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Mayor Greg Ballard’s hope of making Indianapolis the first U.S. city with an all-electric car- sharing service hinges on a rate hike to cover $16 million in costs to Indianapolis Power and Light.

Called HopCat, the bar will anchor the long-vacant corner space in the Broad Ripple parking garage on the southwest corner of College and Broad Ripple avenues.

If the plan is carried out, new city employees wouldn't be eligible for pensions through the Indiana Public Retirement System. Instead, they would have a defined-contribution plan similar to the 401(k) plans offered by private-sector employers.

The Indiana State Library has introduced an online platform allowing users access to the National Digital Newspaper Program's database. The library says the collection contains more than 14,000 issues and over 95,000 pages of content.

The City of Fort Wayne has announced a final agreement with Aqua Indiana to acquire the utility in the southwest part of the city. The multi-million dollar deal will be introduced to the city council next week. If it receives final council approval next month, the transition to city water could begin in October.

Mr. García Márquez, a Colombian who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982, wrote fiction rooted in a mythical Latin American landscape of his own creation.

James Bruggers reported yesterday in the Louisville Courier Journal in a story that began:There is big news in the air...

The chief executive officer of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association says proposals from the Environmental Protection Agency could result in the shutdown of Indiana coal-fired power plants. Jo Ann Emerson says some facilities may decide it's less expensive to close than to comply with proposed greenhouse gas emission standards. She says the suggested measures could also cause power companies to decide against building new plants in Indiana. Emerson is in Indianapolis to speak at a state cooperative board meeting.

