-style mix of red onion, spinach, and roasted red pepper on a garlic olive oil base, dotted with bites of ricotta and snipped fresh basil.

The Post’s menu puts pizza up front and center, as it should. You can buy by the oversize slice, New York City style, at $5 for a giant cheese slice, pepperoni slice, or the slice of the day.

We dropped in on a Saturday and found this popular place packed. Service was quick and friendly, though, with the reasonable admonition that you should expect at least a 30-minute wait for your order, “as our pizzas are proudly bandcrafted and made to order.”

Salads here are very good, and you can make a meal with your choice of any of the five large models, which come on plates the size of hub

Noise Level: The rooms were packed on a Saturday, but thanks perhaps to its spacious layout and high raftered ceiling, conversation was possible. Sound levels averaged 73.1dB with peaks to 79.2dB.

Accessibility: Thanks to effective and extensive ramps, the old building appears fully accessible to wheelchair users and everyone.

POETS’ HOME STRUGGLES

Being home — the arriving, and being in a place where you most feel you belong, and knowing that it’ll be a constant for you leave and return — is a privilege for many, mere aspiration for others. Some poets can uniquely see into the possibilities of going through life with that feeling both present and absent — changing like ever-shifting wind. Others can share the insights of how that feeling can be reached for, but any connection is compromised because it has grown from twisted or flayed roots.

Among the books produced by Kentucky-associated poets in 2024 are two that distinctly deny or question their poet’s sense of fulfilling security in knowing and being home.

Lexington’s Katerina Stoykova, who immigrated from Bulgaria two decades ago and has since produced several collections, gives us “Between a Bird Cage and a Bird House” (Univ. Press of Kentucky; 100 pgs., $19.95). The gains and losses of leaving Soviet-influenced Eastern Europe weigh heavily here. As for America, it flows throughout the contents, including a structural device of subtly pithy conversational exchanges.

Opportunities that Stoykova might find in community, in relationships? She can cut their shortcomings to the quick with lines so narrow they seem to have been written through a seething squint. And all along, the observant reader can see how the surface accusations open doors to reveal a bravely shared self-interrogation.

The collection employs small groups of poems weaving in and out like personal phases of concern or like seasons that hang on so long as to offer revelation — and maybe hope. But the poet regularly returns to an ambivalence that threatens emotional devastation. Attention must be paid — the titles often demand it: “You’ll be given everything, twice,” It’s a Great Day to Burn,’ the Man Said,” “We Must Be Very Careful When Using the Word ‘Home’.”

Jeffrey Michael Clark, originally from Louisville, is similarly unafraid of sharp explorations of his vulnerability in debut collection “The Trouble with Light” (Univ. of Arkansas Press; 80 pgs., $19.95). One particular pain and longing: to toss aside the pain brought on by step-father and fill some aching emptiness with knowing his father (“a name i’d never heard,/i tiptoed around its edges”).

“In the Hometown I’ve Tried to Love” is just one direct example of how Clark steps forward to reveal his personal vacillation — and then what it invokes in him, which is often a turn inward (“If it/takes two to be alone, I don’t know who I’d rather be:

the one who stayed, or the one who walked away”).

But even more interesting is when his retreating eye catches an observation on the periphery. Clark succeeds in delivering such a fascinating program of vision for all phases of his life (so far, and I can only hope he continues). “Never Just One” delivers this as a meeting of a child’s roughened innocence that turns toward both shame and anger — along with some skin-crawling ickiness (due to headlice). Flood and fire, and escapes into temptation, along

with familial fractiousness and violence and surviving by a thread — this poet brings his personal experiences and imaginatively constructed (but not fantastic) perceptions to vivid life — along with his old hometown.

Tuesday, May 7 at 6 p.m. Jeremy Michael Clark will be at Foxing Books (1314 Bluegrass Ave.) 6 p.m.. Also reading/ signing there will be makalani bandele, Nabila Lovelace, and A.H. Jerriod Avant.

‘TROUBLE EVERY DAY’ AND SENSUALITY

Body horror is an especially challenging genre, the opposite of escapism with rules that are an inverse of the superhero story. Rather than imagining an escape into power and glory through a transformed, sup’ed up body, body horror creates spaces where the viewer is forced to imagine one’s own body out of control, taken to a horrific extreme. What if, instead of fighting and defeating an external enemy, it was your own body that was betraying your conscious decisions and moral compass? What if, instead of starring in “Spiderman” you found yourself in “The Fly?”

Trouble Every Day

Friday, April 26, 6 p.m.

$12 / $8 Speed Members Speed Cinema, 2035 S. Third St. www.speedmuseum.org/cinema

“Trouble Every Day” follows Coré (played by “Betty Blue” herself Béatrice Dalle), an alluring woman afflicted with a literal bloodlust, who is unable to control her impulse to eat her lovers. Her husband Léo (Alex Descas) is her caregiver, her warden, her enabler, and her creator. His drug research is behind Coré’s monstrosity, and it is the reason that Shane (Vincent Gallo) has brought his new bride (Tricia Vessey) to Paris. Burdened with a bloodlust of his own, Shane needs to find Léo and the cure for his condition so he can safely consummate his marriage.

But these plot machinations are only set dressings, not mysteries to be solved. Director Claire Denis is focused on filling the screen with images that convey a skin-crawling, melancholy mood. She is a filmmaker in love with skin and hair and vibrations and grunts and, in this film, blood, all set to the haunting music of Tindersticks coupled with a brilliant and sickening sound design.

