Tag Archives: Indianapolis

Indiana State Fair 2022 Photos, Part 5 of 6: The Expo Hall Baby Farm Animal Takeover

August 21, 2022 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
piggies napping!

These little piggies went “zzzz zzzz zzzz” all the way home!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

When I was a kid, Expo Hall was one of the most interesting buildings to visit at the fairgrounds. Back in those days, various small businesses (indie shops, booksellers, home repair services, satellite TV providers, educational toys, and so on) lined up booths in the hall and gave out tons of promotional freebies — free pencils and pens, free stickers, free candy, free rulers, free flimsy coloring books, and so on. As an adult I lost enthusiasm when company reps stopped the freebies and focused their energies on annoyingly intrusive huckstering and hard sales pitches for boring products, with one or two exceptions. Last year the booths were noticeably sparser, longtime welcome participants like the great South Bend Chocolate Company were nowhere in sight, and those who did show up seemed more desperate and/or shady than ever. The childhood charm was next to nonexistent, and the place was probably about 1-2 years away from takeover by NFT shills.

It’s therefore hard to blame State Fair officials for shaking up the status quo and trying something completely different this year. All the salespeople were ejected from Expo Hall and replaced with a different kind of spectacle: baby farm animals!

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Indiana State Fair 2022 Photos, Part 4 of 6: The Year in Lego and Other Arts

August 21, 2022 By in Indiana, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
corn truck mural couch!

Someone prettied up a truck and set up an outdoor living room in front of it.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

Anne and I are at that age when we’re more interested in visiting the exhibit halls than we are in rattling our bones on the Midway rides. We enjoy seeing what new works of paint, photography, building blocks, and science have been offered up for the various competitions. The State Fair holds its massive celebrations on behalf of our farmers, but Indiana has no shortage of artists, either. They come from all demographics, work in multiple media, bring ideas from pop culture as well as from their own home life, and all contribute in their own ways to the Hoosier State hometown legacy.

In this case the largest artwork on the fairgrounds was an entire truck turned into a stationary mural. It was supposed to draw attention to an entire exhibit of tricked-out vehicles called the Mural Derby, but all the other participants were parked away from the main thoroughfare and out of sight behind the giant Ferris wheel, where we had no idea they existed till I looked it up just now, days after the fact. But at least we witnessed the one truck, which was nifty.

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Indiana State Fair 2022 Photos, Part 3 of 6: The Year in Canned Food Art

August 20, 2022 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
canned Baby Yoda!

Canned Grogu for the win!

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

One of the many creative events each year is the Canstruction contest, which isn’t necessarily exclusive to local 4-H youngsters. Canstruction is a charitable organization that holds nationwide events in which engineers and other clever planners compete against each other in building the best sculpture made entirely from canned goods, preferably in recognizable shapes and not ordinary stacks with boring titles like “The Can-Can”. After the judging and the public displaying are over, all those meticulously planned figures are torn down and the components are donated to local hunger relief charities, who in turn forward them to needy families totally unaware their next few meals used to be Art.

Possibly in keeping with this year’s “Fun at the Speed of Summer” theme, each team of contestants made vehicles or vehicular acccessories out of cans, starting with the floating space crib in our lead photo. Some machines were built for more speed than others.

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Indiana State Fair 2022 Photos, Part 2 of 6: The Year of Speed

August 19, 2022 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
ECTO-1!

Sure, we’ve seen the Ghostbusters’ car at numerous conventions over the years…but this was our first time seeing one in mood lighting.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context…

For years every State Fair had a special food theme — the Year of Popcorn! The Year of the Tomato! The Year of the Soybean! The Year of Dairy! And so on. After they ran out of major Indiana crops to spotlight, management switched to selecting inedible themes, unrelated to food and often more intangible. This year’s logline was “Fun at the Speed of Summer”, a combined celebration of the Indianapolis 500 and the various automotive companies who’ve had factories and other major presences in the Hoosier State over the past century or more. In other words: hooray for cars!