…It ships…..oh shit no no no no no

Heyyyoo! It’s Trey’s sister again, Katherine, and we met a couple months ago when I shared some of my favorite white wines. I’m super excited to have the opportunity to tell y’all about some delicious and reasonably priced reds!There are some fun sniffing and swirling facts about drinking reds that I want to share with y’all first. Have you ever noticed people taking extra time to sniff and swirl their wine before they take the first sip? I used to think it was unnecessary roughness, but there is some legit fun to be had in partaking in these exercises. If someone has just poured you a full glass of wine, I would encourage you to take a minute to get your sniff on. Most folks that I’ve seen sniff will stick their nose in the bottom part of the glass ... but I mostly just smell alcohol when I do that.I’ve actually found that the good stuff can be experienced by sniffing the top of the glass. This is where I look for the smells that folks offer in descriptions. Smell your wine for the different fruits, chocolate, and other random things (like tar or leather!) that they describe, and see what you can come up with!Have you ever heard someone say, “Look at the legs on that one!” in referring to a glass of wine? Something fun you can do is take a glass with a small amount of wine in it, swirl it around to coat half of the glass, and then wait for the “legs” to appear. This will give you an idea about the body of the wine. Thicker legs can often be seen with fuller bodied wines (like the ones toward the end of this list below). Lighter bodied reds, like a Pinot Noir, will have lighter legs.You may also see folks swirling a full glass of wine (bee tee dubs—only do this if you have a nice big wine glass with plenty of room to swirl! Otherwise, you may have a little mess on your hands.) This will oxygenate (throw this word out at your next party—you’ll sound super fancy!) your wine. Adding oxygen to wine helps to round out and soften reds, and it will make your wine shine! There are two other ways you can oxygenate wine: 1) open your bottle of red a couple of hours before serving it, or 2) you can purchase a number of tools (decanter/aerator) from a local wine store or online. My hubs actually bought me an aerator for Christmas a couple of years ago ... and we did a blind tasting with a bottle that we had opened two weeks prior. One glass went through the aerator, and one did not. The difference was crazy noticeable!! Okay ... time to get down to business. Below are some fabulous reds under $20. They are listed from sweetest and light, to full-bodied. You can get most of them on one of the following websites: marketviewliquer.com, winelibrary.com, or wine.com.The Banfi Rosa Regale is a great sweet bubbly red. This wine comes in a super sexy bottle and is generally referred to as a dessert wine. It pairs wonderfully with dark chocolate desserts. I love to serve it with chocolate soufflé and fresh raspberries. For those newer to wine, this is great to drink on its own in a champagne glass. Price: $19.99 The 2012 Belle Glos Pinot Noir Meiomi is a fabulous pinot! It is fuller-bodied and a little more complex than most pinot noirs. This versatile wine will pair nicely with a variety of dishes, such as turkey, salmon, or red meats. Price: $17.99 The 2012 Farnese Fantini Sangiovese is a great wine for the price! It has a nice round texture with some fun, complex flavors. This wine would be great for sipping on a weeknight or serving at a dinner party on the weekend! Pair with red sauce dishes, pizza, or aged cheeses. Price: $9.99 This next wine ended up being a unique party favorite. In fact, this is Emma’s favorite of all of the wines. The 2011 Stump Jump Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre is a red blend that has more feisty personality than many wines that I’ve tasted. It is a very herbaceous and peppery glass of yum!  Pair this with an arugula and steak salad. Price: $8.99 The 2012 Locations F2 is a really yummy glass of red from France. This rich and soft red blend (Grenache, Syrah, and Bordeaux blends) is very easy to drink. Enjoy the F2 with a lamb dish or spicy Asian cuisine. Price: $16.95 The 2011 Consentino Winery “THE ZIN” happens to be my favorite of this group. I was originally not going to post a red zin, because the good ones are pretty pricey ... and then I found this beauty. Holy moly. It brings everything that I love in a glass of red—round, complex, a little earthy, with a nice lingering finish. Hey. O. to  this one! This would pair wonderfully with beef tenderloin, flank steak salad, or a portabella mushroom dish. Or, if you’re me, you pair it with a wine glass and drink up! ;) Price: $12.95 The Vina Eguia Reserva is a wonderful bang-for-your-buck red! This earthy Rioja received a 92 rating and is ready to impress! Although online prices seem to be a little higher, I was able to grab this wine for around $10 at our local wine store in St. Louis. I’ve served it at several parties, and folks always love it! Enjoy this with a range of grilled or roasted meats. Price: $10.99  I was just introduced to the 2011 Justin Cabernet Sauvignon about a month ago and bought it for a wine pairing dinner that we did at our cabin. I usually like to get wines that are around $30 for our wine pairings (because I won’t really spend the money at any other time), but the Justin came through for me! We served it with Beef Wellington and glazed bacon-wrapped asparagus bundles. This cab is super smooth, round, but very full-bodied! It is a crowd-pleaser for sure! Price: $17.99 If you like earthy wines, the 2011 Veramonte Cabernet Sauvignon is for you! I love a good Chillan wine, because they are characterized by an earthy, dirt-like flavor. I know dirt and wine sounds kind of gross ... but just give it a try and you will see what I mean—and you will see how yummy dirt can be!! Price: $8.99 No red wine list would be complete without a port. The Quinta Noval Black Port has received 90+ ratings for several years from experts.  It is very yummy and deserves the attention it has received! Different from a glass of the above reds, ports are served in a small glass, sipped like a scotch, and are often a replacement for dessert. Price: $17.99 Hope y’all enjoy!!! xo. Katherine Credits // Author: Katherine Montgomery, Photography by: Sarah Rhodes and Emma Chapman. Photos edited using Celeste from Fresh.

Fuzzy plates, bowls with holes, and slim staircases? Yes, please. In a world of ever-changing gadgets, endless updates, new apps, and beautiful architecture in the woods most of us can never be a part of, designer Katerina Kamprani has created The Uncomfortable Project, a set of absolutely useless—but beautiful and probing—objects. Does this make the pieces art? Absolutely. These designs by Kamprani lean towards a greater conversation about purpose and aesthetics, art and everyday objects. In fact, there are no clear-cut rules in Kamprani’s world, which is utterly refreshing in a solution-oriented culture. We sat down with Kamprani for a little more insight into these uncomfortable—and delightful—objects.

