Muncie Origins: Made in Muncie Pottery welcomes guests to design their own clay creations
Editor's note: Muncie Origins is a Ball State Daily News series profiling various businesses that originated in Muncie.
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Editor's note: Muncie Origins is a Ball State Daily News series profiling various businesses that originated in Muncie.
Tonight: As we move into tonight we will see some mild conditions as we will see a low of 64 degrees with winds around 11-13 mph. Mostly cloudy conditions will be the norm for the night as the only thing that could happen will be the occasional breeze from the wind.
by Matthew Yapp The world is a stage, and while some are content to perform on that stage in everyday clothing there are many who would prefer something with a little more flair. That’s where drag comes in. Drag has been a staple of the queer community from the very beginning; drag performers going all the way back to Stonewall have been trailblazers for the LGBTQ+ community. We still see this today, with some of the most prominent and vocal names in the community doing drag, but what exactly is drag? While many see it as men dressing as women, it goes far deeper than that. We got the opportunity to speak with a Muncie-based drag queen, Aura Aurora, and learn what drag means to them, their drag experience, and the changes they’ve seen in the drag world. In our interview Aura discusses how she has seen anyone from transgender women to straight men doing drag which comes as a shock to many. Two of the most prominent queens of all time are the legendary Divine, known for Hairspray and Pink Flamingos, and RuPaul, known for her music career and talk show in the late 90’s. Both queens are cisgender, meaning they identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Because of well-known names like theirs and other queens held to the same caliber, it became the standard that a drag was just a gay man dressed up as a woman. Generally, during a drag show people get on stage in over-the-top clothing: giant gowns, huge hair, and dramatic makeup. The act itself can be anything from stand-up to dancing, but the vast majority of drag performers find a way to incorporate lip-synching one way or another. While men usually choose to perform songs by women and vice versa, drag isn’t necessarily about performing as the opposite gender. Drag is just about performing gender by taking societies perceptions of what a man or what a woman should look like and turn that into a show. In fact, Marsha P. Johnson, one of the biggest names to come out of Stonewall, was both transgender and a drag queen. While cisgender men are still considered the norm in drag, great strides have been made in getting away from that idea with huge names like Peppermint, the RuPaul’s Drag Race season nine runner-up who came into the limelight to represent trans queens. Another thing we were able to discuss with Aura is drag's new push into the mainstream. Aura credits this to societies acceptance of queer people. Societies’ very, very, VERY, slow adoption of the LGBTQ+ community, specifically drag performers, into conventional society can be seen just by looking at your television screen. RuPaul’s Drag Race, which has been on for nearly a decade now, works in the same way that shows like Project Runway or Masterchef do. The show starts with 13 or so contestants and every week a different drag-based challenge is thrown at them. At the end of every episode a queen is eliminated until we are left with one, America’s next drag superstar. RuPaul’s Drag Race has brought over a hundred different queens, all of whom fall into the queer spectrum in one form or another, into the living rooms of families across the country. Not only that but many stars from the show have moved onto shows like America’s Next Top Model, and Scared Famous. Most notably, season six finalist Courtney Act won the most recent version of the UK’s Celebrity Big Brother. This was especially surprising to some because the winner is chosen by audience vote, meaning that the average family sitting at home was open-minded enough to not only enjoy seeing a drag queen on tv, but to pick up the phone and vote for her. The times they are a changing and it’s beautiful to see. With drag becoming increasingly common in society one must think about how many more drag queens will be inspired to move onto the stage in the future. Imagine a child being able to turn on the tv and see someone like them be unashamedly queer and not only be accepted, but celebrated. It’s incredible to think what that will do for their confidence and allowing them to come to terms with who they are. For many queer people life is a drag, but with society embracing the idea that not everything has to fit into the spectrum we’ve grown accustomed to, hopefully things will improve.
