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Haskell Indian Art Market

This annual outdoor market at Haskell's Powwow Grounds features art displays and sales, entertainment, and food. What began in 1989 as a modest art show has grown into a full-blown community gathering typically drawing about 40,000 visitors to Lawrence to see work by more than 165 artists. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.

Lawrence Energy Conservation Fair

If you're trying to maximize efficiency, minimize utility bills, reduce your carbon footprint, or just live sensibly given the latest "green" technology out there, this annual fair is a rare opportunity to get help with doing so from a variety of local professionals all in one place. Exhibitors will include area builders, architects, insulators, heating and cooling experts, government agencies, non-profits, and alternatively-fueled vehicle representatives—all there to answer your questions for free. Today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Lawrence Community Building near 11th and Mass.

1109 Gallery Gala Grand Opening

1109 Gallery and the members of The Lawrence Art Guild are celebrating the completion of work on their new gallery by hosting a Gala Grand Opening celebration. After a 10-year-long search, the Guild found a home at 1109 Massachusetts. The current exhibit, “Animals and Nature” is a fund raising event for The Lawrence Humane Society featuring artwork by area artists and children of the community.

"????????????????????????????" at DotDotDot Artspace

The fine folks at DotDotDot Artspace host a surprise art opening - though even they may have no idea what until 6 p.m. this evening. Things to count on: new work from several local artists, booze, and a bunch of wacky artist-types with access to a nearby liquor store and parole office.

Support International Benefit with Bongo Love (Zimbabwe) / SUNU / The Irietions

A benefit for Support International featuring Bongo Love (all the way from Zimbabwe), world-party dance igniters SUNU, and 420-loving reggae band The Irietions. Bongo Love calls their genre “Afro-coustics” - a unique combination of styles delivered on traditional instruments with lyrics in English, Shona, and Ndebele (they recently played 15 U.S. dates with State Radio). All proceeds from this event will go towards helping provide clean water by building wells and boreholes in areas where access to clean water is scarce.

Murder By Death with Suzannah Johannes and Cowboy Indian Bear

Despite their brutal namesake, Indiana's Murder By Death is more country-gothic than actual goth. Nick Cave would enjoy the group's maudlin, minor-key pub songs, while Ennio Morricone might smile kindly on the group's recent Spaghetti Western material. Lyrically, the group tends toward the macabre and the concept-oriented. Fresh off the heels of their recently finished East Coast tour, Murder By Death will be performing the complete two albums in their Desert Series: 2008's "Red of Tooth and Claw" and 2003's "Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them."

It was only a couple years ago that Suzannah Johannes started writing songs and performing; first as a solo artist, and then with backing from Ghosty's David Wetzel and Josh Adams. Eventually the whole Ghosty camp joined her, and her debut four-song EP thusly became a full-bodied affair that plays to each member's laid-back skill set.

Cowboy Indian Bear is a superb new Lawrence band featuring former Jen Say Kwahs frontman Marty Hillard along with ex-Kennedy Luck Clubbers C.J. Calhoun and Beau Bruns. Picking up where those bands left off, CIB composes deft and brainy indie pop with party-down beats and lots of melodic left turns. Points of reference include Death Cab and Architecture in Helsinki, but these dudes are digging deep into the well to come up with something fresh.

"Sequel," a Medeski Martin and Wood tribute

Ken Lovern, Luke Stone, Jeff Harshbarger, and Brian Baggett recreate the funky, soulful, danceable sound of the first few Medeski Martin and Wood albums.

And new in movies...

The Free State Travelling Picture Show presents "Fight Night"

The Lawrence Arts Center is now one of the state-wide sites for the Free State Travelling Picture Show. The first screening through this program will be of the movie "Fight Night." Concessions will be available, and a brief talk-back will follow the locally filmed (Kansas City) movie.

"Fight Night" tells the story of con man Michael Dublin, who works the underground boxing circuit. He invents his best scam yet when he meets Katherine Parker, a female fighter with the skills to take down a man twice her size. In a scheme Dublin calls “fight-rigging, in reverse,” the two hit the road. But his shady past catches up with them and suddenly the stakes are higher than they’d ever imagined.

In the Loop

If screenwriters spliced "Wag the Dog" with "The West Wing" and set it in the context of Anglo-American relations, the result would be "In the Loop," a scabrously funny look at the cutthroat game of statecraft. At stake is whether British doves will ally with American hawks to invade an unnamed Middle Eastern nation. ***

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