From the very first scene of a nameless couple kissing so deeply they verge on devouring each

other, Denis is pushing the boundary that divides sex from literal consumption, and then manifests that transgressing that line. Casting Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dalle, both actors well-known for their personal transgressions, as her cannibalistic leads was an especially astute choice as they effortlessly skirt the line between mysterious appeal and obvious menace. Coupled with their caring and lovely spouses, Shane and Coré are tied to normal society through love, but the sickness they carry will forever keep them separate.

After stunning the world with her hypnotic film “Beau Travail,” French director Claire Denis next released “Trouble Every Day.” The film was not well received in 2001, and it was years before it was reassessed and granted its current reputation as a sensual classic of the French Extremity genre. In many ways, labeling “Trouble Every Day” a horror film in general, and an example of French Extremity has limited its appreciation among horror and non-horror fans alike. There are two scenes of extreme violence, both wrapped up in sex that has been anticipated with victims who the audience has come to know throughout the film. Two realistic, sexually violent, and physically painful scenes is much too much for one set of viewers, and nowhere near enough

for another set. Rather than comparing this film to the apex French Extremity films like “Martyrs” or “Inside,” it is better to pair it with those films it has influenced. Julia Ducournau’s “Raw” and “Titane” as well as Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” are also artistically sound films that explore the connection between sensuality and life-giving consumption while also grappling with sickness as identity. But it is “Let the Right One In” that recalls the lonely yet loving relationships that make up the core of Denis’s film. All these films join their ancestor “Trouble Every Day” in being simply gorgeous films that happen to be horror films.

For this screening, poet Iva Moore, hailing from Waverly, KY, and lately NYC, will be relating the anxiety about sickness that the film swims in to her creative process and film consumption itself. Moore is the author of the award-winning chapbook “Women Collapse Into / Better, Brighter Artists,” and will be reading her work and leading a post-screening discussion.  This one time only CINEMA+ screening at the Speed Cinema is presented by the Lamplighter Film Union, a local film appreciation group committed to showing thoughtful film in thoughtful places.

More at www.lamplighterfilmunion.com

DIVERSITY IS A FRONT-RUNNER AT GALLOPALOOZA 2024

Local artists shine a light on the historically overlooked residents of Derby City.

Gallopalooza 2024 took off out of the gate on March 21 at the Gallopalooza Collection Preview and Unveiling event presented by Churchill Downs. For the sesquicentennial renewal of the Kentucky Derby, 75 fiberglass statues of life-sized horses and 75 tabletop versions were on display. Many of the artists who created them were in attendance. The VIP preview event was followed by official Kentucky Derby festival programming March 22–24.

Gallopalooza has adorned the streets of Louisville since 2004. Originally developed as a local pride and tourism initiative, Gallopalooza supports the Brightside Foundation, the donorfunded, volunteer-driven non-profit organization that creates green spaces and beautifies Louisville’s neighborhoods. Some of the most memorable entries for Gallopalooza 2024 illuminate the historically overlooked components of Derby City.

Because of You / Por Es Ustedes

The Backside Learning Center (BLC) is an independent non-profit organization who provide resources in an inclusive environment for the diverse community of racetrack workers and their families. This year, the BLC was gifted an entry into Gallopalooza by Brightside.

Sherry Stanley, Executive Director of the BLC, says most people who come to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby have no idea that “there are people back here working in the stable

horse racing would not be possible.”

Peyton Hobson, Communications and Marketing Manager at the BLC, shares this sentiment. When she heard that the BLC had the opportunity to design a horse, she was particularly excited to work with visual artist Sara Noori to design a horse for Gallopalooza.

A Louisville-based artist of mixed Persian ancestry, Noori explains that every worker on the Backside and the Trackside contributed to this design. “This piece is made to honor all the people who touch the horses every day and symbolize how many hands are behind the horses, how many hands are behind the industry.” They understand how easy it is to celebrate “the glitz and the glamor” of the race itself and to only shine a light on the people who hold wealth. “But really, it’s about the people who make it happen.” The bilingual English / Spanish title of the piece — “Because of You / Por Es Ustedes” — reflects that reality and gratitude Noori chose an iridescent yellow-gold for their horse’s muzzle, forelock, mane, and tail. The same shimmering gold was applied to the

area 10 months out of the year — and at the Trackside Training Center off Poplar Level, 12 months out of the year.” The Derby has often been called “the Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports,” but those two minutes require 365 days of labor. Because the BLC supports the community of workers who make all of this possible, it was important to Stanley to use the opportunity to submit a horse to Gallopalooza in a way that depicts “all the hands that care for the horses, that touch the horses, and that without them,

fetlock, pastern, and hooves, grounding the statue in a color associated with valuable assets. “The horse itself is something that’s irreplaceable,” Noori says. “But more importantly, it’s the people who are invaluable.” They chose to leave the body of the sculpture a soft white so their use of blue, green, yellow, and red — selected directly from the palette of the BLC brand— would be all the more vivid.