Where did you get the idea for these creations?
“The first uncomfortable just popped into my head. After that, I started thinking like that because it’s fun but also it helps me analyze the invisible design language behind everyday objects. I am an architect, but design is my passion.”

Is it an ongoing series? (We hope so)
“It is an ongoing series, although lately I am thinking more surreal than uncomfortable and I am not sure if the new objects will fit the “guidelines” of the Uncomfortable! I guess in these objects there is also a little bit of self expression and maybe I don’t feel so “uncomfortable” any more.”

How does this differ from your other work?
“The Uncomfortable is my personal project, for my clients I try to do “comfortable” things! But I think the core thinking behind the Uncomfortable is close to designing useful things, it all has to do with analyzing the user’s experience.”

The post Absolutely Useless (Yet Highly Amusing) Objects Designed by Katerina Kamprani appeared first on Feature Shoot.

© Toshiteru Yamaji

© Toshiteru Yamaji

Who doesn’t love a passel of pigs? Kagawa-based photographer Toshiteru Yamaji captured the beautiful relationship between a pig farmer and his 1,200 pigs in Pigs and Papa. Yamaji was born in Kagawa in 1937 and was a city worker in agriculture, forestry, and fisheries for 24 years. Through his job, Yamaji came to know Otchan, the pig farmer he ended up photographing from 1997-2007 for this project. Yamaji, an amateur photographer, self-published a book of the photos in 2009 and ended up winning the 13th Japan Self-Publishing Award’s graphic prize for his book. The next year, FOIL published a re-titled, revised edition. Yamaji’s depiction of this happy farmer with his happy pigs, who have clearly forged a strong bond with each other, is an important reminder that there are better ways, for both the animals and the farmers, to raise farm animals than in factories.

You can buy or preview the book here.

© Toshiteru Yamaji

© Toshiteru Yamaji

© Toshiteru Yamaji

© Toshiteru Yamaji

© Toshiteru Yamaji

© Toshiteru Yamaji

© Toshiteru Yamaji

“Pigs and Papa,” by Toshiteru Yamaji. Published by FOIL in 2010.

The post Heartwarming ‘Pigs and Papa’ Photos Show the Affectionate Bond Between a Farmer and His 1,200 Pigs appeared first on Feature Shoot.

i came upon this fantastic renovation project featured in a recent issue of elle decoration UK when i went searching for glass room dividers yesterday. it’s a former training school in Copenhagen which was beautifully renovated into living space by Jon Oron, a music producer and friends — together they renovated the space creating 16 apartments with two adjoining music studios. this is open studio apartment Jon Oron lives in on the 2nd floor — a great open space with whitewashed hardwood floors, white walls, and those inventive glass doors and room dividers separating the living area from the bedroom. i love this whole space, so i had to come back and share the rest of it with you today!

• photos by Pernille Vest for ELLE Decoration UK.

Interested in how we “learn to see, identify, and remember, and the role images play in the codification of perceptual and mnemonic experience,” artist Cynthia Greig has created photographic documents of three-dimensional drawings. She begins her series Representations, by collecting everyday objects from the “recent past—their designs made obsolete by changes in technology, taste, and time.” In a process of deconstruction and later reconstruction, Greig comes to “represent” these objects as belonging to a timeless era; one that asks us to examine our own passive viewing experience. We reached out to Greig to explore this fascinating project further.

Hi, Cynthia. Talk to us.
“I can be a pretty impatient person, but I also recognize that my impatience can get me into trouble a lot of the time. When I discovered this process of creating three-dimensional drawings it gave me the opportunity to slow down and look, and experience the act of looking from a completely different perspective. In seeing how the camera sees I saw more than I would normally. Experiencing the physicality of drawing, the feel of the charcoal against the surface, the object’s contours, its shape in space, observing the subtle textures and shadows playing on the whitewashed surfaces, all became part of a kind of meditation on the ordinary and the everyday. We see a coffee cup, a phone all the time, but take them for granted, and don’t really see them. I’m intrigued by this kind of invisibility we experience with the material world of mass-produced, everyday objects.”

