Buzz Bin

by Inlander Staff & r & Beethoven Bashes & r &


As the saying goes, choose Beethoven's odd-numbered symphonies -- and Eckart Preu has picked two of them for Friday night: the heroic but disillusioned Third Symphony and the relentless Fifth, which starts with Fate knocking at the door and never lets up.


The Spokane Symphony is doing a couple of forms of "Beethoven Bash" outreach. First, go to Gonzaga's Jundt Museum on Friday at 4 pm to hear experts (including Preu, a Beethoven scholar and Verne Windham of KPBX) explain these masterworks. Then show up at 8 pm at the Opera House and (if you're under 30), you'll receive a cool T-shirt with the intense, slightly cross-eyed glare of Ludwig van himself on the front, Preu's signature scrawled on the back, and a black-and-silver motif that totally evokes Metallica. Tickets: $15-$35. Call 624-1200.


There will be Beethoven in Coeur d'Alene this weekend, too: the Third Piano Concerto, to be precise, played by the CdA Symphony -- along with works of Sibelius and Mendelssohn -- on Saturday at 7:30 pm in NIC's Schuler Auditorium. Tickets: $12; $10, seniors; $5, students. Call (208) 765-3833.





Artistic Luminaries & r & The Spokane Arts Commission presented its annual awards for artistic achievement at City Hall on Monday night. Categories and recipients:


Arts organization: ARt, the Actor's Repertory Theatre.


Artist: the creators of York, David Casteal, Susan Hardie and Bryan Harnetiaux.


Bold Strokes Award (new for 2005): Nike Imoru, artistic director of Spokane Interplayers Ensemble.


Arts in Education Program: Rob Tapper, trombone and instrumental jazz professor at EWU; and Kristina Ploeger, artistic director of the Spokane Area Children's Choir.


Arts Community Leadership: Mark Camp, Robert Hartwig and Jason Williams of The Shop on South Perry.


Individual Benefactor: Mitch Silver (new owner of the Met).


Business Benefactor: Spokane Rotary 21 Club (with honorable mentions to the Ronald McDonald House and the Spokane Symphony).





Divine Misdemeanants & r & "Proposed Indiana law would make the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit criminals."


If Mary, the mother of Jesus, were around today, Republican lawmakers might put her in an Indiana state prison. That's because they've proposed criminalizing any "artificial reproduction procedure" used by an unmarried woman.


The proposed law, of course, would a) protect the children, b) preserve the sanctity of marriage, and c) make damn sure that never again will those lesbians make use of David Crosby's services ever again.