Saturday, October 24, 2009

Cyclocross this Sunday in Riverside Park!

Our friend Brendan Mahoney of The Beat Bike Blog sent this invite in:

Presented by the Central Connecticut Bicycle Alliance and CT-NEMBA, CycloCross returns to Hartford this October at Riverside Park. If you're racing, enjoy the picturesque setting next to the Connecticut River while wallowing in the mud and take in views of the Hartford skyline as you trudge up the 40 foot high levee. The first race is at 10:00am and the last one starts at 2:00pm. It's free to watch, so stop by. Central Wheel, REI, Hooker Brewing Company and Ghostship Clothing have signed on as sponsors.

More from Brendan's invitation:
For those of you unfamiliar with cyclocross, it's a form of bicycle racing with bikes that kind of look like road bikes, but they have wider, knobby tires and cantilever brakes, instead of calipers. The races take place on off-road courses, usually in parks and that are generally artificial. They aren't as difficult or as long as mountain bike courses. The courses also feature barriers that require the riders to dismount and jump over, and a "run up" (or several), which is a steep section that requires riders to dismount and, well, run up.

Cyclocross races take place in the fall and early winter, after the road and mountain bike racing series are over. This form of racing is about seventy or eighty years old and grew out of the idea of giving bike racers something to do to keep fit in the off season. It's really, really big in the low countries of Europe. It's been raced in the US for awhile. New England is sort of renowned/infamous for its difficult muddy, rooty and rocky courses. The races are generally fun and spectator friendly because the courses are pretty short and have the potential to be crash-laden. If you have an interest in racing, you can pre-register here.

See you Sunday,
Brendan

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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

PHH: Up, Up and Awayyyy...

Billy's Balloon by Don Hertzfeld
Remember that nice Astronaut lady with the wild eyes who put on a diaper and drove literally a thousand miles to kill her ex-boyfriend astronaut or whatever? Hahaha...diapers.  Yeah, what happened with that?  If you were the other Astronauts who weren't crazy, how would you have gone about your lives?  Well, it is pretty rare that somebody absolutely CRAZY dominates our American headlines like....

OMIGOD OMIGOD!!  THERE IS A BOY IN A BALLOON IN THE SKY, YOU GUYS!  Somebody save him!  Scramble the Air Force!  Ready the missles!  Holy crap...THE BALLOON IS EMPTY!!  Oh noes!  Wait...whazzat?  The balloon boy is alive at home, and was in the attic all along?  Yayyayyay!!  Let's hear more about this fascinating family!  So the parents were reality show teevee stars?  And the boy is named "Falcon?"  And it's a complete publicity hoax?  And we just wasted an afternoon?  awesome!  Nice job, everybody.  Today, we are all heroes, because of CNN.

So Balloon Boy is alive and well and named Falcon and he didn't fall to his doom, and they tried to make up some "boys will be boys" story, so now we all can make JOKES on our Twitters and LiveJournals about it!  Like:  haha, maybe this was an attempt to write a South Park episode where Cartman crams Butters in a balloon.  Or how the "science" balloon had anything to do with friggin actual science, since it was a mylar balloon they bought at Wal-Mart shaped like a flying saucer so they could send it into the eyes of storms (in Denver!) without any weather equipment, and look for UFOs, because that's how Jodi Foster did it in "Contact."  SCIENCE!  Never mind that we could have used actual basic Physics or at least called the Mythbuster guys and found out that this story was impossible to begin with.  No, the real tragedy here is that there exists a reality show titled "Wife Swap" and apparently everybody is OK with that.

Since it's clear that hoaxes involving celebrity, dubious science, and crazy people are the new path to fame and fortune and reality shows, all you insane people show up tonight in your diapers at Kenny's Spaceport and Red Rock Balloon and Derigible Emporium.  NOTE: WE ARE SCRAPPING THE SAUCER BALLOON IDEA!  We will be plotting publicity stunts to get us a Gilligan's Island themed reality show.  We can "swap" pitchers and fries (get it?) until we come up with a stunt crazy AND believable.

Progressive Happy Hour.  369 Capitol Ave., Hartford, CT at 9:30 pm. 

Or is it?  Suckers.

--The Lindbergh Baby

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Monday, October 19, 2009

Free Hartford (October 19 - 24)

Artist Anne Cubberly has sent out her weekly email updating residents in and around Hartford of FREE happenings in our city. And she does this while getting ready for her upcoming big production at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art at the end of the month! List after the jump.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 19

Red Rock Tavern : 365 Capitol Ave

"Tame the Brain" trivia! MONDAY & EVERY MONDAY! Prizes for 1st, 2nd & 3rd place! Shot specials! Ryan Smart & Craig B. host every week!
8:00pm - 10:30pm

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20

La Paloma Sabanera Coffeehouse : 405 Capitol Ave
A reception and Art show featuring the photography of Marian L. Leyman
4:30- 7:30 pm

Hartford Stage: Studio 1, 942 Main St.
Join the winners of the Stage's youth play writing competition and see professional
actors bring their scripts to life.
7 pm

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21

Billings Forge: 539 Broad St. jlamotta@billingsforgeworks.org
Artists Residency : Tour the studios of artists Miguel Carter Fisher,
Kimberly Gill, Robert Charles Hudson & Greg Russell
some studios will be open from 6 - 9pm

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22

Trinity College: 300 Summit St. 860-297-2568
A.K. Smith Reading Series: Award winning poet Kevin Young will read with
a reception following. Located in Mather Hall.
4:30 pm

City Hall: 500 Main St. www.charteroakcenter.org
Murals by Carlos Hernandez Chavez
Opening reception: 5:30 pm

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art: 600 Main St.
Screening: The Rape of the Sabine Women with an Artist Talk
by Eve Sussman. In the Aetna Theatre
6:30 pm

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23

Theater of the Performing Arts: 359 Washington St.
Community Spelling Bee: Cheer on our local youth as they spell their
way to the top.
7 - 9 pm

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24

Hartford Public Library: 500 Main St.
Join us for a conversation on president Franklin D. Roosevelt's establishment
of the WPA and it's impact on Hartford-area artists.
11 am- 1 pm Hartford History Center

Hooker Day Parade: Allyn St.
"This is hands down the weirdest Parade in Hartford". Join your neighbors
in the parade or cheer them from the sidewalk !
3:00pm - 4:30pm


For More Free Events go to www.letsgoarts.org and look under " Fill your Social Calendar". The Greater Hartford Arts council has put together this great resource to find events. You can even do a "free" search !

CALL TO ARTISTS..............................

La Paloma Sabanera Coffee House is looking for artists interested
in displaying their work and /or writers interested in starting a writer's group
or book club. Contact Virginia Iacobucci 956-5003, viacobucci@snet.net


VOLUNTEERING..................................

Foodshare: Volunteer for Foodshare at Hartford Regional Market on Tuesdays, Fridays
or Saturdays. Contact john or Krista @ 860-286-9999

Hands On Hartford: 40 Pratt St. www.handsonhartford.org
Volunteer ! Check out there website and see all the ways you can connect with your community.

Hartford Stage: 50 Church St. www.hartfordstage.org
Ushers see the shows for free, go to the website to find out more.

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