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Indiana State Fair 2022 Photos, Part 1 of 6: Our Year in Food

August 18, 2022 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
pickle pizza and me!

Presenting the winner of this year’s Taste of the Fair competition. No, not me.

It’s that time again! The Indiana State Fair is an annual celebration of Hoosier pride, farming, food, and 4-H, with amusement park rides, cooking demos, concerts by musicians either nearly or formerly popular, and farm animals competing for cash prizes without their knowledge. My wife Anne and I attend each year as a date-day to seek new forms of creativity and imagination within a local context.

Usually we’re all about the food. On Thursdays they have “$3 Thursday” specials, for which every food vendor joins in the sale with at least one item for that price, whether it’s a smaller portion of an existing item or a chintzy, non-special soft drink. Above and beyond that, each year a new lineup of “Taste of the Fair” offerings showcases new ideas from assorted stands in hopes of luring in foodies and/or impressing attendees who want to do more every year than simply eating the same corn dog again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The lineup is announced weeks in advance so everyone can plan their meals and experiments accordingly. Every year, some vendors are more ambitious than others — arguably even more so this year, mired as we are in the current inflationary era where gambling on new products can kill your bottom line if you’re not careful. But at least some tried.

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Not Put Asunder, 18 Years and Counting

July 18, 2022 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Thanos and Us!

Anne and me and an intergalactic madman makes three.

It’s that time again! Another year of shockingly blissful marriage to the amazing Anne, another anniversary dinner to celebrate, and another completely unrelated lead image.

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The 2021 Birthday at Newfields, Part 2 of 2: Arts of a Whole

May 29, 2022 By in Indiana, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
LOVE jazz hands!

The birthday gal and this writer in front of a replica of Robert Indiana’s iconic Love, which I’m pretty sure used to be on the art museum lawn.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a one-day road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. Well, except last October when it was her turn, Anne wanted to keep her special outing simple — a single day spent together here in town. We managed to find some pretty things for the occasion at Newfields, the institution formerly known as the Indianapolis Museum of Art… Continue reading →

The 2021 Birthday at Newfields, Part 1 of 2: Light Show Van Gogh-Gogh

May 23, 2022 By in Indiana, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Anne on phone!

Anne strolls through a scintillating art kaleidoscope, unaware she’s posing for my work computer wallpaper.

In addition to our annual road trips, my wife Anne and I have a twice-yearly tradition of spending our respective birthdays together traveling to some new place or attraction as a one-day road trip — partly as an excuse to spend time together on those most wondrous days, partly to explore areas we’ve never experienced before. We’re the Goldens. It’s who we are and what we do.

Well, except during raging pandemics before vaccines are ready. Or when one of us isn’t in the mood. Last October when it was her turn, Anne wanted to keep her special outing simple — a single day spent together here in town.

We managed to find some pretty things for the occasion at Newfields, the institution formerly known as the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Last year they emptied out their top floor and converted it into a temporary, floor-wide installation with a very different approach to art. Instead of hanging paintings on the walls, they turned out the lights, turned the walls into projection screens, and filled the place with a rotating array of blown-up paintings. The montages emphasize the works of Vincent Van Gogh, but other Impressionists might be in the mix, along with works from at least one other continent altogether.

Welcome to the Lume.

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A Night with Neil Gaiman in Indianapolis

May 17, 2022 By in Comics/Lit, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Neil Gaiman at Clowes Hall Indianapolis!

Artist’s rendition of the evening. (DISCLAIMER: Artist never learned how to Photoshop.)

Dateline: Monday, May 16, 2022 – Tonight I stepped foot on the campus of Butler University for the first time in 19 years because the Neil Gaiman thoughtfully included Indianapolis on his current cross-country speaking tour, and Clowes Hall was the venue of choice for the occasion. In exchange for this rare opportunity, strict rules were implemented. Rule #1: Masks were required. Freebies were handed out to those who needed them. No problem: I brought my own.