The BLC transported the sculpture to the Trackside Training Center, where 130 workers

put their handprints on the horse, each person dipping their hands into paint and then pressing it onto the surface of the sculpture. There are 150 handprints total, symbolizing the 150th running of the Kentucky Derby. Each worker whose handprint adorns this horse also wrote their name and a corresponding number. Between handprints there are QR codes that link to an image of the person behind the handprint and their title. The tabletop version of the sculpture is patterned with thumbprints from the children of the Backside and Trackside staff.

Hobson, who herself has a background in graphic design, says this collaborative design humanizes the processes involved in the equine care that makes the Kentucky Derby possible. “It gives voice to the workers who are the backbone of the thoroughbred industry.” This is the first time the BLC has contributed a design to Gallopalooza and it has already made a lasting impression.

Pushing Cultural Limits In

The Ville

Enrique Andres Santiago, who goes by the mononym Rique, says he is inspired by petroglyphs found across the Americas. “I’ve always been inspired by the Mayans and how they would paint on their bodies,” he says. The body of his horse sculpture, titled “The Ville” (sponsored by 10K Advisors), is painted with short, solid lines that are, at a glance, reminiscent of

Keith Haring. Yet Haring himself was inspired by the mark-making and pictorial traditions of Central American cultures.

Rique’s entry into Gallopalooza has a mazelike quality that rewards closer viewing. Among his pattern are shapes immediately recognizable to Louisvillians. “I wanted to capture our experiences living in Louisville, going to Churchill Downs, Muhammad Ali, you know,” he gestures toward the forms embedded into his design. He incorporated these elements because they represent the presence of diverse cultures in Louisville. He says American audiences love art created by Brown people and always want to see more, but that the cultural heritage of the artists themselves are often overlooked. “And that’s why I’m happy I’m here tonight.”

Rique is half Puerto Rican, and some of the other half of his ancestry is Native American. A lot of Louisvillians might not know about what Rique calls the Spanish-language scene. “But there absolutely is [one]. You know, if you’re Spanish, you’re going to the cookouts every weekend. You know where all the good places are, you know all the little shops and things like that.”

Rique describes the way Latino culture runs alongside white culture in Louisville. “If you blink, you won’t even notice it. But I can’t even tell you how many Spanish-speaking people there are in Louisville.” As an artist, he wants to redefine what being Latino means. “I want

people to know that it’s OK to push the boundaries and push the cultural limits and be yourself.”

Peculiarizing The Kentucky Derby

Originally from Albuquerque, Jessica Chao moved to Louisville in 2019 to pursue a career in visual art. Her work is designed to peculiarize the familiar and to draw attention to hidden meanings.

Jennifer Chappell, councilwoman for district 15, personally invited Chao to design an entry for Gallopalooza. Chao says she and Councilwoman Chappell bonded immediately because Chappell understood that “there needs to be more representation of the BIPOC population … in Louisville.” The original concept was of jockey silk patterns and a patchwork of all the different colors. Chao developed that concept by pushing it in an edgier direction. “I felt like steering away from a Derby theme would help create a new vision for what these horses could be.”

Her research into the origins and history of the Kentucky Derby inspired her to title her entry “Common Dignity.” “Like the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” Chao says, “These patterns are all representative of different cultures. And together, they complete the horse’s anatomy.”

Her design incorporates Navajo-inspired patterns, the colors of the Pan-African flag, a motif from a Mexican tile, and various Native American beadwork. Some of the details are also a form of self-portrait, particularly her use of the Chinese symbol for luck. “Everyone’s got the horseshoe and shamrock. This is another way you can express that. I feel very lucky to be part of [Gallopalooza].”

Chao’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Korea and are of mixed Korean and Chinese descent. She traces her fingers along a motif inspired by a traditional Korean pattern: a rainbow stripe pattern called saekdong, which itself was the result of sewing together fabrics of different colors to create designs in precolonial Korea. In contemporary Louisville — like every city across America — the immeasurable contributions of Black and Brown people are not only foundational, but essential to our collective survival. Chao’s use of saekdong in her design is “a symbol of unity and a constant reminder that this is what our community is about. And without each other, we would be nothing.”

Gallopalooza horses will race through Louisville all summer. Most of the statues will be available to purchase at auction in October.

“Because of You / Por Es Ustedes” by the Backside workers of Churchill Downs and artist Sara Noori (sponsored by Backside Learning Center)

“The Ville” by Rique (sponsored by 10K Advisors)

“Common Dignity” by Jessica Chao (sponsored by Louisville Council District 15) Tyler Lizenby

NEW PLAY MOVES QUEER TEENS WHO HAVE THOUGHT A LOT ABOUT FAITH, RELIGION

Playwright Jonathan Norton hails from Dallas but is no stranger to Louisville.

A

Black church

Before Actors Theatre of Louisville halted its Humana Festival of New American Plays in 2022, Norton came to many including in 2020 as co-writer of “Are You There?”  It premiered at that festival just before the pandemic closed other live productions. During the 2016 festival, he even picked up the M. Elizabeth Osborn Award for playwrights.

In March, his more recent work, “I Am Delivered’T” arrived at Actors Theatre after premiering at Dallas Theater Center in a production directed at both venues by Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Artistic and Executive Director Robert Barry Fleming.

The play tells a story filled with deep compassion and faith about several LGBTQ+ characters with ties to the church. It made sense for Arts Angle Vantage to connect with Louisville Youth Group and invite members

to collaborate with us and write about the play. Actors Theatre invited all members to see the play. Immediately after, Norton spoke about writing the play and Fleming and actor Zachary J. Willis joined the talk.

