• Wikimedia Commons

The club plays each Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. at Washington Park (30th and Dearborn Streets), regardless of conditions; more than 50 people show up on any given week. It costs $10 to play - $7 goes back out (as in, you could end up winning the pool at the end of the game), and the rest goes toward the club (they're fully insured, so, if you, hit a car with a disc or hurt yourself, the club is covered). The club is also dedicated to keeping the park in order. IDGC meets for specific clean-up days for maintenance and general up-keep for four local disc golf courses. (Course locations and descriptions can be found on their website).

It's been a while since any new equipment has been purchased or installed at Washington Park, so the IDGC is holding a tournament at Sahm Park in Castleton on Mother's Day (May 13) to raise $5,000 to revitalize the Washington Park course and buy new equipment for club members. Sign-up is at 9:30am; it's $25 to play: $20 goes toward the new equipment, and $5 goes toward prizes. There are two rounds with a break at lunch, but participants need not play the entire tournament.

IDGC is hoping to get some local businesses to donate and sponsor the event. They're also making a donation to Gleaners Food Bank from funds raised, with the hope that individuals and businesses will designate funds beyond those intended for the IDGC to Gleaners. The IDGC is currently sponsored by The Basket Case but members are on the outlook for more local sponsors. More information about upcoming events is available on the Circle City Acers Facebook page, and by visiting the IDGC website.

• A trepidatious Kate before her Indy Racing Experience.

I'm not sure I'd say I "ran" the race, but I did cover the distance in an ambulatory fashion. Frankly, given the humidity, I was just grateful to not be among the 240 participants who required medical assistance - the highest number in the race's history.

For many participants, myself included, the high point of the Mini (aside from the part where you get to stop running and kindly volunteers congratulate you and give you cookies) is the part where you run a complete lap around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Yes, it's hot. Yes, it's crowded. Yes, it takes an interminably long time to get all the way around (in my case, somewhere in the vicinity of 28 minutes). But it's the Speedway. It's the closest thing this city has to hallowed ground.

On Wednesday, I experienced the Speedway in a totally different way: as a passenger in an IndyCar two-seater, which is basically identical to a regular IndyCar except that the Dallara chassis features a second seat, behind the driver.

Before I could ride, I of course had to sign various legal documents to release the operator of the two-seaters, The Indy Racing Experience, of all liability in the event of some catastrophe, and to provide my health insurance and emergency contact information. I tried not to overthink this.

Then, it was time to suit up. I stepped into a very smart firesuit, swapped my Converse high tops for fireproof booties, and slipped a flame-resistant balaclava over my head, capped by a full-face helmet. I was ready.

I discovered that my pilot would be Stéphan Grégoire. Grégoire, who hails from France but now lives in Carmel, started 44 IndyCar races between 1996 and 2001, and has run the Indy 500 six times. He was all business - very Stig-like in the front cockpit. I'm not sure his gaze ever shifted from its forward trajectory as I clambered into the back seat.

I sank down into the tub, one leg to each side of the driver's seat. Mechanics on either side of me went to work, adjusting the straps of the five-point harness and buckling me in. I'm not so great with small spaces, but before I could discuss my rising panic with the crew, Grégoire punched the accelerator, and we were off.

They say Inuits have dozens of words for "snow." What I'd like is, more words for "fast." Because somehow, "speedy," "brisk," "hasty," "snappy," "fleet," and "lickety-split" don't quite cut it. I propose something like "hhhhooooooollllllyyyyyssssshhhhhiiiitttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!" which was pretty much what I screamed the entire ride - three laps in all.

Words cannot describe what it feels like to hurtle down the front stretch at IMS, swallowing up the grandstands, the yard of bricks, and the scoring pylon, plunging into turn one, at 180+ miles per hour.

And the wall - as you come out of each turn, it's RIGHT THERE. I swear, you could reach out and touch it. Also, the force involved - it practically reorganizes your internal organs. And yet, somehow, there's no real sense that death is imminent. The way the car sticks to the ground - it's like God playing Hot Wheels.

All too soon, the ride was over. Grégoire angled the car into Pit Lane, cutting the engine as we approached the crew. We coasted to a stop and the guys were upon me, unbuckling my harness and pulling me out of the car. It took me a while to do the math, but eventually I figured out that our fast lap - the middle of the three - took roughly 50 seconds.