By Gunner Masters Martial arts is a term synonymous with combat and spirituality that every person has heard about through one media source or another. Often the arts are portrayed in movies, anime and art as a path to enlightenment and supernatural abilities. However, while the former is true to a degree unfortunately there is no way for a person to fly or shoot Kamehameha waves from their hands. Knowledge and discipline are the spiritual goals of martial arts, especially in Kung Fu, Karate and other Eastern styles. The same can be said of those from the West that focus on chivalry and honor. And the martial artists from these areas trained for the battlefield or duels. In modern times, martial arts have become more combat sport than battlefield focused. This can be seen in Boxing and the UFC and where recently Floyd Mayweather won his 50th straight victory against Conor McGregor in a boxing match. The referee called the match in the 10th round when McGregor showed signs of fatigue and took several good shots to the head and body to ensure his own health and safety. The fight was portrayed as a clash of titans from different worlds and they payout ran into the hundreds of millions. In film and television, martial arts take on another form as heroes and villains fight using flight, Ki-blasts and god-like speed. In the case of Bruce Lee, he was phenomenal at Kung Fu and used his fighting abilities to take on multiple opponents at one and some wielding everything from swords, pipes and nunchaku. However, these battles include graceful and flashy moves because of choreography and movie magic. Reality is far quicker and often brutal. Jeff Glant, 36, is a 4th Dan Blackbelt and Head Instructor at Muncie Mudokwan with over twenty years of training experience and some of that time spent fighting in the cage in smaller MMA circuits. “Fictionally, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just storytelling,” he said as he began to unbind his knee brace from his leg in the changing room at Mudokwan. “Obviously, what works on movies doesn’t work in real life.” “You see a lot of things that are pretty and high-flying, but it’s not real,” Glant said. Glant’s experience in the dojang and elsewhere taught him what works for real life and what doesn’t. Those skills that he built over years came in handy when he had to defend himself for real. Glant was on break from working the kitchen at J.D.’s Bar in Decatur, Ind. He sat at the bar while his friend, Michelle, worked the bar. The bar was empty besides them and two couples that went out for a few drinks. Then three men walked in and were visibly buzzed and ordered drinks from Michelle. She gave them their orders and they drank the alcohol away and became more inebriated. “Fictionally, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just storytelling,” he said as he began to unbind his knee brace from his leg in the changing room at Mudokwan. “Obviously, what works on movies doesn’t work in real life.” They started harassing the couples at the pool table and tried to flirt with the women and became belligerent. Their boyfriends asked Glant, who was exhausted from working in a hot kitchen for most of the night to step in, but he told them, “You guys tell ‘em to stop, it’s not my problem.” The boyfriends confronted the drunks and they apologized, but they got loud and belligerent again. “All right guys. We warned you and you’re doing it again. So, please leave,” Michelle said. One of the men yelled, “I ain’t going anywhere!”, then slapped Michelle and knocked her down. Glant jumped out of his seat, ran up to Michelle’s attacker and pushed him into tables and chairs. “Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving and something told me to kick,” Glant said. He shifted slightly and picked up his leg, then launched his heel into another man’s chest. He toppled backward and fell over the pool table. Glant then turned his attention to the final man who immediately put up his hands in surrender. However, the first man recovered from being thrown into the tables and tackled Glant to the ground. “We kinda rolled around and got into a wrestling match on the steps leading up to the bar,” Glant said. They fell down the stairs bound up in combat. “Somehow, I turned in the air and pin him to the stairs. Then I just pushed his jaw into one of the stairs,” he said. The police arrived moments later and broke up the fight. Western martial arts like Rapier Fencing are portrayed in films like The Princess Bride and the Three Musketeers as fast paced footwork and flourish-filled bouts where heroes and villains seem to dance back and forth and around each other. While the moves and footwork are real, an actual duel would usually be over quickly as stabbing an opponent’s lung, heart or face with a powerful thrust would be certain death and wounds could also render an opponent incapable of continuing a fight. Kaitlyn Sims, a senior at Ball State and President of Ball State’s Fencing Club, has years of experience fencing with the Epee, which is a foil with a heavier blade and larger hand-guard. “The biggest discrepancies that I always see is all the witty banter and all of the swooshing noises that happen. Anytime you hear a sword making a swishing noise in a movie, I can almost guarantee you it’s somebody recording a Foil swiping through the air,” Sims said pretending to slash the air with an invisible sword.