Deep gratitude to Jo Lowden, G. McAdams and Louisville Youth Group and sincere thanks to Actors Theatre of Louisville. LYG and the Actors Theatre had no influence on these articles, as Arts Angle Vantage practices journalistic ethics and standards.

As always, we greatly appreciate LEO Weekly for helping us elevate youth voices and the arts by practicing the values of collaborative journalism.

where queer members still seek a home of faith is central to playwright Norton’s new work

As Good Friday services are happening inside New Jerusalem Mission Baptist Church, in the parking lot several members are telling stories about their lives of hardship, love, faith, betrayal, and misunderstandings.

“I Am Delivered’T,” written by Jonathan Norton and directed by Robert Barry Fleming, details the lives of four Black queer characters: Sis, Pickles, Breedlove, and Effie. It ran at Actors Theatre of Louisville from March 13 through 24.

The outside of this beautiful church is adorned with stained glass windows. Its main glass doors open upon a picture of the pastor and his wife. In the lot, there are parking spots, chairs, and a cooler.

Sis (Liz Mikel) is a tall woman with short hair, wearing her best usher board suit with a yellow vest and a yellow rose in her jacket pocket. Jackie Breedlove (E. Faye Butler) sports a coral jacket over a flowery top a flowery top with skirt and has beautiful curls down to her shoulders. Effie (Naiqui

Macabroad) is a tall, thin young man wearing a light blue jacket, gray dress pants, black boots, hair in braids tied up into a ponytail, and the glitteriest eyeshadow known to man. Pickles (Zachary J. Willis) is slight and young in his usher board suit with a yellow tie and a yellow handkerchief in the breast pocket. Connecting them all are their hardships in the church community.

All have their struggles independently. But they come together with their struggles in their church. Sis finds herself wrestling with her faith in her pastor. Yet, she stands tall, cloaked in confidence, using it as a shield against her inner fears. Pickles muses about the cruelty of those who ridicule others for daring to dream beyond their expectations. Later, Effie, even with his complexities and trials regarding his relationship with Pickles, tells Pickles to stand firm. “Whatever they try and do, don’t you dare let them run you off,” Effie says.

This story spoke personally to me. As a queer person born in the church, I have

experienced surrounding cultures that have been very uplifting but at the same time very damaging. This is often the case with other queer people and others who are different.

Growing up we hear hateful comments, sermons, their cherry-picked Bible quotes, and others critical remarks. A lot of us lose faith — whether it’s faith in God, people or the church. We lose it.

Nearly two-thirds of queer individuals raised in Christian households leave their faith upon reaching adulthood, according to research from the Williams Institute. Among those who remain, a demographic profile emerges — predominantly older, Black, cisgender men residing in the South. This study also highlights a disparity between Black and white LGBTQ individuals’ experiences within Christian settings. A higher proportion of Black LGBTQ individuals were raised in Christian households compared to their White counterparts. Furthermore, a majority choose to maintain

their ties to Christianity, with over half opting to remain within the faith.

Despite facing unique challenges and minority stressors, many LGBTQ individuals, particularly within the Black community, find comfort and support within their Christian faith. The social, cultural, and religious networks they are part of often provide a sense of belonging and community that outweighs the negative experiences they may encounter.

“I Am Delivered’T” tells us about Black LGBTQ individuals who choose to stay in the church and strive to be authentic.

But after the performance, playwright Norton warned of the consequences of being authentic in a church setting. There, people often find reasons to separate themselves because of their differences, creating a spiritual homelessness. While the pastor in this play is never seen, the story shows he listens but rarely acknowledges these members’ spiritual needs and issues.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily that he was homophobic as much (as he has) a fear of just

standing up, doing the right thing because of the fear of what those consequences would be,” Norton said.

The homophobia people feel from the church, Norton added, is not always personal homophobia from the church but from “groupthink” and fear of abandonment. That prompts church members to concur with and say things they don’t believe so they can still be a part of something.

“The majority of people I know,” Norton said, “the folks in church who I sit next to on Sunday, we have our inside jokes. And folks invite you to their church or invite you to their holiday parties and whatnot. Yet, that idea of that groupthink — it’s the thing that kind of divides you. It’s not an actual pure hatred of who you are as a person.”

Willis, the actor who plays Pickles, was also part of the conversation and talked about how division can be internalized,

“This show has taught me that for Pickles in particular (it) is not necessarily about the external forces, but the internal self-hatred,” he said, “the quiet, eliminating yourself from

the love of God.”

Everyone in and around this story knows of the prejudices entailing their identities — being Black and being queer, particularly in the church. Yet, despite their issues, they stay close and try to help each other. They know how it feels to be standing in front of everyone asking for love only to get turned away, something so many LGBTQ people know, especially those who also are Black, Indigenous and People of Color. We all know that at the end of the day, we all just want to be loved.

Jo Lowden (he/they), a homeschooled sophomore in Meade County, is currently a youth leader at Louisville Youth Group and their local library. He also is active in the process of creating a local LGBTQ group. He is passionate about all things involving mental health and queerness, especially for teens and young adults. Currently, Jo is on track to complete high school at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College for dual credit over the next two years. With sights set on college, he aims to study psychology and pursue a career as a therapist.

‘Groupthink’ in the Black church can be larger problem than homophobia for LGBTQ, playwright says

J.