Rule #2: No photos or video during the performance. This isn’t an unusual or oppressive rule to me (especially not video — no pivoting to same on this website), but whenever this rule is laid down and I’m itching to share the story online, most venues have something I can photograph as a memento of the event in lieu of the performers themselves — a marquee, a billboard, a cardboard standee, any kind of one-night-only visual prop as evidence that a festive occasion was in store. Clowes Hall had absolutely nothing. We might as well have been walking into calculus class.

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Indiana Comic Con 2022 Photos, Part 2 of 2: Stars and Stuff!

April 17, 2022 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
John de Lancie!

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. John de Lancie! (Imagine .gif of Kermit the Frog cheering and flailing.)

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the eighth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention [read: ““Indiana Comic Con”] at the Indiana Convention Center in ICC 2022 was another opportunity to flip through old comics, meet people who create reading matter, boggle at toy displays, continue watching anime fandom multiply ever more dauntingly, and find space to breathe among or away from those cheerfully ever-growing crowds. It felt good to be back inside our own hometown shindig space.

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Indiana Comic Con 2022 Photos, Part 1 of 2: Cosplay!

April 16, 2022 By in Conventions & Events Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Powerpuff Girls!

Buttercup! Bubbles! Blossom! The Powerpuff Girls!

It’s that time again! This weekend my wife Anne and I attended the eighth edition of the Indiana Comic Convention at the Indiana Convention Center in scenic downtown Indianapolis. It was formerly called simply “Indiana Comic Con”, then subjected to light cosmetic rephrasing after the owners of the San Diego Comic Con were bitten by a radioactive ambulance chaser and began suing other comic cons in a desperate attempt to prevent the very common phrase “comic con” from becoming a very common phrase for comic cons, as very commonly used by every comic-con attendee ever. Anyone who actually calls it “the Indiana Comic Convention” either has a mandatory work-related reason to do so or far too many neckties in their closet.

ICC 2022 was another opportunity to flip through old comics, meet people who create reading matter, boggle at toy displays, continue watching anime fandom multiply ever more dauntingly, and find space to breathe among or away from those cheerfully ever-growing crowds. Our last time at ICC was back in 2018, the end of a five-year run for us. We missed the 2019 edition due to a severe geek-related schedule conflict and skipped last year’s autumn revival because the short guest list had a certain “too soon” quality to it. After leaving the safety of our home for shows in other states last fall and last weekend, it felt good to be back inside our own hometown shindig space.

While we recuperate and wait for our feet to forgive us for their punishment, please enjoy this collection of cosplayers who brightened the day around the show floor. The jazz-hands photo ops and other obligatory details will be shared in the other chapter because everyone loves costumes. We regret we can only represent a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the total cosplay wonderment that was on display this weekend. We’re just an aging couple doing what we can for happy sharing fun. Enjoy! Corrections welcome if we misidentified anyone!

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Five Miles Out from the Walmart Volcano

March 17, 2022 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Walmart volcano!

Lead photo by my wife Anne, who got wind of the event before I did.

I nearly called this “The Day They Nuked Walmart”, but that’s even less accurate and I’m told this isn’t a great moment in history to joke about nukes. One day nuke jokes shall make a comeback, possibly on my watch but not necessarily today.

What were we talking about? Oh, right, I didn’t mention it yet:

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Indianapolis Super Bowl XLVI Memories, Part 3: The Village and the City

February 10, 2022 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
JW Marriott, Super Bowl 46!

The J.W. Marriott was a recent addition to the downtown skyline and clearly marked where the party started,

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Once upon a time, and exactly once, Indianapolis hosted a Super Bowl. Back in 2012 our li’l city earned its first chance to host the big game. Thanks to tremendous teamwork among numerous organization and bodies cooperating under Mayor Greg Ballard, the Circle City welcomed untold thousands of visitors for a super-sized weekend of football mania, Hoosier tourism, and limited-time-only activities that welcomed all brought our downtown alive. It was a unique occasion that everyone in town could appreciate, including those of us who aren’t into sports, have never watched an entire football game — nary a Super Bowl, not even for the ads — and have never been invited to a Super Bowl party. We found ways to get into the spirit of the proceedings anyway.

