day 30
Wednesday, August 13 2008
Indianapolis, IN
Today I went to the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. It is known as one of the most exciting Children’s Museums in the country, with wonderful hands-on exhibits and plenty of fun ways to learn about trains, Egyptian mummies, space, and dinosaurs. In fact, dinosaurs practically crash through the building’s exterior to excite childrens’ imaginations:
The museum also hosts touring exhibits. A touring exhibit was actually the reason I wanted to visit the museum. See, there was an exhibit created in Portland that I never got to check out. It was a stroke of luck that some friends of mine knew some of the exhibit’s creators, and they knew where it would be traveling to. What subject could possibly entice me to follow it half-way across the country? Why, it must be….
Of course. 
And the exhibit was two tons of fun. Not only were there plenty of high-tech toys to play with (all presented under the guise of low-tech), but all of the techniques of animation, and animation-related work, were presented in a clear and understandable way. Personally, I had a lot of fun playing with the stop-motion area, which is something I don’t get to do much at work. (to be fair, I don’t make much time for myself to practice it) I also met a few kids who were really interested in animation, and it was so exciting to see them getting to actually create!
Upstairs at the museum is an area called Story Avenue, a collection of life-size scenes (a bank, a barber shop, a dining room, the back of a car, etc.), where you can hear recorded stories from the experiences of Indianapolis’s African American community. This is where I met Portia Scholar Jackson, who helped create the Story Avenue exhibit. Portia is a professional storyteller, as well as a teacher of storytelling to all ages. I’ve recently become fascinated with the idea of storytelling technique (and I regularly listen to stories from The Moth), and I was fortunate enough to hear some of Portia’s stories of her Aunt Janice–you can tell that although these stories have a strong foundation in memory and fact, they have been crafted to enhance their ability to keep the listener entertained. The story begins when Portia’s supervisor at the museum asked a series of questions, designed to figure out what the Story Avenue exhibit should include:
See what I mean? I mean, clearly Portia is already starting off as a memorable personality and just hearing her tell a story would almost certainly be engaging in and of itself. But when she adds on top of that her craft and skill, well, I could have sat there listening to her all day. And as it happens, I kind of did: because even though the museum closed soon after we started talking, I mentioned that I was looking for a good place to eat dinner, and Portia told me that every Wednesday she and her husband went to the Jazz Kitchen. So I went to the Jazz Kitchen and had some delicious crab cakes, and even met up a little with Portia and her husband and two of her sons for a little bit of the evening.
And, oh! The jazz! There was a trio on stage–a sax, an organ, and drums… and man! Man! They are the Dixon/Rhyne Project, and you can check out some of their music here. I could go on and on about all three of them, as a group or individually–but suffice it to say that they were something else. Wow.
In between the museum and heading to the Jazz Kitchen, I stopped at a skate park I noticed from the highway, namely the Major Taylor Skate Park. I don’t know if that name will mean anything to anyone, but I figure that in case it’s known in the skate world, I should mention it.
I saw three kids taking a break from skating, sitting on the side of the park, so I decided to approach them for a bit of an interview. When I asked if anyone wanted to talk, two of the kids said, almost simultaneously, “Gage will talk to you!” This isn’t the first time this has happened: I’ve found that when I approach a group, people in the group tend to know who the talker is and will volunteer them before the talker gets a vote. Happily, Gage didn’t have any objections.
Gage told me a little bit about how much of a daredevil he is, and one of the times his daredevilry didn’t turn out so good:
I like how Gage talks. He reminds me of my friend, Jim, who is also a skateboarder. They both have a very laid-back approach to being intense, and aren’t afraid to throw around some old-school terminology. Or maybe it’s so new school that it seems old school–or something. Anyway, I like that Gage called himself a “beast.”
I also asked Gage about the first time he completed a really cool trick. I’m not sure he’d want me posting this, especially with his friend Gunnar’s addition afterwards, but… well, listen carefully:
Sorry, Gage. That’s just too damn funny.