BROWN SCHOOL, CLASS OF 2024

Standing in the New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church parking lot, a queer usher, a gay outcast in silver glittery eyeshadow, and a mother questioning her sexuality pray and are overtaken by the Holy Spirit. Outside of the church walls, muffled sounds of an ongoing service echo from within the sanctuary. The onstage energy is contagious as the prayer starts solemnly, grows to a crux and parishioner Jackie Breedlove cries “I am Delivered” into the audience.

This is “I Am Delivered’T,” a new play that ran at Actors Theatre of Louisville from March 14 through 24. It followed four queer Black churchgoers outside their church’s Good Friday service.

The play by award-winning Jonathan Norton made its world premiere at the Dallas Theater Center where Norton is the resident playwright and then moved to Louisville. Actors Theatre’s Artistic and Executive Director Robert Berry Fleming directed the play in both venues. In 2016, Norton’s play “Mississippi Goddamn” won the M. Elizabeth Osborn Award for new playwrights.

All four characters in Norton’s “I Am Delivered’T” share a lifelong history at New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church. Two, Effie (Naiqui Macabroad) and Mrs. Breedlove (E. Faye Butler), have recently been missing

from service. On the other hand, Ivan Pickles (Zachary J. Willis) and Sis (Liz Mikel) are dedicated ushers and are loyal attendees.

The characters go through everyday struggles, and some that are deep-rooted: jealousy over an ex-lover, grief for a loved one, estranged family, and having to eat cold catfish and spaghetti. The story shows how their queer identities hinder inclusion in church culture. Even Sis, a dedicated member, shows her hesitancy.

“I stepped on the floor wearing armor,” Sis said.

At a talkback after this Louisville premiere, Norton spoke about his writing process with “I Am Delivered’T,” his experience of church culture, and how groupthink can undermine connection.

Norton said events in the play reflect what he’s seen and experienced. He related them to a conversation he had with a Texas pastor who nominally accepted queer people. He and the cast had visited the church to discuss the play with the congregation. The pastor asked him to censor his introduction of Willis, the actor who played Pickles.

“Before we visited, I sent the text of just what I would say, like what my introduction would be for Zach,” Norton says, “And she goes, ‘oh, this is great, but can you just remove the part

about the same gender loving couple?’” The pastor wanted to be the one to raise the topic of sexuality with the congregation.

While these kinds of conversations can be difficult in church settings where stigmas, homophobia and fear can come into play, Norton doesn’t see those issues as the real culprits of division.

“Groupthink makes it hard to go against the system, go against the grain,” said Norton. “It’s easier to stay quiet and to keep your head down and quote a scripture and just kind of keep it moving.”

That group mentality can affect individual thinking as well, leading to internal struggles.

Willis, the actor, also participated in the talkback. He said playing Pickles helped him understand how the ignorance that can fester within the Black church affected him.

“(It) is not necessarily about the external forces, but the internal self-hatred,” Willis said, “the quiet, eliminating yourself from the love of God.”

All the characters in this play deal with their relationships with God and faith and demonstrate ways the Black church can have a complex relationship with queerness. Pickles, Sis, Effie and Breedlove also illustrate a diversity of those queer Black churchgoers’ experiences.

Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

freewillastrology@freewillastrology.com

BrezsnyAstrology@gmail.com

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

Week of April 24

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Have you ever gotten your mind, heart, and soul in sweet alignment with the spiritual beauty of money? An opportunity to do that is available. During the next four weeks, you can cultivate an almost mystical communion with the archetype of well-earned wealth. What does that mean? Well, you could be the beneficiary of novel insights and hot tips about how best to conduct your finances. You might get intuitions about actions you could take to bring more riches into your life. Be alert for help from unexpected sources. You may notice that the more generous you are, the more the world’s generosity will flow your way.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Bordering the Pacific Ocean for a thousand miles, Chile’s Atacama Desert is a place of stark and startling beauty. Unfortunately, its pristine landscape is also a dumping ground for vast amounts of discarded clothes that people bought cheaply, wore out quickly, and didn’t want anymore. Is there any other place on earth that more poignantly symbolizes the overlap of sacred and profane? In the coming weeks, Taurus, you will possess a special aptitude for succeeding in situations with metaphorical resemblances to the Atacama. You will have an enhanced power to inject ingenious changes wherever messiness is mixed with elegance, wherever blemished beauty requires redemption, and wherever lyrical truths need to be rescued from careless duplicity or pretense.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): My Gemini friend Alicia thrives on having a quick, acute, whirling-dervish-like intelligence. It’s one of her strong points now, but it wasn’t always. She says she used to be hyperactive. She thought of serenity as boring—“like some wan, bland floral tea.” But after years of therapy, she is joyous to have discovered “a kind of serenity that’s like sweet, frothy hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg.” I’m guessing that many of you Geminis have been evolving in a similar direction in recent months—and will climax this excellent period of relaxing growth in the coming weeks.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): All Cancerians who read this oracle are automatically included on the Primal Prayer Power List. During the next 13 days, my team of 13 Prayer Warriors and I will sing incantations to nurture your vigor, sovereignty, and clarity of purpose. We will envision your dormant potentials ripening. We will call on both

