Meet Artist Debbie Buchanan Engle this Saturday at 1:00

The opening reception for Debbie Buchanan Engle's show Mercy is this Saturday at Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, 3201 Centenary Boulevard, from 1:00 - 3:00. The opening is mentioned on this page at The Shreveport Times along with Su Stella's jewelry making workshop Saturday at The Barnwell Center.

P.S. We Googled Debbie Buchanan Engle, Artist, Shreveport and got these hits: She's on the ShreveportBossierfunguide. We rediscovered this video of her. We'd forgotten we made it earlier this year. There are even pics of her work from a Gender Studies Conference at Centenary College back in 06.

Hot Bungalows!

So maybe your house didn't make it into the new Highland Restoration Association Tour Guide because it isn't old enough.

There's another way for your home to be recognized. If you live in a bungalow, yours might be part of the current exhibit at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum.

James Eakin took the photos featured in the show. This Saturday from 1-3 is the reception. Special guest Sue Ball will share stories of bungalow living and Highland's past. Light refreshments will be served. Don't be surprised if the place is packed. The last HRA event at Meadows Museum was standing room only.

Bloggers

RRBJ has a section over to the left that says Red River Area Bloggers. We need to do a better job of updating it because there a couple of interesting reads we don't have listed. Voice of Schleuss is one. We just added Highland neighbor Deb. Don't know why don't have Loren Demerath's down.

If you want to be added to the list we do have some rules. We'd like for you to have been blogging for a couple of months before we list you (we're still pouting because Nadine hasn't updated since February).

Trudeau always has good reads listed on his two main blogs Shreveport and Faces. Did you know he also blogs here and here? It's fun finding these almost secret blogs. Almost as much fun as walking the dog at night in South Highlands just so we can look in the windows of all the houses that have the lights on and no drapes hanging. We are peeking in!

Twittering

Do you twitter?

Docublogging in SB Land

New skills are moving this blog into the world of Web 2.0. One day we hope to be as good as Ying Liu.

The video is of Loren Demerath. He's a professor at Centenary College. We first read about him on Trudeau's blog.

RRBJ is responsible for the knitting and editing of this short film.

Over

A bit of a mystery is happening at Betty Virginia. Letterboxing is sweeping the park.

Here's an odd but true history fact connected to Betty Virginia: A.C. Steere and his business partner donated the land in honor of their daughters. In July of 1930 Steere shot himself after Wall Street crashed in October 1929. He mistakenly believed he was financially ruined.

Pictured in black and white is the bridge over the bayou at the park. Centenary Professor Loren Demerath has an idea to get better use of these drainage ditches.

Picture of the Day

Hear, Speak No Evil
Originally uploaded by Schleuss.

Picture of the Day comes from Jon Schleuss -- a multi talented Centenary student whose fervor about communication is revolutionizing the college's radio station, KSCL.

Think you're too old and out of touch to like what those crazy college kids are doing on the airwaves? We know a 58 year-old white Republican man who is passionate about what he hears on 91.3 FM. Tune in but be prepared. It's not slick. It's earthy. And that's good because slick equals corporate radio and how boring has that become?

Plain Folk Houses - Backside

RRBJ intended to make it to BOTB 2008 but just a few steps away from The Shell the light diverted us. We filled our digital camera with images of the backside of a block of houses. Difficult to fathom a campus of the leisure class, with the time, money, and energy to pursue higher forms of education, is just across the street from where these were taken.

It is ironic that some of the papers of Jack London, with his need to escape extreme poverty, are housed at Centenary College. From the rear, these homes radiated decay. You'd never know this was the 100 block of Wilkinson, just across the street from the college's gravel parking lot #15.

Jon Schleuss has supah-dupah coverage on BOTB 2008 at the KSCL Blog.
We'd planned on posting this a couple of days ago but the RRBJ offices have been suffering with a Comcast Internet outage.

Those Crazy College Kids

They are calling it The Big Event. Early tomorrow Centenary College students, staff and faculty will take part in the community service project that will help folks in Highland with household tasks, such as scrapping and repainting shutters, raking, cleaning sidewalks, etc.

Later in the day it's back to the Shell on campus for the annual Battle of the Bands.

Dome O Books

The 21st Annual Centenary Book Bazaar is this weekend. Take your cash or checks to the Centenary Gold Dome Friday and Saturday.

Sale Hours:

Friday 4:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Saturday 9 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. The sale closes for thirty minutes and reopens with all books half price from 1 p.m. 'til 3 p.m.

Note the earlier start on Friday. That's because the Centenary Muses have 10,000 more books for sale than they did last year. Books can be snatched up for as little as a quarter.

Here's what RRBJ posted about the sale last year in a personal blog, Crazy in Shreveport .

Thank you to Calamitylaine for the use of her picture Choices.

Shreveport Jammy

February is sweeps month for television. That's why Lost was fresh and why all the local newscasts are running "special" features. Notable on the 10 pm KTBS cast last night was a report on blogging. We couldn't help but note their story was called "BLOGJAM."

Shreveport Bloggers Robert Trudeau and Jeff Sadow were both interviewed. Also getting good face time was the web developer for Centenary College, Michael Futreal. Funniest part of the story? Video of Alexandyr Kent's Louisiana Movies Blog. Kent is the entertainment reporter for The Times newspaper in Shreveport.

KTBS also introduced the new blog feature on their website: ArkLaTexBlog, which is a good name, almost as good as Red River Blog Jam.

Strange is Good

The current issue of Oxford American (Issue 55) with the front cover art of a blonde holding a revolver features the poem "Three Days After Easter, 1994" by Shreveporter Jennifer Strange.

This issue of OA will be on sale at newsstands through February. OA bills itself as "The Southern Magazine of Good Writing." It was started in 1992 in Oxford, Mississippi by John Grisham and Marc Smirnoff. It now is published as a nonprofit quarterly in alliance with the University of Central Arkansas.

Strange is a lecturer in English at Centenary College. The OA contributor notes also mention she has more poems forthcoming in Poetry Southeast and Christianity and Literature.