Fifth Palm Coast fifth-grader Bella Soumokil several years ago started writing and drawing what became “Fred the Great,” a 56-page book for children about humility and family, published locally and selling on Amazon.
Culture
Flagler’s Visual Arts Struggle for Visibility With Seeming Demise of Art League and Gargiulo Foundation
Their apparent demise during the past year — the Flagler County Art League from the pandemic’s economic pressures, the Gargiulo Art Foundation from the death of artist and co-founder Tom Gargiulo in February — coupled with the retreat of JJ Graham’s Salvo Art Project and the disappearance of several exhibit spaces and other smaller galleries is leaving many area artists feeling like the proverbial tree that falls in a forest with no one to hear it.
To Combat Gun Violence, Artist Mykael Ash Turns Ammunition Into Art
Mykael Ash is turning ammunition into art. Ash, who lives in East St. Louis, Illinois, frequently walks through parts of the city where bullet shells aren’t hard to find. The shell casings represent a cycle of inequality, Ash says, and the art he makes with it serves as a call to action.
An Invitation From Sisco Deen to the Navy Band Southeast Concert at Flagler Auditorium
Plan to join members of the Booe/Deen family and other music lovers at the Flagler Auditorium at 7 p.m. on Sunday, December 18, 2022 for the Navy Band Southeast concert. The band will honor my great uncle James Brazier “Jim” Booe for his military service as a military band director in World War II.
Drag Shows Are Now A Right-Wing Target Amid Rising Extremism
Propagating hate and violence against queer people, lawmakers and right-wing figures are misrepresenting what happens at all-ages drag performances, including literacy events. This is occurring in the wake of a spate of legislative bills targeting LGBTQ people.
State Panel Developing Guidelines on Book Bans for School Librarians May Be at an Impasse
A new law that intensifies scrutiny of school library books requires school boards to adopt procedures that provide for the “regular removal or discontinuance” of books from media centers based on factors such as alignment with state academic standards. The panel designated to develop the training playbook for librarians is mired in disagreement, with a Jan. 1 deadline looming.
Drawing 90 Boats, Palm Coast Holiday Boat Parade Turns Intracoastal Into River of Cheer
Perhaps a million lights garlanded over boats of all sizes created shooting stars, swooping airplanes, giant Santas, soaring Christmas trees, Grinches, and even dinosaurs, turning the Intracoastal and other parts of the route into rivers of holiday cheer for thousands of spectators lining the parade route.
In Flagler Schools, New Regime of Book Challenges Is Laborious, Subjective and Fraught With Uncertainties
Gray areas of uncertainty, anxiety, subjectivity and a gaping lack of state direction are shading the new regime of serial book challenges and book bans in the Flagler school district as the state Department of Education has yet to issue directions on library holdings.
Shirley Chisholm Trail, Marking Giant National Legacy, Is Dedicated Along Palm Coast’s Pine Lakes Parkway
The Shirley Chisholm Trail, the work of the Democratic Women’s Club of Flagler County, connects Chisholm’s retirement years in Palm Coast to her historic achievements as the first Black member of Congress and the first woman to run for president from a major party, among many firsts. She died in 2005.
City Repertory Theatre Presents Festive Revue for Launch of Flagler County Cultural Council
City Repertory Theatre, a Palm Coast community theater troupe, will present “A Holiday Treat: A Special Night of Story and Song” as a fundraiser for the Flagler County Cultural Council, which in October was designated the county’s official local arts agency.
39th Palm Coast Holiday Boat Parade Prepares for Its Biggest Yet Dec. 3
The Dec. 3 Palm Coast Holiday Boat Parade, one of the community’s most highly anticipated events, is now in its 39th year. Palm Coasters have enjoyed this unique annual celebration for two generations.
World-Renowned Pianist Michael Rickman Performs Bach, Beethoven and Schumann Nov. 20 in Ormond Beach
Michael Rickman, who has performed in London, Paris and Carnegie Hall in New York City, will be in concert at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the sanctuary of Lighthouse Christ Presbyterian Church, 1035 W. Granada Blvd., Ormond Beach, performing Beethoven’s “Appassionata” and Schumann’s Carnaval.
Celebrate America at Agricultural Museum Saturday with Music and Handshakes
Freedom Fest, the fly-in at Flagler County airport, is being postponed to March 23, but a replacement event for Nov. 19, called Celebrate America, will be held that day with all the same vendors, bands and ceremonies as a salute to Veterans, at the Florida Agricultural Museum on Old Kings Road.
