Photo: Doug Seymour Don’t bother asking The Stray Birds how they came up with their beautifully evocative name. Even they’ve forgotten by now. “We were trying to name the project and felt like we should be some kind of bird. Obviously, The Byrds is out,” said Oliver Craven, the band’s jack-of-alltrades. “We travel around a […]
birds
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Something wild
Photo: Heather Brown Spring is always a busy time for the WildCare Foundation, as babies arrive needing extra attention, but this season, the organization took in more than 840 animals. The facility, which works to release animals back to their native habitat, took in an average of 40 animals per day in the three weeks […]
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A time to heal
As America learned of Moore’s utter devastation by the May 20 tornado, the news hit the two members of New Orleans-based Generationals especially hard. “Everybody is aware and thinking about what has happened in Oklahoma,” said Grant Widmer, lead singer and guitarist. “Tragedies like these are particularly resonant for us because of what happened to […]
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Migration formation
The Blue Door is hallowed ground for most folk artists, but The Stray Birds’ recent fixation on one of the listening room’s more recent products has the bluegrass trio that much more eager to make its debut there Thursday. “We got to meet and open for John Fullbright in Tulsa last summer. We are obsessed […]
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High-stakes pigeons
Credit: Brad Gregg Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater has charged Karen Mae Clifton, executive director of the American Racing Pigeon Union (AU); internationally known pigeon racer Richard Wayne Mardis; and James Orr Steele, president of Pigeon Racers of Oklahoma (PRO), with felony commercial-gambling charges. PETA investigators in 2010 allegedly witnessed illegal betting totaling nearly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
The Bay
Inspired by an actual event in which fish and birds inexplicably turned up dead in mass quantities, the movie takes place in Claridge, Md., as the Chesapeake Bay celebrates Independence Day in 2009. Much of the footage we see comes courtesy of TV news intern Donna Thompson (Kether Donohue, Pitch Perfect) via a WikiLeaks-esque site, […]
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In a ‘Huff’
Photo: Nathan Poppe A band’s first tour is a necessary evil. The drives are long; the rides … uncomfortable. It’s cheap beer and cheaper food with little to no sleep, just to play for maybe a couple of handfuls of people, returning home with not a dime in the members’ collective pockets. Oklahoma City outfit […]
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The Girl
Premiering Saturday, The Girl is the first of two high-profile biopics of the master filmmaker to hit screens this season. The other, simply titled Hitchcock, is a larger-budget feature with a whiff of Oscar bait, yet there’s room enough for both. While that forthcoming film focuses on the making of 1960’s Psycho, The Girl concerns […]
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Purple martins majesties
The Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum was the first to weather the nuisance when the birds settled in trees overlooking the site. Firefighters used high-pressure hoses to get the martins to leave. Instead, the birds migrated to an auto Bank of Oklahoma branch across the street on the corner of N. Robinson Avenue and […]
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Thank you, birds!
But mysteriously, I’ve not had any bites this year. Mystery solved; I read about the purple martins in Oklahoma Gazette (“Winging it,” Mark Beutler, July 25) descending upon downtown. I live in Heritage Hills and I know now that the mosquitoes that generally feed on me have become snacks for these feathered friends. Hooray! Thanks […]