human and divine allies to guide you in receiving and bestowing the love that gives your life supreme meaning. How should you prepare for this flood of blessings? Start by having a long talk with yourself in which you describe exactly why you deserve these gifts.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A meme on Instagram said, “The day I stopped worrying about what other people think of me was the day I became free.” This sentiment provokes mixed feelings in me. I agree it’s liberating not to be obsessed with what people think of us. On the other hand,  I believe we should indeed care about how we affect others. We are wise to learn from them about how we can be our best selves. Our “freedom” includes the discernment to know which ideas people have about us are worth paying attention to and which are best forgotten and ignored. In my opinion, Leo, these are important themes for you to ruminate on right now.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia is a holy place for Islam. Jerusalem is the equivalent for Judaism, and the Vatican is for Catholicism. Other spiritual traditions regard natural areas as numinous and exalting. For instance, the Yoruba people of Nigeria cherish Osun-Osogbo, a sacred grove of trees along the Osun River. I’d love it if there were equivalent sanctuaries for you, Virgo—where you could go to heal and recharge whenever you need to. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to identify power spots like these. If there are no such havens for you, find or create some.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In my astrological opinion, you are entering a period when you can turn any potential breakdown into a breakthrough. If a spiritual emergency arises, I predict you will use it to rouse wisdom that sparks your emergence from numbness and apathy. Darkness will be your ally because it will be the best place to access hidden strength and untapped resources. And here’s the best news of all: Unripe and wounded parts of your psyche will get healing upgrades as you navigate your way through the intriguing mysteries.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): According to my astrological perspective, you are entering a phase when you could dramatically refine how relationships function in your life. To capitalize on the potential, you must figure out how to have fun while doing the hard work that such an effort will take. Here are three questions to get you started. 1 What

can you do to foster a graceful balance between being too self-centered and giving too much of yourself? 2. Are there any stale patterns in your deep psyche that tend to undermine your love life? If so, how could you transform or dissolve them? 3. Given the fact that any close relationship inevitably provokes the dark sides of both allies, how can you cultivate healthy ways to deal with that?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I feel sad when I see my friends tangling with mediocre problems. The uninspiring dilemmas aren’t very interesting and don’t provoke much personal growth. They use up psychic energy that could be better allocated. Thankfully, I don’t expect you to suffer this bland fate in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. You will entertain high-quality quandaries. They will call forth the best in you. They will stimulate your creativity and make you smarter and kinder and wilder. Congratulations on working diligently to drum up such rich challenges!

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1894, a modest *Agave ferox* plant began its life at a botanical garden in Oxford, England. By 1994, a hundred years later, it had grown to be six feet tall but had never bloomed. Then one December day, the greenhouse temperature accidentally climbed above 68 degrees F. During the next two weeks, the plant grew twice as tall. Six months later, it bloomed bright yellow flowers for the first time. I suspect metaphorically comparable events will soon occur for you, Capricorn. They may already be underway.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Have you felt a longing to be nurtured? Have you fantasized about asking for support and encouragement and mentoring? If so, wonderful! Your intuition is working well! My astrological analysis suggests you would dramatically benefit from basking in the care and influence of people who can elevate and champion you; who can cherish and exalt you; who can feed and inspire you. My advice is to pursue the blessings of such helpers without inhibition or apology. You need and deserve to be treated like a vibrant treasure.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In his book *Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perception*, Thom Hartmann theorizes that distractibility may have been an asset for our ancestors. Having a short attention span meant they were ever alert for possible dangers and opportunities in their environment. If they were out walking at night, being lost in thought could prevent them from tuning into warning signals from the bushes. Likewise, while hunting, they would benefit from being ultra-receptive to fleeting phenomena and ready to make snap decisions. I encourage you to be like a hunter in the coming weeks, Pisces. Not for wild animals, but for wild clues, wild signs, and wild help.

Hey Dan: I’m a cis gay man in Canada. Other than my supportive enby partner of five years and a few close friends, most people in my life don’t know that I’m a fetish content creator. My stuff delves into the foot porn/macrophilia (love of giants) space. I don’t make enough to live off, but it’s a good side hustle; I earn enough to help with bills and groceries. Plus, creating this content has resulted in meeting people with the same paraphilias and fantasies that I have. Being a kink content creator has many more pros than cons and it allows me to share my sexual interests with willing and understanding people — which is a great thing, as my combination of fetishes is pretty rare. I do all of this faceless. Save for the handful of times I’ve posted a glimpse of my face on my OnlyFans account, I’ve never shown my face on public platforms. I am self-employed, so I don’t have to worry about my boss finding out and firing me, since I am my own boss. But the “internet is forever” and I fear repercussions if I change careers in the future. How best to navigate this?

–Fearful

About Coming Employment Situation

“The internet is forever,” said Aaron, a 30-yearold gay man and BDSM content creator. “I see news articles every week about people losing their jobs after someone sent their OnlyFans account to their employer.” Which is why Aaron and his fiancé John, a 25-year-old gay man who shares his love of bondage, both wear masks in the videos they post on their joint JustForFans account. “Until we live in a world where no one is shamed for their sexual interests and what they choose to do in our free time,” said Aaron, “showing our faces is not worth the risk to our careers or to our relationships with friends and family.”

The couple had been posting short bondage clips on Twitter before the pandemic hit and then — like a lot of people stuck at home during lockdowns — they decided to get on OnlyFans.