Flagler Schools Have Been Quietly Banning or ‘Removing’ Many Books Since Summer in Bow to ‘Moms for Liberty’
The school district has been quietly and steadily banning books from library shelves at Flagler Palm Coast and Matanzas High, and at Indian Trails and Buddy Taylor middle schools since summer, FlaglerLive has found, with every title part of a list of challenges from just three members of the group known as “Moms for Liberty.” There is no indication that the challengers are reading the books, but they have been asked to join the district’s review committee.
Witches in Bunches Ride the Streets as Flagler Beach Creates New Brew For Art’s Charms
The first Witches of Flagler Beach Bike Ride surprised residents and drivers along a 2.5-mile circuit in the city this morning as some 30 witches on bikes took to the streets, an event organized by the fledgling Flagler Beach Creates, a volunteer organization focused on enriching the city’s public art and culture.
City Repertory Theatre and Beau Wade Drag ‘Charley’s Aunt’ Onto the Stage
“Charley’s Aunt,” a favorite farce for over a century, the play is laugh-out-loud fun from start to finish. Written by the Liverpool-born British playwright and actor Brandon Thomas, the play premiered in England in 1892, broke the then-current record for longest-running play worldwide, landed on Broadway in 1893 and later toured internationally. It has been revived ever since, as well as adapted for films and musicals.
Palm Coast’s First Fall Arts Festival in Central Park Saturday, With Spotlight on Local Artists
Palm Coast government and the Palm Coast Arts Foundation are hosting the first Fall Arts Festival in Central Park in Town center Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. It’s free. And the focus will be on local artists.
Meet Shehan Karunatilaka, Sri Lankan Novelist and Winner of the Booker Prize
Sri Lankan novelist Shehan Karunatilaka has won the 2022 Booker Prize for his second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. The Booker prize is the among most important international literary prize for writers of English after the Nobel. It is awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.
Anthony Bourdain and the Farce of the ‘Unauthorized’ Biography
The farce is the positioning of this battle as one conducted between “unauthorized biography” on the one hand and “authorized” biography on the other – the publisher, for hinting at scandalous content by casting the work as “unauthorized,” and the aggrieved, to think they have any power to “authorize” whether the biography gets published in the first place.
Palm Coast Ups Cultural Arts Grants to Record $50,000, But Increase Is Less Than It Appears
This year’s budgeted amount of $50,000 for arts grants is the highest since the city began the program in 2002, and it is already the highest amount awarded. But in inflation-adjusted dollars, the city is budgeting less than it has in five previous years, and in per-resident spending on the arts, it is still spending less than it did in the first eight years of the program.
A Passionate, Surgical Rebuke of “Stop Woke” Set at Flagler NAACP’s Freedom Fund Awards
The Freedom Fund Awards Luncheon of the Flagler County Branch of the NAACP in Palm Coast balanced matters festive and somber, triumphant and cautionary, and was keynoted by Leon W. Russell, the chair of the NAACP National Board of Directors, who commanded the crowd, weaving the word “woke” throughout his 30-minute talk – a talk that was all the more scathing because Russell didn’t resort to any histrionic tone.
Annie Ernaux’s Literature Nobel and the Art of Writing from Experience
The French writer Annie Ernaux has won the 2022 Nobel prize in literature at the age of 82. The academy praised her “for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory.”
Karen Barchowski Sells Storied Sally’s Ice Cream in Flagler Beach as She Plots Her Next Revolution
Karen Barchowski has owned Sally’s Ice Cream on A1A in Flagler Beach for 10 years. She is selling the business and moving to Vermont, after her embracing outlook fostered through Sally’s a powerful hub of acceptance and diversity. “We found invincible love,” Barchowski says of her years in Flagler Beach.
Flagler Playhouse Opens 2022-23 Season with “Oliver!”
Oliver, Nurse Ratched, Miss Daisy and P.T. Barnum will grace Flagler Playhouse during the community theater’s 2022-23 season. The five-play season opens Friday Sept. 23 with the musical “Oliver!” and concludes in May with the musical “Barnum.” The musical “Rent” and the dramas “Driving Miss Daisy” and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” are also on tap.
At Flagler Public Library, Freedom Readers’ Club and Other Page-Turners Boldly Defy Book Bans
Freedom Readers, a book club for teens focused on banned and challenged books, emerged at the Flagler County Public Library in response to the book-banning controversies at the Flagler school board last fall. The club is one of several initiatives countering “what feels like a lot of repression,” in the words of Youth Services Librarian Gemma Rose.