All of this happened three months before Midlife Crisis Crossover launched. At the time I simply shared pics and stories with online friends, then reused a tiny selection of that material here on MCC one year later. I can’t remember why I was so stingy and only reposted eleven photos from among the dozens of relevant ones, including an entire quest involving citywide art. This past week our local media outlets have been holding their tenth-anniversary celebrations of that time we all did a Super Bowl together. That means it’s the perfect time for a remastered version of the tale of how we spent January 27-28, 2012, the weekend before Super Bowl 46…this time in trilogy form!

It all comes down to this: the other stuff we saw in and around downtown Indy in those momentous days when hometown pride was at an all-time high and football fervor dwarfed the local loves of auto racing and our precious basketball for just a bit.

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Super Bowl XLVI Indianapolis Memories, Part 2 of 3: (Some of) the 46 for XLVI Murals

February 6, 2022 By in Indiana, Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
PAmela Bliss, My Affair with Kurt Vonnegut.

“My Affair with Kurt Vonnegut” by Pam Bliss, one of the city’s fan-favorite murals, stands along trendy Massachusetts Ave.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Once upon a time, and exactly once, Indianapolis hosted a Super Bowl. Back in 2012 our li’l city earned its first chance to host the big game. Thanks to tremendous teamwork among numerous organization and bodies cooperating under Mayor Greg Ballard, the Circle City welcomed untold thousands of visitors for a super-sized weekend of football mania, Hoosier tourism, and limited-time-only activities that welcomed all brought our downtown alive. It was a unique occasion that everyone in town could appreciate, including those of us who aren’t into sports, have never watched an entire football game — nary a Super Bowl, not even for the ads — and have never been invited to a Super Bowl party. We found ways to get into the spirit of the proceedings anyway.

All of this happened three months before Midlife Crisis Crossover launched. At the time I simply shared pics and stories with online friends, then reused a tiny selection of that material here on MCC one year later. I can’t remember why I was so stingy and only reposted eleven photos from among the dozens of relevant ones, including an entire quest involving citywide art. This past week our local media outlets have been holding their tenth-anniversary celebrations of that time we all did a Super Bowl together. That means it’s the perfect time for a remastered version of the tale of how we spent January 27-28, 2012, the weekend before Super Bowl 46…this time in trilogy form!

Regarding the aforementioned art quest:

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Super Bowl XLVI Indianapolis Memories, Part 1 of 3: The NFL Experience

February 5, 2022 By in Conventions & Events, Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Indianapolis giant football!

Giant inflatable football poised over a small-scale simulated football field. Neither was in use but could’ve made a fun combination.

Once upon a time, and exactly once, Indianapolis hosted a Super Bowl. Back in 2012 our li’l city earned its first chance to host the big game. Thanks to tremendous teamwork among numerous organization and bodies cooperating under Mayor Greg Ballard, the Circle City welcomed untold thousands of visitors for a super-sized weekend of football mania, Hoosier tourism, and limited-time-only activities that welcomed all brought our downtown alive. It was a unique occasion that everyone in town could appreciate, including those of us who aren’t into sports, have never watched an entire football game — nary a Super Bowl, not even for the ads — and have never been invited to a Super Bowl party. We found ways to get into the spirit of the proceedings anyway.

All of this happened three months before Midlife Crisis Crossover launched. At the time I simply shared pics and stories with online friends, then reused a tiny selection of that material here on MCC one year later. I can’t remember why I was so stingy and only reposted eleven photos from among the dozens of relevant ones, including an entire quest involving citywide art. This past week our local media outlets have been holding their tenth-anniversary celebrations of that time we all did a Super Bowl together. That means it’s the perfect time for a remastered version of the tale of how we spent January 27-28, 2012, the weekend before Super Bowl 46…this time in trilogy form!

Continue reading →

Halloween Stats 2021: Sunday Night’s Alright for Frighting

October 31, 2021 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
ban-ANNE-a!

