KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010 / NEWS
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Steele said.
Steele and his research team has been working on the program Positively Fit for the past six years. The program focuses on assisting overweight children through lifestyle changes.
"We don't want to send the message that food is bad." Steele said. "We want to establish positive changes."
A question and answer session followed the presentations. Audience members asked questions concerning the various economic effects and moral issues of food.
"With programs like this, you get the whole puzzle not just the pieces."
"The discussion helped me feel like I wasn't the only one struggling with these issues," Metzler said.
Valerie Metzler, a senior from Bonner Springs, started buying food for herself this year. She said it was difficult to weigh the economic and moral decisions involved.
"We hoped food was something
Students interested in the social side of food focused on things such as production.
in the future," said Brittany Ersery, a second-year social work graduate student from Kansas City, Mo.
"It is definitely something that needs to be added to our research
The event started as a result of debates between students in the different departments of the research concerning food, Chris Grosh, program planner and KU alumnus, said.
CHRIS GROSH program planner
everyone could relate to and talk about," said Yelena Wu, program planner and a graduate student from Newton. Mass
The University's Office of Research and Graduate Studies, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Undergraduate Anthropology Association sponsored the event. Undergraduate Anthropology Association members and faculty hope to continue similar interdisciplinary programs in the future, Grosh said.
"With programs like this, you get the whole puzzle — not just the pieces," Grosh said.
Edited by Michael Holtz
Pellet gun robber runs out of gas
NATIONAL
ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. — A robbery suspect found himself out of luck after running out of gas.
Police say Justin P. Roberts,
of Craig, Colo., is charged with
aggravated robbery.
Wyoming police were called at 2:16 a.m. Sunday when a restaurant in Wamsutter had been robbed by a man brandishing a handgun. No one was hurt.
At about 5:25 a.m., a man matching the suspect's description was found by police about 60 miles west. His vehicle had run out of gas on the interstate. Police recovered a pellet gun and $231 in cash.
House fire used as cover for murders
CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — Two 33-year-old men have been charged in connection with a Long Island house fire in which three people were found shot to death.
Thomas Singletary, of Central
Islip (EYE-'slip), pleaded not guilty to arson on Monday and was ordered held on S1 million cash bail.
A Suffolk County prosecutor's spokesman says Hasan Vaughan, also of Central Islip, faces arraignment Feb. 4 on criminal charges in a sealed indictment.
Investigators say the fire was set to cover the killings.
Wolfson to join Bloomberg staff
NEW YORK — The bare-knuckle media strategist who advised Hillary Clinton and helped re-elect Mayor Michael Bloomberg is joining the billion aire mayor's administration.
A person close to Bloomberg told The Associated Press on Monday that Howard Wolfson will advise the mayor on communications, policy and political strategy. The person insisted on anonymity because the announcement hadn't been made.
He's expected to start in March.
Associated Press
Q&A with Yo La Tengo
Member of indie group interviews with Jayplay
BY ALEX GARRISON
aqarrison@kansan.com
James McNew, bassist for Yo La tengo, spoke with Jayplay in a phone interview last week. McNew joined the husband and wife duo of Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley in 1992.
"Popular Songs" is Yo La Tengo's 12th album. After working with Ira and Georgia for so long, how do you keep going, keep things fresh?
I wish I had an answer, but I don't. And I think the fact that I don't have a ready answer to that question we get asked a lot is the key. To have no answer to such a broad, obvious question — I'm all in favor of that. It's really more fun to attribute it to magic.
Yo La Tengo is referred to as a so-called "indie super-group"—a popular underground band. How do you like this seemingly oxymoronic reputation?
It's not as though we're not happy when people like what we do. It's awesome when that happens. We are well known in certain circles but, then again, we're not known at all. It just kind of depends on who you're talking to — with the staff at KJHK, we're practically Lady Gaga, but with the people who work at the grocery store in my neighborhood, they don't know who we are. So maybe that's something to work for.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Yo La Tengo has been around a long time and garnered a lot of critical acclaim for each one of its albums. How do you find your music changing over time? Do you try to keep relevant to trends going on now?
but we don't try to keep up with other people. It's fun and satisfying to work that way. The notion of reading blogs and music criticism under the guise of 'What are people doing now? We have to do that, too.' That just sounds like a nightmare. That doesn't sound like any fun at all. I think I would rather work at the post office than have to do stuff like that to stay afloat in music. Because I don't think there are too many postal blogs to keep you abreast of what younger postal workers are up to.
We like to make music that's kind of challenging to us and we like to move outward when we're writing songs and playing songs,
You're known for having a great record collection and not only being influential to younger bands through your work but through your extensive cover versions of lesser-known bands. Do you try to educate people about music history through your work?
All the songs come from playing together. None of us really sit at home and craft songs to teach to the others, we just get together and play. Music is an extension of our conversations and of our friendship. It feels natural. It's more fun just to get together and play for the sake of playing. In a fancier way, we could say we experiment and improvise, but really, we just mess around.