Sondheim’s ‘Assassins’ Opens City Repertory Theatre’s New Season, and Dares Go From There
“Assassins,” the 1990 play with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman, weaves the true-life histories of nine presidential assassins and would-be assassins into a bizarro musical fantasy. The characters include John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooters of Ronald Reagan and Ford, and other rogues.
Flagler Open Arms Recovery Services’s 2nd Annual Music Festival Saturday in Flagler Beach
Flagler Open Arms Recovery Services will host its 2nd Annual Music Festival for recovery this weekend. The festival will be held at Veterans Park, 101 N Ocean Shore Blvd., Flagler Beach from 4:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 17th.
Students Use Drones To Map Ancient American Cities and Capture First-Ever Imagery of Rock Carvings
A group of 14 Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University students took a service-learning trip to New Mexico and Arizona this summer to work with archeologists in mapping ancient cities. The unique advantages of drone technology allowed the team to document historic petroglyphs — or rock carvings — discovered on private land north of Tularosa, New Mexico.
Palm Coast’s Dr. Robert A. Ernst Gets Silver Medal for Second Children’s Book
The Annual 2022 Florida Authors and Publishers Association President’s Book Awards has recognized Harry Saves Wreck by Dr. Robert A. Ernst, a Palm Coast resident, in the category of Children Grades 3-5, as a Silver Medal winner at their annual awards banquet this month.
CANCELED: Marineland Mayor and Aquaponics Entrepreneur Angela TenBroeck Speaks at AACS Water Exhibit
Angela TenBroeck, the mayor of Marineland, will present Sustainable Farming with Small Farmers on Tuesday, August 23, at the African American Cultural Society in Palm Coast from 6 to 10 p.m. as part of the museum’s Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition, “Water|Ways.”
ThemToo: ‘Men Painting Women’ Treads Political Minefield at Art League of Daytona Beach
The curator of the exhibit, opening at the Art League of Daytona Beach Saturday with works from Palm Coast artist Weldon Ryan and four others, is aware that “Men Painting Women” may be seen by some as politically incorrect these days. But the exhibition stems from both sublime art history and simple serendipity among his circle of friends.
Applications are Open for the Palm Coast Cultural Arts Grant
As funding is expected to become available for Fiscal Year 2023 for events or programs taking place between October 1, 2023, and September 30, 2023, the City is looking for grantees.
Patti King Is Flagler Beach Historical Museum’s New Director
The Flagler Beach Historical Museum’s Board of Directors are pleased to announce that Patti King has accepted the position of Museum Director. Current Director Kathy Wilcox has been in the position since 2018 and will retire in December.
Open Enrollment for Flagler Youth Orchestra’s After-School Strings Program
The Flagler Youth Orchestra Strings Program, a special project of the Flagler County School District, is launching its eighteenth season, with ongoing open enrollment for all Flagler County students ages 8 and up. An open house and information session will be held August 31 at the Flagler Auditorium.
City Repertory Theatre Hopscotches Through Love’s Multiverse with ‘Constellations’
The play, running Thursday through Sunday at Palm Coast’s City Repertory Theatre, is a 2012 comedy-drama by British playwright Nick Payne about the romantic ups and downs of a beekeeper and a theoretical physicist. The couple in “Constellations” take a trip down the rabbit hole of the multiverse, that freaky theory that posits there are an infinite number of parallel universes which exist simultaneously, and may be quite similar to or radically different from the one you and I inhabit.
Curtain Calls for Flagler Youth Orchestra as School Board Frets Either Encores or Coda
The Flagler County School Board this evening votes on whether to renew the Flagler Youth Orchestra for its 18th year. Renewal was not in question in previous years, as it has been this year. A former superintendent, parents, community members at large, current and former FYO student participants sent numerous letters and emails to school board members.
Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition “Water|Ways” Opens at AACS’s Museum Saturday
The AACS Museum was expressly chosen by the Florida Humanities as part of the MoMS national, state and local partnership to bring exhibitions and programs to museums and cultural organizations in rural locations across the USA. Support for MoMS is provided by Congress.
After 17 Years, Two School Board Members Put Flagler Youth Orchestra’s Future in Doubt
Even as they professed support for what the Flagler Youth Orchestra has achieved and acknowledged its cost-effectiveness, School Board members Janet McDonald and Jill Woolbright questioned whether the board should continue supporting the model.
Was There Anything Real About Elvis Presley?