“At the time we figured, ‘Why not,’” said Aaron. “People seemed to like the stuff we enjoyed posting for free and anyone who wanted to see more of us could subscribe and we might make some money doing what we love.” Aaron and John promised each other that they would stop if creating content started to overwhelm their sex life. “But four years later, we’re still sharing our kinky faceless content and it has not only broadened our exploration in the world of kink, but — just like FACES — creating and sharing fetish content has led to many wonderful IRL connections.”

Some fans have begged Aaron and John to

show their faces — a few have offered to pay them more if they remove their masks — but their reasons for remaining anonymous are sound, FACES, and may resonate with you.

“The extra money is a huge perk — we earn between two and three thousand dollars per month — but it’s not consistent money,” said Aaron. “For example, our original Only fans account was pretty short lived. The company’s stance on porn changed one day, and suddenly all our content was banned for being ‘extreme,’ and that money disappeared. We’ve also been suspended from Twitter after posts got reported as ‘violence’ by people who don’t understand consensual BDSM. So, unless FACES has some other means of support besides his foot porn and macrophilia content, putting his face out there for the sake of a little extra cash that may or may not be there next month probably isn’t worth it.”

For the record, not all of Aaron and John’s fans hate their masks.

“We each wear a particular mask while filming,” said Aaron, “and to our surprise, some of our subscribers have started to fetishize the masks we wear. Now we’ve got people asking where they can buy masks and hoods like the ones we wear in our videos!”

Normally I share the socials and/or links to my guest experts’ websites here. But Aaron and John wanted to remain masked in the column.

Hey Dan: I’m a 45-year-old gay man in a monogamous relationship. It’s the best relationship of my life. My partner and I have decided to become fluid bonded. (A term you probably haven’t heard in years!) However, he has a conditioned called hypospadias, and I’m wondering whether it is something we need to factor into our decision to have condom-free sex. He has an extra hole near the head of his cock. It’s like he removed an enormous Prince Albert, and the second hole remained open. It’s weirdly hot. But this second hole is very wide and uncovered by foreskin when he’s hard. So, I’m worried if he fucks me without a condom, he could be at heightened risk of infection. Or worse, could he get santorum in there?

–Hoping Our Love Endures

Your boyfriend’s condition — let’s not call it a disorder — puts him at greater risk of urinary tract and bladder infections, which occur when harmful bacteria creep up the urethra. Cis women, due to their shorter urethras, get UTIs and bladder infections more often than cis men. So, with that bonus hole effectively shortening your boyfriend’s urethra, he should take the advice cis women are giving to prevent UTI/bladder infections:

piss immediately after sex — well, not immediately after (he might wanna withdraw first) — and maybe take a quick shower or an even quicker whore’s bath just to be on the safe side. As for santorum, i.e., “the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex,” douch before your boyfriend fucks your hole, HOLE, and you won’t get a visit from the disgraced (and disgraceful) senator.

Hey Dan: I’m writing because I feel lonely and wrong. Short story: I’m a thirty-something Italian lesbian and I’ve broken up with my lover of nine years because there have been too many dicks involved — including the dick of a good friend (ouch!) — and while I’ve tried to let her be free to do whatever she wanted because I deeply love her and I want her to be happy, I’ve realized that it’s too much for me. Polyamory isn’t really an option for me. We have a deep and strong relationship, with a lot of love and sex, and we constantly helped each other and our views about life are very similar. I don’t want to lose all of this, but I can’t see a solution. She needs to go in a direction I can’t go. So, I have decided to set her free, but I’m suffering so badly. One thing — one of the many things — that I can’t get out of my mind is being told that only liking girls was an “illness” and that I was missing out on half of humanity. But I can’t help liking women. Am I so wrong? After all of this, I feel totally empty and not right at all, badly alone. My self-esteem is so low right now and I worry about being sad and lonely for the rest of my life because I am not open to polyamory and have no interest in the other half of humanity. I know who I am and what I like but everything seems really confused and confusing. –Utterly Gutted Homosexual Exiting Relationship Suddenly

It’s normal to feel sad and lonely after breaking up — I would be worried if you didn’t feel sad and lonely right now — but you shouldn’t feel bad about your sexual orientation. If you have the bandwidth to feel anything else right now, UGHERS, you should feel angry at your ex-girlfriend.

Not wanting to fuck all of humanity doesn’t mean you’re missing out on half. I’m sure there are lots of men in your life you like and one or two you love. You love your dad, UGHERS, maybe you have brother or two you love, and friends, neighbors, and coworkers who are men that you like very much. While I’m exclusively attracted to males, I loved my mom and I love my sister and I have friends, neighbors, and coworkers who are women that I like very much. Nothing about being

MASK 4 MASK

romantically and sexually attracted to one sex exclusively — in your case or in mine — means we’re missing out on half of humanity. It was manipulative, disrespectful, and unkind of your ex-girlfriend to blame the conflict that doomed your relationship on your hard-wired aversion to dick and love of pussy. And it’s not like things would’ve worked out if you had somehow come to love dick as much as she did: you wanted monogamy, she wanted the freedom to fuck anyone she wanted — including good friends — without having to take your feelings into consideration. Even if you were sexually compatible, which you weren’t, you were romantically incompatible.

