Fort Wayne Magazine

There is angst and heartache on the menu at The Stand. Not because of all the different hot dogs that are on it, but because you have to choose from among them. Kierkegaard wrote about this sort of conflict in his 1844 work “The Concept of Tubular Anxiety.” This predicament can grow even worse when you start hearing the hot dogs say things like “Pick me!” “No, pick me!” This is not a hallucination. It is simply what happens when hot dogs know they are loved.

Because the Hot Brandy Apple Pie dessert at the Black Dog Pub arrives at your table in a hot skillet, one can only assume that it was invented by an 18th century blacksmith. While he worked, the blacksmith threw apples, butter and brandy in a glowing cast-iron pan, cooked it for three seconds and tossed it all into his calloused mouth. OK, maybe not.

PHOTO OP: Chad Ryan has worked as a professional sports photographer for almost 40 years. In that span, he weathered both the switch from film to digital and the severe decline of photojournalism. Ryan doesn’t work for news outlets these days; he works for teams. The Fort Wayne Komets, Notre Dame Football and the Tampa Bay Rays. Most recently, he was hired by Fort Wayne FC to chronicle a year in the life of the team. “They seem to have a lot of trust in what I’m doing and I appreciate that,” he said.

How often do we sit down to eat and really stop to think about where our food comes from? We live such busy lives and, for many, convenience foods are necessary fuel to keep us going. Yet there’s power in knowing, and Karen Petersen, Executive Director of Northeast Indiana Local Food Network (NEILFN), is on a mission to inform and inspire – to improve our regional food system. I sat down with Karen to learn about the upcoming Local Food Week.

People who are humorous can seem light to us (as in, both luminous and airy). But many people employ lightness as a way of carrying heavy things as gracefully as possible. Some possess an innate buoyancy of spirit. Others forge their humorous outlook in a furnace of adversity. (Incidentally, Furnace of Adversity is my favorite Death Metal band.

Whether we’re navigating life’s daily challenges, holding pain points at bay or bridging any number of relationship gaps, humor has a special way of breaking the tension and building connection. And of course, in a world where everything is too serious, too urgent, and too anxious, the ability to laugh at ourselves and with our peers is not only a boon to our personal health, but a beacon of hope and magnet for others to join in our revelry.

There are two major pop cultural questions that may be answered in Fort Wayne this week. The first: Is yacht rock a legitimate musical genre? The second: Whose music was better? Prince’s or Michael Jackson’s? Presenting the evidence are Tommy Buoy of Yächtley Crëw and DJ Ken Redmon, aka Kenny Redd. The jury may now review their arguments. YÄCHTLEY CRËW I was on a yacht once but I got thrown overboard after I asked the captain if he would like to check my hull for barnacles.

People tend to have one of two reactions to people who claim to be psychics or psychic mediums: Skepticism (verging on hostility) or delight (verging on adoration). Under antagonistic scrutiny, some psychics react with irritation, while others make even greater claims about their powers and their personal mythologies. Self-proclaimed psychic medium Cindy Kaza, who will appear today at Summit City Comedy Club, does not seem to fit any of the aforementioned patterns.

Glass of whiskey with smoking cigar and ice cubes on wooden table I am not an expert on cigars, so I can only imagine what the Smoke Out Block Party outside Rudy’s Cigar Shop on Brackenridge Street is going to look like today: Premium cigar vendors in every direction, some selling cigars as slender as a strand of a spider’s web, others selling cigars roughly the size of precast concrete piles. There will be cigars in boxes. Cigars in tubes.

My cat died yesterday. If you are not a cat person or a pet person, I suppose it can be hard to appreciate how such a creature can become a full member of one’s family. This cat, named Rodney by employees at the shelter, was quite a character. He was an outdoor cat, a slayer of rats half his size and an undefeated champion against all feline interlopers, of which there were many in our neighborhood. He would lounge on the front stoops of houses several blocks away. Everyone knew him and loved him.