To put that perspective, consider this: Had I completed the Mini-Marathon in a vehicular rather than ambulatory fashion, "running" it in the two-seater, I would have been done in less than four and a half minutes.

Something to think about for next year….

But you miss a lot by interpreting his films as merely pastiche or collage: Say, his uniquely Canadian polymorphous perversity, which mixes incest with foot fetishism with, say, a lust for beefy Winnipeg hockey players of yore (I'm conflating elements from separate films, but you get the drift).

Maddin's Keyhole arrives at the IMA today a month after its theatrical premiere in NYC (and well before the possibility of a week-long run in Indy, not that his last film was on the "mainstream" arthouse circuit that feeds Landmark). It's a gangster ghost drama, based on the Odyssey, starring Jason Patric and Isabella Rossellini. 7 p.m. at The Toby; $9 public, $5 IMA members; projected in Blu-Ray.

Slideshow

Jesus Is My Roomie at White Rabbit [Slideshow]

Scenes from episode three of the live sitcom, 'Jesus Is My Roomie,' airing at White Rabbit Cabaret.

By Paul F. P. Pogue

Click to View 8 slides

So the Angel and the wacky neighbor bust into the restaurant and yank a hood over the head of the male girl scout - wait, wait, we're in the middle of things, so let's start at the beginning so it makes sense. Jesus Christ has the crossbow aimed at the pimp while his roommate cowers behind him and the Angel gets ready to enter the fight - wait, wait, maybe we still haven't gone back far enough, say to the first episode.

Confused? Not half as I was last night. But I was impressed, too, considering that the crew behind Jesus Is My Roomie can apparently crank this stuff out twice a month on the White Rabbit Cabaret stage. The live sitcom is an audacious and ambitious project that thus far seems to be firing on all cylinders, with a new episode every other week.

The setup is classic situation comedy: Jesus Christ has returned to earth to save everyone but instead spends his time on PlayStation and pizza. He turns 30 and suddenly has actual responsibility, as he and his roommate Ben and his Angel sidekick sort out how to assemble a ministry while still paying rent.

What makes this madness really great is how completely creators Matt Kramer and John Patrick Coan embrace all the tropes of 1980s sitcoms - the wacky neighbor, the comic misunderstandings, the breakout star that everyone goes "woo woo" when he shows up, the jerk landlord - and throw them into one crazy package. And there are some psychopathic girl scouts and a pimp-turned-apostle for good measure, along with Rashomon-style storytelling, about four jump-arounds in time, and some public service announcements warning us to stay away from creepy guys in vans.

It had everything except Woody Harrelson intoning, "Cheers is filmed in front of a live studio audience." Great fun, and I'm looking forward to the next one. Plus, I don't know if I will ever, ever get that catchy theme song out of my head. This was a review of episode three of Jesus Is My Roomie, performed May 2; episode four "airs" May 23 at White Rabbit Cabaret.

• Stark, on the podium.

The ISC's season closes Saturday with a performance of Hector Berlioz's Requiem - also known as Le Grande Messe des Morts, Op. 5 - at the Hilbert Circle Theatre, with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (at whose behest the choir was created back in 1937), students from Butler University and selected soloists along for the ride. Stark, who celebrated his 10th anniversary as head of the ISC this year - a position he's maintained while working as a professor at Butler and director of that school's Chorale and Madrigal Singers - talked to us about the state of the Choir and the mass.

NUVO: How does the mass fit into your 75th anniversary celebration?

Eric Stark: Because it's the end of our anniversary year, we decided to go out with a bang, and this will be a bang to end all bangs. There'll be about 300 performers - about 200 in the choir and nearly a hundred orchestra members to sing this piece that hasn't been performed in Indianapolis, as best I can tell, since the late '70s. It's a glorious, explosive piece. My students from Butler University are joining with the Symphonic Choir for it, and they're so excited about it. It's kind of like Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture again and again; one movement after the next.

NUVO: So where will these off-stage brass bands be placed?

Stark: There are four off-stage brass bands, so we're going to use the two side boxes for two of them; those two are larger and have about ten players each. Two are smaller - about four or five players - and I'm going to put them on the far edges of the dress circle. Berlioz wanted there to be a kind of spatial separation between the main stage chorus and orchestra, and the off-stage brass, so by doing that, I think we'll get a real surround-sound experience.

NUVO: How would you describe Berlioz's approach to the text?