Presley never wrote a memoir. Nor did he keep a diary. Once, when informed of a potential biography in the works, he expressed doubt that there was even a story to tell. Over the years, he had submitted to numerous interviews and press conferences, but the quality of these exchanges was erratic, frequently characterized by superficial answers to even shallower questions.
No Fireworks in Flagler Beach? No Problem: Palm Coast Hosts July 3 Fireworks Show at County Airport
Celebrate Independence Day with “Fireworks Over the Runways” on Sunday, July 3, with a 20-minute production by Fireworks by Santore at the Flagler Executive Airport, 201 Airport Road in Palm Coast. The show features more than 1,000 exploding shells and a jaw-dropping finale.
Octavia E. Butler, Sci-Fi Pioneer, and Her New Vision for Humanity
Octavia Butler was the first science fiction writer to be awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant. A pioneering writer in a genre long dominated by white men, her work explored power structures, shifting definitions of humanity and alternative societies.
Summer High: 5 Books on the Joys and Challenges of LGBTQ Teen and Young Adult Life
In recognition of LGBT Pride Month, Jonathan Alexander – an English professor with a scholarly interest in the interplay between sexuality and literature, and the children’s and young adult fiction section editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, presents his “must-reads” for this summer.
ELO Meets FYO as Band’s Strange Magic Electrifies Flagler Auditorium With Flagler Youth Orchestra Saturday
The tribute band Ticket to the Moon, which formed in 2019 and took its name from an ELO song title, performs in a Saturday concert at Flagler Auditorium, bringing the band’s music to life with the aid of four teens — a string quartet from the Flagler Youth Orchestra.
Pay Attention, Class: CRT’s ‘Schoolhouse Rock!’ Is In Session at Flagler Auditorium
“Schoolhouse Rock Live!” will be presented by City Repertory Theatre at 7 p.m. Wednesday June 22 and Thursday June 23 at Flagler Auditorium in Palm Coast. Proceeds will benefit both City Rep and the nonprofit auditorium. The play tells the story of the teacher Jan, who is nervous as her first day of school teaching is approaching. But her nerves are calmed when she turns on “Schoolhouse Rock!” and the characters come to life to help her prepare her lessons.
Juneteenth Is Not a Legal Holiday in Florida or in Most States
Long celebrated in the Black community as Freedom Day, Independence Day or Emancipation Day, Juneteenth is a time for get-togethers, picnics, concerts and reflection. Establishing federal and state legal Juneteenth holidays guarantees attention to painful United States history that is still unknown to many Americans, an annual assessment of racism in society, and celebrations of Black culture, history and achievement.
Inspiration of Hope Hosts Gospel Extravaganza at Palm Coast Community Center June 25
Inspiration of Hope Community Resources, Inc. is hosting a Gospel Extravaganza at 3 p.m., on Saturday, June 25, 2022, at the Palm Coast Community Center.
Flagler Pride: Local LGBTQ+ Community Celebrates Itself, with Activism, Avowals and 2 Mayors
The third annual Flagler Pride weekend held at Palm Coast’s Town Center and in Flagler Beach this weekend drew some 500 participants, featured musicians, comedians and a belly dancer on Saturday, a vigil on Sunday, and two mayors along the way–Palm Coast’s David Alfin and Flagler Beach’s Suzie Johnston–reflecting Flagler Pride’s growing local imprint and embrace.
Flagler Beach Kills Fireworks on July 4 Over Dissatisfaction With Vendor and Contract Changes
The Flagler Beach City Commission Thursday evening finally and irrevocably killed this year’s July 4 fireworks after further dissatisfaction with both the fireworks vendor and the administration’s handling of the matter, which means it’ll be the third year in a row that the pier will be dark the night of Independence Day.
Flagler Beach Mayor Declines to Sign Fireworks Contract, Citing Unapproved Cost and Shorter Show
Flagler Beach Mayor Suzie Johnston said she is not signing the city’s fireworks contract with a pyrotechnics producer, at least not until the city commission reviews them, because the commission had not approved the extra $1,000 cost and a diminution of the show’s length to 17 minutes, from 20. it is is yet another delay from yet another unexpected twist in what has been a drudging effort to secure a July 4 fireworks for the city.
Flagler Beach Commissioner Has ‘Zero Confidence’ July 4 Will Be Pulled Off as Planning Drags
As the Flagler Beach city manager is giving a fireworks producer until just 24 days before July 4 fireworks to sign a contract, City Commissioner Eric Cooley said he had no confidence that the fireworks or other preparatory plans for Independence Day could be pulled off safely, absent more detailed information.