An Event a Day … This Week’s Recommendations
So many choices, so many events to attend! Let’s assume you are a busy person, bound by the conventional laws and time and space, unable to attend three events at once. Which to choose? Here are some recommendations for one event per day. Go do it!
November 1 — Celebrate El Día de los Muertos the best way you can. In the US, we binge on candy and costumes on Halloween. By contrast, most Catholic cultures around the world celebrate the day after our Halloween, “The Day of the Dead,” when the spirits of departed friends and family members are commemorated by the living. Several institutions are hosting Día celebrations, intended not only to help us appreciate Mexican culture, but also to help everyone examine their own ways of marking death, and perhaps to synthesize new celebrations for a new culture. No one celebrates El Día de los Muertos better than Mexicans, and no place around Indy celebrates the Mexican celebration better than the Indianapolis Art Center. Enjoy a day of music, dance, and food. Join processions through the shrines and altars that local artists have constructed through the Center’s galleries and ARTSPARK. Or go to the Eiteljorg for a kid-centered exploration of Mexican rituals. Or take the kids to the Indiana State Museum for hands-on activities such as making sugar skulls. Most importantly, use this occasion to remember joyfully the special people who are no longer with us.
November 2 — “Exploring Imagination”: A Spirit & Place Public Conversation. So a female African American filmmaker, an ultra-peppy evangelical minister, and a conservative gay Latino social critic go to a theatre to discuss “exploring imagination.” No, this isn’t the opening of a multicultural shaggy dog story. It’s an invitation for you to join the 2008 Spirit & Place Public Conversation. This year’s Public Conversationalists are: film producer Julie Dash; Pastor Brian McLaren (named by TIME as one of America’s top 25 evangelicals); and journalist Richard Rodriguez. Expect a wide-ranging discussion of the limits and possibilities of public imagination and social creativity. 2:00 PM, Butler University, Clowes Memorial Hall. Free, but get tickets from the Clowes boxoffice early!
November 3 — Hear how Rotarians have nearly wiped out polio, and if we can finish job. Says Bill Gates: “When Rotary started talking about polio, people listened.” Today, the world is 99% free from poliomyelitis, a paralyzing disease, thanks to the efforts of Rotary International. In 1985, Rotary, a volunteer service organization of 1.2 million men and women, made a commitment to immunize the world’s children against polio–with extraordinary results. How has Rotary’s success been helped by partnerships with such organizations as the United Nations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Health Organization? What lessons from these ongoing efforts can be applied to other areas of global health? 3:30 PM, IUPUI University Library Lilly Auditorium. free!
November 4 — Spend Election Day with President Benjamin Harroison. Could it really only have been 120 years ago that Delaware Street was the center of the political universe on Election Day? Relive Indianapolis’s glory days of presidential politics by visiting the Benjamin Harrison House on Election Day. (You can’t get a beer until the polls close, what else is there to do?) 10 AM - 3 PM, The President Benjamin Harrison House, 1230 North Delaware Street Indianapolis. Not free.
November 5 — Hear competing versions of the story of Abraham’s willingness to murder his son. The terrible story of how Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son on God’s orders rests at the core of the three Abrahamic faiths. Judaism, Christianity and Islam each claims the story as its own. Hear several story-tellers from these faiths tell their version … and ask them: “Why would you want that story?” 6:00 PM, Room 166 Christian Theological Seminary 1000 W. 42nd Street Indianapolis. Free!