“I love to see it because it’s flashy and cool and it’s why I’m interested in the sport to begin with,” she continued, “but it is fairly inaccurate.” The reality of Fencing, like any other martial art is that everything is learned gradually with great effort. Stances, footwork, strikes and parries are all broken into separate movements then blended together over time until they become instinctual. “When I first came to club, I wanted, I KNEW I was going to do Sabre because I wanted to either be a Jedi or be a pirate!” Sims said, laughing. “And it’s not at all like that.” Despite this, Sims continued to practice with her Epee so she could get as close to true Rapier Fencing and her desire to be a pirate as possible. In Birth of the Dragon, the fight between Bruce Lee and Wong Jack Man was shown to be a huge affair born out of old tradition versus street fighting and Lee’s instruction of Caucasians in the art of Kung Fu. The fight in the movie is blown up into an epic battle between these opposing ideologies, yet the actual fight, as told by Lee’s friends and wife who witnessed it, Bruce chased Wong Jack for a few seconds, tackled him and finished him with a UFC style ground-and-pound. His opponent surrendered and Lee walked away free to teach and spread Kung Fu to whomever he wished. Following this, he starred in the Green Hornet T.V. show and several classic movies such as Enter the Dragon. Martial arts and their portrayal in media isn’t a bad thing, however it creates misconceptions of what they teach and what training and fighting are really like. Whether it’s movies, TV or anime, they all spread awareness in the martial arts and lead to people to explore that inspiration. However, the reality is that martial arts are among the most difficult things to do because of the physical and mental demands that cause many to drop out before they realize their potential. As Bruce Lee said, “There are no limits. There are only plateaus and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”
There are plenty of opportunities to get involved in the community and volunteer this semester. Here are six places around Muncie that are looking for help.
A kidney bowl may sound like a prop you would find in a cheap '80s horror movie, but for local skateboarders, it’s just another challenge in the park.
On campus with nothing to do? Here are seven events at Minnetrista from now to September.
Claire Boenitz first realized she was gay in the seventh grade. Ever since then, she’s had to change how she approaches other people.
For the first time, the Muncie community received direct answers about what is going to happen in the fall for Muncie Community Schools (MCS). The Distressed Unit Appeals Board (DUAB) met publicly at the Muncie Area Career Center gymnasium Monday night to discuss the future of the district.
On Monday nights around 9 p.m., or more accurately 9:05 or later, members of the Society for Earth-Based Religions (SER) head to the basement of Ball State’s Bracken Library to discuss the night’s topic. At meetings, the executive members announce a topic or a question. Those in attendance then share their opinions in a safe place—a place where conversations are encouraged.
During the second semester of their freshman year, Abby Dujka, Alex Peters and Lexi Benakovich were hanging out and talking about their mutual struggles when an idea struck them. Dujka had anorexia, and Peters had an eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS), meaning that it didn’t meet the criteria for anorexia, bulimia, or binge-eating. They wanted to create an organization based on spreading body positivity. It seemed like something Ball State’s campus needed, and it would be a good place to connect with others who might be experiencing the same struggles.
Ken Holland wants to help bring peace to conflict-affected countries by nurturing future leaders. That’s why he’s leaving Ball State’s Center for International Development to become president of the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF).
MUNCIE, IN (NewsLink Indiana)
After seeing three gun-related deaths in Muncie over the past two months, some community members have had enough.
MUNCIE, IN (NewsLink Indiana)
During the second semester of her freshman year of college, Hannah Rogers walked the aisles of an activity fair. A table with people practicing dance moves intrigued her. Now a senior at Ball State majoring in studio art and psychology, Rogers leads the Swing Dancing Society on campus. The club has around 25 regular members and welcomes new dancers all the time.
MUNCIE, IN (NewsLink Indiana)
Tonight: After a pleasant day, temperatures will quickly slump down to 32 degrees in the overnight hours. A few gusty winds cannot be ruled out of the forecast for this evening. Winds will remain out of the northwest until early tomorrow when the begin to shift the southwest. A Freeze Warning goes into effect for much of East Central Indiana at midnight and will expire at 9 am on Saturday. Primary impacts from this warning include crops and vegetation sensitive to drastic temperature change.
Muncie, IN (NewsLink Indiana)