Stark: There's a wholesale replacement of the spiritual with the theatrical. He was so drawn to the vivid imagery of the Requiem text when he was writing the mass. The fear and trembling, the great drama, overpowered him, in a way, so he really gives us a theatrical tour-de-force that's about as far from the Roman Catholic liturgical tradition as it could be, cutting and pasting lines of text here and there.

NUVO: Why have you stuck with this volunteer gig?

Stark: I feel so fortunate; and in a way, I feel like I'm just getting started. The choir has grown substantially in every way in the last 10 years. When I came to the choir, we had about 95 singers on the roster; we've got about 160 now, and I think the artistic quality of the group is as high as it's ever been. Financially, we've weathered the recent storms very admirably; and in fact our individual giving and corporate donation goals have been met year after year. In a choir like this, because we're all volunteers and because my singers are very multi-talented and have lots of things going on in their lives, there's what some might describe as a relatively high turnover rate. We might see 10 to 15 percent new singers every year; though we have some people who have been in the group for decades, and I'm so pleased about that. I love meeting the new folks, and it feels to me like every year, the folks that come and join us are always better and better, so that challenges me to dream a bigger dream for the group, and work with the staff, board of directors and supporters to see how we might bring that about.

NUVO: In your blog on the ISC website (indychoir.org), you talk about your special moment with Madonna, when, climbing the stairs to the stage … "Wishing to steady herself, she reached out and grabbed my right bicep. Then, (obviously enjoying the sensation!) she put her other hand there as well."

Stark: It was kind of funny; I found myself feeling pretty starstruck. She was there for most of our rehearsals and very involved in the whole process. I was really impressed with how hard she was working; she really had the whole vision of that show firmly in mind. She walked right past me a couple times, and grabbed me that second time, which gave me a fun story to tell. You never know where you're going to end up with a doctorate in choral conducting.

• Indiana Landmarks Center

Bill Taft, executive director of Local Initiatives Support Corporation Indianapolis (LISC), opened up the night by introducing Vision 20/20, which he said lays out "a plan for the future that will bring the changes we started with the Near Eastside Super Bowl Legacy Project to more urban neighborhoods across Indianapolis."

LISC, a national organization with headquarters in New York City, was formed in 1979-80 to provide funding and support for grass-roots initiatives to build sustainable communities. LISC immediately gained visibility in the South Bronx, Boston and Chicago. The Indianapolis branch was formed in 1992 to help empower neighborhood leaders to energize residents through one-on-one conversations.

While Mass Ave and Fountain Square have been the most touted accomplishments, LISC's imprint is evident in other neighborhoods, where they've helped residents to set goals, develop and carry out a plan of action, evaluate degrees of success and raise up new leadership.

A panel of five, responding to questions raised by Erika Smith, Indianapolis Star columnist, reflected on their recent accomplishments to provide models for "Planning and Sustaining Urban Neighborhoods." Generally, a neighborhood seeks ways to expand investment in housing and other real estate, increase family income and wealth, stimulate economic development, improve access to quality education and public transportation and support healthy environments and lifestyles.

Deron Kintner, executive director-general counsel of Indianapolis Bond Bank, outlined the importance "of having people live in the urban core" to achieve income to support these goals and the now essential goal of most efficient energy use.

The panelists included Joe Bowling, director, Englewood Community Development Corporation; Ron Gifford, executive director, Central Indiana Transit Task Force; David Harris, founder and CEO, The Mind Trust; Maggie Lewis, Indianapolis City-County Council president; and Mark Miles, Central Indiana Corporate Partnership president and CEO.

In keeping with the LISC action plan of engaging one-on-one, I spoke with attendee Joseph F. Albano, Jr., principal of Logika International, LLC. Dr. Albano described himself as an "organizational systems psychologist."

Logika's services almost mirror LISC's in developing leadership for the common good. Albano underscored the importance of diverse groups working together and emphasized the essentiality of having a cluster of activities going on simultaneously.

"It isn't fixing any one immediate problem and then going on to the next immediate problem, and the next. While you attend to the neighborhood's infrastructure needs, you have to be building community capitol and community capabilities AND show people why they should live there, work there, raise families there, go there, spend money there," he said.

He pointed to the importance of making each neighborhood an attractive and inviting place. He pointed out that doing this involves flexibility and visioning for what is yet unknown: "The world is changing so fast. Our schools have to be educating kindergartners for fields of work that don't yet exist."