So, you had a good run, you had some good times, you tried to make it work, but it wasn’t going to work out — you were never going to happy — and you called it. Basically, UGHERS, you reached that tipping point where staying with someone causes more pain than moving forward without them. But unlike the slowly accumulating pain of staying, the pain moving forward without someone — the pain of dumping someone you wanted to be with — comes crashing down on you all at once. But trust me: that pain becomes more bearable with every passing day, every late-night phone call to a friend, and every letter you send to an advice-columnist. In a year or two you may be able to reconnect with your ex and enjoy the kind of loving friendship so many lesbians have with their exes — it’s the lesbian superpower — but you need time away from her for now. And don’t make the rookie heartbreak mistake of waiting until you feel like you’re completely over your ex before you start dating again. When you feel like you’re almost ready, UGHERS, you’re ready.

P.S. For the record: Most men have dicks, most dicks have men — but not all men have dicks, not all dicks have men; most lesbians aren’t into dick, some lesbians like it fine; most gay men are into dick, not all gay men require it; bisexuals exist and they’re valid; homosexuals exist and they’re valid; straight people exist and don’t require validation, etc., etc., etc.

Got problems? Yes, you do. Send your question to mailbox@savage.love!

Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love

Notice is hereby given by AAMCO Transmissions #46851 11696 Dixie Hwy, Louisville, KY 40272 502-933-4747 to obtain title. Owner has 21 days to respond in writing.2014 FORD ESCAPE VIN#1FMCU0GX5EUD64382, owner Michael or Shantae Rorex1134 Okolona Terrace, Louisville, KY 40219 Lien holder AUTO VENTURE ACCEPT 6626 Preston Hwy, Louisville, KY 40219.

Notice is hereby given by AAMCO Transmissions #46851 11696 Dixie Hwy, Louisville, KY 40272 502-933-4747 to obtain title. Owner has 21 days to respond in writing. 2016 CHEVROLET TRAVERS VIN#1GNKVGKD5GJ182339, owner Musick Thomas Harris III 5504 Littleridge Drive, Louisville, KY 40229. Lien holder ALPINE AUTO FINANCE PO BOX 20831, LOUISVILLE, KY 40250 Lien holder EAGLE FINANCIAL SERVICES 7100 PRESTON HWY #104, LOUISVILLE, KY 40219

Notice is hereby given by AAMCO Transmissions #46851 11696 Dixie Hwy, Louisville, KY 40272 502-933-4747 to obtain title. Owner has 21 days to respond in writing.2012 DODGE JOURNEY VIN#3C4PDDDGXCT148083, owner Reginald Steele or Mariesha Cromwell-Steele 11702 Tazwell Drive, Louisville, KY 40245 Lien holder EXETER FIN LLC PO BOX 677, Wilmington, OH 45177.

Professional Opportunities

Arvato USA LLC, Louisville, KY

Business Intelligence Expert, Perform data compilation, data mgmt, data analysis & reporting. Extract & enhance data from multiple sources & compile into meaningful insights to drive action within org. Requirements: Bachelor’s in IT, Data Analytics, Data Sci, Engineering or rel & 2 yrs exp as a BI Expert, BA, or Data Analyst in Logistics/3PL. 2 yrs exp: working on global teams across time zones & working w/: SAP; Microsoft PowerBI, SAP S/4HANA; SAP BI 7.3, BEx Query; BEx Analyzer, SQL, Jira & Visio. Sr. Logistics Engr, Louisville, KY. Build & design warehouse structures w/ AutoCAD. Work w/IT SAP Super Users on system setups, & procurement on vendor mgmt to implement power, data, HVAC & security reqs. Coordinate conveyor system layouts, control schema, & dev of mech manuals, preventative maintenance schedules, & maintenance guides. Requirements: Master’s Mechanical Engineering, Engineering Technology, or rel & 3 yrs as Mech Engr or rel. 3 yrs w/:Access; SQL; Visual Basic; AutoCAD; PowerBI; PowerApps; Power Automate; TPS Methodologies; & WCS/ WMS Systems & automation control schema. 1 yr PM exp. 5% travel. Apply to Anette. peterson@arvato-scs.com. indicating position of interest.

Pursuant to KRS 376.480, the following abandoned mobile home located at 5 Royal Drive, at Southland Mobile Home Community, Louisville, Kentucky shall be sold by Southland via sealed bid on Friday, May 10, 2024 at 10:00 AM to recover rent, storage and legal fees incurred by the owners of said mobile home. The sealed bids will be accepted at 401 Outer Loop, Louisville, KY 40214. Title to the mobile home is not warranted, subject to prior liens and all sales are final. Seller reserves the right to bid. Terms of sale cash only.

Unknown Heirs or Beneficiaries

Unknown Owner(s) or Creditor(s)

Year: 1999

Make: Fleet Model: Reflect

VIN: TNFLX26A54072RL12

Located at 5 Royal Drive, at Southland Mobile Home Community

Now Hiring: Executive Director The Shelby County Community Theatre is looking for its next Executive Director. Salary $30,000 per year, minimum 30 hours per week. A full job description is available at shelbytheatre.org/executivedirector. To apply, send resume and cover letter to sachanp@msn.com.

DOUBLE DUTY

Tracy Gray lives in Hunt Valley, Md. She and her husband recently retired after 35 years of owning and operating a lawn-andlandscaping business outside Baltimore. This puzzle started with its title, which Tracy then brainstormed themes to fit — the crossword equivalent of putting the cart before the horse.