Anne breaks out the ol’ banana costume to entertain the Sunday school kids. It’s a fun job and someone’s got to do it.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: each year since 2008 I’ve kept statistics on the number of trick-or-treaters brave enough to approach our doorstep during the Halloween celebration of neighborhood unity and no-strings-attached strangers with candy. I began tracking our numbers partly for future candy inventory purposes and partly out of curiosity, so now it’s a tradition for me. Like many bloggers there’s a stats fiend in me that thrives on taking head counts, even when we’re expecting discouraging results.

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Emerging From Tombs

April 4, 2021 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
My wife after getting her second Pfizer vaccine.

Anne proudly remembering to grab herself a validation sticker after failing to on the first go-around.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: pandemic. Pandemic! PANDEMIC! How much longer, we all wonder? When will we as a planet — or at least as a country, or really just statewide would be nice — reach that quixotic goal of “herd immunity”? When can we go back to wandering within 2-3 feet of each other and resume absentmindedly taking everyday life for granted again? For us, Easter weekend represented another stepping stone toward that goal.

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A Sunday Brunch Between Hope and Impatience

March 14, 2021 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Pandemic Dining.

The lovely lady and stalwart companion peruses the menu in a dining room section we nearly have all to ourselves.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: over the past several months my wife Anne and I have made infrequent outings to local restaurants using the guidelines I set forth in my previous listicle about how we do pandemic dining without getting killed or killing others. The TL;DR version:

  • Masks, masks, masks, masks for for all the reasons
  • Multinational chains will survive without us, so aim for locals
  • Just the two of us, no guests from other households
  • Places that take reservations generally plan better, so make them
  • Eat pricey for maximum desertion
  • Eat during slow hours when no one else is eating
  • Don’t overstay the welcome

Last Sunday morning we stepped out of the house again. In a way, we had cause for celebration. That phrase hasn’t come up for us often during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Stranded 40 Feet from Home

February 19, 2021 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
My car, stuck at the foot of our stupid driveway.

Cold day. Cold irony.

This week the teeming cloud hordes of Old Man Winter barreled across the American skies and bludgeoned entire states and regions into total pandemonium. Blizzards dumped heavy swaths all around as if half the United States were now honorary Minnesotas. Schools and other community activities that had opened their doors to welcome COVID-19 and its carriers reneged and locked their doors. Power grids failed. Water pipes seized up. Numerous utility companies faced wrathful accountability for their shortsightedness, for skimping on precautionary upgrades, and for being smug greed-heads. Homes became inhospitable and even dangerous, forcing families to seek shelter, charity, and survival elsewhere. The turmoil dragged on for hours and days even after the snowfall ceasefire. Millions of internet users distracted themselves by logging onto their devices by candlelight, their batteries down to 15% or less, and channeling their unchecked rage into scathing verbal attacks on the Zodiac Killer. This week was like 2020 all over again, much like all the 2021 weeks that preceded it, but, like, somehow in its own way even 2020-ier.

Me? I got my car stuck at the end of our driveway.

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Delighting in Delicacies, Not Pounds of Pasta

February 11, 2021 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Agnello & Caprino!

Dinner for Anne at Catellos: the Agnello and Caprino — rack of lamb atop pappardelle in a red wine sauce with shallots and herbs on a bed of goat cream sauce.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: last fall we shared our tips for supporting local restaurants in person during the never-ending pandemic without a churlish kill-or-be-killed approach. We still don’t dine out too often because COVID-19, but when we do, that listicle’s ten bullet points remain firmly at the forefront of my planning anxieties.

That entry was written during another Devour Indy occasion, a twice-yearly citywide event here in Indianapolis when local restaurateurs — nationwide chains need not apply — offer specially priced prix fixe menus to entice new customers to come sample a few of their wares. My wife Anne and I are fans of the event, but we usually skip the sale items and check out what’s on the main menu. It lets us try places we’ve never been, and it helps them recoup the considerable costs of participation. A few weeks ago, it was that time again.

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