We like a lot of music, we play a lot of cover songs, but we don't play them because we want people to know who the Urinals were, we play them because we love them. We love a lot of music and love a lot of records and we love making it, too. That's really the driving force behind what keeps us together and keeps us going.
We've been coming to Lawrence for pretty much the total history of the group. We've played at the Bottleneck for, good lord, a long time, and it's part of my permanent touring memories. The first tour I ever did went through
Vo La Tengo will be playing a concert at the Granada, 1020 Massachusetts St., tonight. James McNew (right), the bassist, with Javolain last week.
Lawrence is the smallest city on your tour. Why come through?
What's your creative process for writing songs with Yo La Tengo?
Lawrence and I knew about the city because of the embarrassment of that. It always seemed like, Why wouldn't we go to Lawrence? It seemed like a no-brainer.
Love Garden, mostly. I think it's one of the better record stores I've been to my whole life. There's just been something about that place that makes me feel proud to have what we do sold there. There's few record shops that make我 feel that way, but Love Garden does.
Other than the musical history, what do you like most about Lawrence?
Nope! I wouldn't spoil the surprise. We're psyched to be coming back. They'll be new songs, they'll be old songs, we'll play for a long time. We've been on tour for a few months now
What can we expect from your show tonight? Can you give us a preview?
Yo La Tengo and Times New Viking
9 p.m. at The Granada,
1020 Massachusetts St.
Tickets are $17 in advance from the Granada box office and Love Garden, 822 Massachusetts St., and $20 at the door
To hear the full interview and see photos from the show, check out Kansan.com/jayplay and listen to JKHK's "As Heard from the Hill" on 90.7fm and jkhk.org at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
and a lot of the things we've been working on have really come together well.
GRANT (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Spend $20 or more & receive a FREE Sml. order of Pokey Stix
Each applicant for the grant can earn up to $4,000 per project. The works must be "innovative, experimental, artist-driven, and artist-centered," according to the Spencer Museum of Art news release.
Saralyn Reece Hardy, director of The Spencer Museum of Art, said the Rocket Grants will help increase the national visibility of artists from the middle of the country, which is what the Warhol Foundation of Visual Arts, who fund the grants, aims to do.
Cowardin said he plans to create sculptures of various appliances out of the amount of coal required to operate those appliances.
"We want to stimulate culture, and for the museum to be involved with new experimentation within the arts," she said. "This is a wonderful opportunity for young artists who are trying new things."
Julia Cole, chairwoman or Interdisciplinary Arts at the Kansas City Art Institute, said a previous artist put her one-page drawing booklet in free newspaper stands, so everyone who took a paper received free art as well.
To apply for the grant, applicants must demonstrate that they will perform or publish their work to the public.
The projects must have a strong visual component, and may include performance, film, video, new media, social practice and interdisciplinary projects, according to the news release.
Hardy said the projects would be in unexpected locations and they would function as surprises.
"The strong focus of this art is that this would happen outside of typical gallery and museum spaces," Cole said.
Cowardin said instead of just talking about his ideas of "con-
museum setting, he would like to get it out into the community.
Upcoming Rocket Grants Informational Sessions
B i l l
Woodard,
director of
communications
at
The Spencer
Museum of
Thursday, Jan. 28, at noon at the Operation Breakthrough, 3039 Troost Ave., Kansas City, Mo.
Eligible applicants:
Where: Must be a resident within an 80-mile radius of the Kansas City metropolitan area, including Lawrence.
Groups: The artistic group can be long-standing or created specifically for this project. Please identify one participant to serve as the lead contact for the project. Non-profit organizations are not eligible.
Saturday, Feb. 6, at 10 a.m., at the UMKC Small Business and Technology Development Center, 4747 Troost Ave., Room 114.
Check the Spencer Museum of Art and Charlotte Street websites, e-mails and poster announcements for additional dates, times and locations for informational sessions.
Who: Artists, curators, collectives, collaboratives partnerships, and artist-run spaces. Full-time undergraduates are not eligible.
Source: The Spencer Art Museum news release
JULIA COLE Kansas City Art Institute
Art, said the program was an example of how the museum is trying to collaborate with arts entities in Kansas City and the surrounding area.
The Spencer Museum of Art and Kansas City's Charlotte Street Foundation have announced several informational sessions about Rocket Grants.
"It's designed to bring artists and societies together," Hardy said.
The deadline to apply for a Rocket
The next informational session will be Thursday at noon, at Operation Breakthrough, 3039 Troost Ave., Kansas City.
Grant through the program is April 2. Applicants should check the website for eligibility requirements. Full-time undergraduates are not eligible.
ART
Edited by Anna Archibald
Spencer receives large donation
The Spencer Museum of Art received a $200,000 gift last week from the Anschutz Foundation of Denver, according to a University news release.
The donation will be counted as matching funds toward a $1 million challenge grant awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to the museum in 2008. The Mellon
initiative aims to promote collaboration between university museums and academic departments, deepen faculty engagement with museums and strengthen the educational role of museum collections, the news release said.
So far the Spencer Museum of Art has received commitments of $578,797 toward the challenge grant.
Kevin Hardy