That’s right. Thursday night, July 26th, 2007 the Orange County Commission met and voted on the building of a new sports arena (for the Orlando Magic, the old one is to be sold and demolished), some renovations on the 70+ year old Citrus Bowl (home of the Capital One Bowl, the Champs Sports Bowl, and… not much else), and of most importance to you, the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center (see if you can get us to stop calling it OPAC any time soon).
“Betsy” Maupin has a bit of news about the PAC in her latest blog. John Kennedy (political blogger for the Sentinel) was giving semi-live updates during the meeting, and my new favorite news aggregator for Orlando, Outside.in, doesn’t have much news at all.
The best coverage of “the venues” by far has been the Orlando Weekly. Searching their site for “Pleasure Dome” or “Venues” will bring up lots of relevant results (including the several reasons why they were not interested in building a new arena or renovating the Citrus Bowl. The Orlando Weekly Blog has also been getting much more frequent updating lately, so if you’re into reading blogs, check out their RSS.
47 E Robinson St is the location of the new B&S Daily Market. Ryan Price talks with Manny and Ben about freshly roasted Volcano Coffee from Longwood, FL as well as a selection of beers, wine, magazines, newspapers, drinks, cigarettes, snacks and other daily needs. B&S is a fantastic alternative for those seeking a less corporate cup of coffee and friendly service. Did I mention free Wi-Fi?
More videos coming out every week on iTunes. If you’d like to get involved by suggesting an event or venue for us to highlight, get in touch with us at OrlandoScene.TV - thanks for watching.
Likemind.orl Photoset
Top: Dave, John
Left: Tim, Kit, Chris, Alex (thanks for the picture), Cory, Derek, Chris, and Ryan (me)
Also, Likemind.us had a one-year anniversary with free beer in New York today…. 
I missed it by a week. Congrats Piers and Noah. I think likemind is now in 30+ cities across the globe. Good times, good conversation, decent coffee and nametags too.
There’s a conversation about to get started on Beth Marshall’s MySpace about juried vs. non-juried festivals. She quotes and article from the Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) newspaper. Here’s a bit of it:
In Edinburgh, venuemanagers choose their plays. Professional work, which deserves a wider audience,debuts at the festival. Producers and talent scouts swarm the city, expecting andenjoying a certain level of quality.By contrast, the lottery system that has sustained and nurtured festivals throughoutNorth America contains a flaw that will always curtail growth. Truly challenging andtruly brave theatrical art drowns in a sea of amateurism. Edmonton’s most talentedwriters, directors and performers launched their careers at the festival, using it asan opportunity to learn and grow, but it’s hardly a destination for the country’s — oreven the city’s — best players. Some nights, sitting with two other people in Acacia Hall, as an accountant stumbles through a series of cliches about his cat, thedarkness of divorce and globalism, the Brave Fringer can’t help but wonder:
Shouldn’t I be watching a real play, or sleeping in my bed?
Surely Mayne and his colleagues know this, but the Fringe needs better plays, notbetter access to tickets, for a genuine breakthrough. And the only way to ensurequality is to circumvent the lottery system, partially at first, with juried venues.
Our monthly “coffee and coworking” event is happening this Friday, Likemind.orl, sponsored by Anomaly. Piers and Noah will be celebrating one year of Likemind.us in New York, and we’re going to help them (sleepily) in Orlando by drinking coffee near Lake Eola at an early hour. There will be nametags, Alex, Ryan (me) and a small cast of people who work downtown. We are encouraged to take pictures (I’m thinking video, less caption-writing…) and upload them to flickr tagged with “likemind”.
8:00 AM - ?11:00AM
Lake Eola Panera Bread
Northeast Corner of the lake
Corner of Robinson and Eola Dr.
A big thanks to everyone who came out to Florida Creatives on Monday - the strong presences by NFI Studios and the SomaCow Media Network make me feel really good about the long-term validity of a local “glue network” where groups gather in one big meta-group. Now we just need more traditional artists to realise the value of the group (or to check their email, is there some better way we can get to them?). We are doing well with the new media types and programmers, and I’m very very glad we can get together and openly discuss what’s going on with us, with out community, and the rest of the world.
There are people I run into around town - poets, artists, musicians, filmmakers, actors and the like who I actively recruit to attend, yet haven’t been able to make it yet. We had a remote happy hour across the street from the Enzian once, and that had a great film turn-out in addition to the regular gang. The Fringe Festival meetup kindof got lost in the general hullaballoo, and I think some active flyering can help at big events and remote events.
Though there’s no mention of it on the Grandma Party page, I know this to be true because I picked up a flier last night at Stardust. My favorite outdoor event in Orlando is growing. The Grandma Party is something I had the privilege of getting involved with in its second incarnation in April of 2006 for Earth Day. Since then, I’ve followed the event and tried to post updates related to the event as often as possible. Here’s the event info:
Granny’s Sunday Nite Scrap Meet
Sunday, July 15th, 7:00 PM
“bring in all your old/unwanted fabric and art supplies and trade ‘em in something new (well, new to you!)”
The flier says you’ll be able to bring in your scraps and craft supplies a bit earlier to add to the pile. Interesting upon interesting is that Stardust sells hard liquor now… who’d have thought that would happen? Pretty cool, though.
I hope that events like Granny’s Scrap Meet mean that we’ll be seeing more out of Casey and the Grandma Party crew as time goes on. I’m a big supporter of anything this group does. The spirit, the people, the quality goods for sale and the community support have been really fantastic surrounding this event. They really have all the ingredients to help make the Orlando DIY community something special.
Lotsa lotsa things going on lately - changes going on at the Liberatr.net / Blogging Fringe / OrlandoScene.TV / Florida Creatives offices (my desk). Still, I can’t NOT announce this.
Theatre downtown is giving some of the best Fringe shows a chance to do an encore - not all of them, not all the patron’s picks, just whoever they asked or whoever agreed to do it - plenty of shows have other performances, like VarieTEASE at Parliament House. Anyway, lots of our Fringe favorites will be playing in early August, just a scant block away from Loch Haven Park.
Here’s the schedule:
Friday Aug. 3:
7 p.m. Screw You Revue
8:30 p.m. Zombie Girlfriend
10:30 p.m. Stupid Kids
Midnight Midnight Snack
Saturday Aug. 4
6 p.m. Midnight Snack
7:30 p.m. Stupid Kids
9:30 p.m. Screw You Revue
10:30 p.m. Zombie Girlfriend
Sunday Aug. 5
5:30 p.m. Screw You Revue
7 p.m. Midnight Snack
Thursday Aug. 9
8 p.m. Screw You Revue
Friday Aug. 10
7:30 p.m. Screw You Revue
9 p.m. Stupid Kids
10:30 p.m. Zombie Girlfriend
Saturday Aug. 11
6 p.m. Zombie Girlfriend
7:30 p.m. Stupid Kids
9 p.m. Midnight Snack
10:30 p.m. Screw You Revue
Tickets are $10 apiece. Call Theatre Downtown at 407-841-0083 for further info.
