Youth orchestra plays at K-Bay Caffé Saturday
The Homer Youth String Orchestra Club performs from noon-1 p.m. Saturday at K-Bay Caffé on Pioneer Avenue. Come and hear what the young musicians have been practicing.
Down East holds lip-syncing contest; grand prize, $150
The Down East Saloon holds a lip-syncing contest at 9 p.m. Saturday. The grand prize is $150, and there also are prizes for second and third place. Contestants will perform two songs each, and will be judged on lip-sync ability, choreography and attire.
Sign up with the bartender by 9 p.m.
Homer Theatre announces DocFest audience favorites
The Homer Theatre announces the winners of its 13th annual Documentary Film Festival, held Sept. 22-29. Two films tied for the Forget-Me-Not Audience Favorite Award, “Maya Angelou, And Still I Rise” and “The Music of Strangers, YoYo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble.”
The Bald Eagle Best Director Award went to “Life Animated” and director Roger Ross Williams. Williams also won the director award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
The Horned Puffin Grand Jury Prize went to “Zero Days.” The jury called it the “most important documentary of this year.”
This year’s festival attracted viewers from Alaska, Florida, Kentucky, Washington and Canada.
CACS invites artists to submit to zero-waste lifestyle project
The Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies invites artists to submit a design that inspires everyone to take a step toward a zero-waste lifestyle. This is an opportunity for your art to be featured on reusable bags and personal hand towels.
Through this community art project, the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies hopes to inspire residents and visitors to consider implementing a zero-waste system which is cyclical, like in nature, and does two fundamental things: It redesigns our systems and resource use — from product design to disposal — to prevent wasteful and polluting practices. It then captures discards and uses them, instead of natural resources, to make new products, creating far less pollution and feeding the local economy.
The design should be appropriate for people of varied gender and age. Artwork should illustrate the need to prevent marine debris before it gets to the ocean by reducing our use of single-use plastics and/or the general theme of how zero waste on land helps to protect the health of our ocean. The design will be printed on reusable, personal hand towels and shopping bags. Entries should be submitted on a single sheet of paper no larger than 11-by-14 inches or by email. Any media may be used. No brand names should be included. Entries should be labeled on the back with the artist’s name, address and telephone number. If a student, include grade, teacher’s name and school.
Submissions are due at CACS on Oct. 28 at 708 Smokey Bay Way, Homer, AK 99603 or email to info@akcoastalstudies.org. Designs must be at least 300 dots per inch.
Armstrong holds book signing
Homer author Michael A. Armstrong reads from and signs his latest novel, “Truck Stop Earth,” at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, at the Homer Public Library. Published by Perseid Press, it is available as an e-book, hardcover and trade paperback.
A first-person novel told in the highly unreliable voice of James Ignatius Malachi Obadiah Osborne (“Call me Jimmo,” he says), “Truck Stop Earth” follows Jimmo as he comes to Della, Alaska. Running from aliens, Jimmo thinks he might have escaped them, only to discover that he’s come across the brain, the nerve center, the absolute pinpoint big base, right here on Earth.
“In Locus: The Magazine and Website of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field,” reviewer Carolyn Cushman called Armstrong’s novel “a great, goofy tale with some delightful local color.”
Perseid Press publisher Janet Morris describes “Truck Stop Earth” as “one part ‘Stranger in a Strange Land,’ one part ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,’ and one part ‘Catch-22,’ with a frosting of ‘Naked Lunch.’”
Armstrong has lived in Homer since 1992 and works as a reporter for the Homer News. He graduated with a master of fine arts in creative writing from the University of Alaska Anchorage. His other novels are “After the Zap,” “Agviq,” “The Hidden War” and “Bridge Over Hell” (also from Perseid Press).