“Plus, there’s a whole history of decisions, aesthetics, culture, design and technology that play a part in shaping the everyday possessions we use. I often choose to represent the outdated versions of these familiar objects, like a black and white tv, an analog camera, a dial telephone, or the kind of generic shoes women buy and dye for a wedding party. The shapes of these objects relate to the forms of my own generation, and reflect on time, the persistence of things, but also how the ordinary changes and evolves. How does that affect our future memory of things past? I’m interested in what disappears and remains with the passing of time.”

The post Photographer Uses White Paint and Charcoal to Turn Everyday Items Into Clever Works of Art appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Boston-based photographer Stefanie Klavens examines the scenery of daily life in her series How We Live. Klavens focuses on a wide variety of unpopulated, commonplace spaces both private and public in order to examine the elements that are so often seen they have long gone unnoticed. The wonderful variety of décor make these spaces seem like carefully decorated film sets that we are being given access to after everyone has gone home, but Klavens is giving us a glimpse of “intimate, frozen moments [that] become pieces in a jigsaw puzzle that reflect our culture and how we choose to go about our lives.”

The post Evocative Photos by Stefanie Klavens Examine the Scenery of Everyday Life appeared first on Feature Shoot.

One of our lovely readers, Sarah, along with her boyfriend, have almost completed a renovation of a 1950′s cottage they purchased months ago in Montreal, Canada. When Sarah’s grandmother passed away, she left money that Sarah was sure she wanted to use as a down payment. When the couple toured this home so many details reminded her of her grandparent’s home that she knew it was the one.

Sarah describes, “We even got to meet the older lady whose home it had been for over 40 years. She agreed we needed to gut the kitchen immediately as she said she would have done it herself if she’d had the energy. With her blessing we got to work opening up the kitchen to the dining room/living room, removing carpet, refinishing the wood floors, removing two layers of wallpaper and painting over all the dusty rose. We’ve done all the work ourselves and are so happy with the outcome-a bright, cheery easy to use space.” Stay tuned to Sarah’s blog for upcoming details of the home’s before and afters!

This month’s inspiring desktop design comes from New York-and-Philly based designer, illustrator and all-around awesome person, Kimberly Hall (Nottene). You might remember how she created some pretty swell clothing with Marimekko fabrics in our Make It! challenge.

She says of her quote and illustration: “I love to see this quote when I draw because I am reminded that sometimes I need to just choose happiness, and it will make me feel good…and when I draw with happiness I can make others feel good too. It’s healthy!”

Click on the size below to download:

1024×768 \\\ 1280×1024 \\\ 1680×1050 \\\ 1900×1200 \\\ 2560×1440

BONUS: iPhone 5 \\\ iPad

View and download past Designer Desktops here.

You might know artist and designer Sean Williams under his Seanings moniker, but if you don’t, you should. Sean creates hand illustrated portraits out of typographic designs. Meaning, the person’s face is made up of lyrics from that person’s songs. Sean has partnered with Casetagram to bring these Typography Portraits Collection to your iPhone 5, 5s, and 5c devices. Now, it looks like they have the line for all the various devices, like the Galaxy S II, S III, S4, the Galaxy Note, II, III, the Nexus 4 and 5, and more.

Because we all need a little HOVA and Yeezus in our lives, right?

Danish brand Rikki Tikki has launched a handmade and hand-decorated line of ceramic tableware called Just. The series is made with retro slash contemporary shapes with contrasting color glazes on the interiors. On the matte exteriors, each piece has a textural crisscrossed pattern etched into the surface creating organic-shaped diamonds.

The line is available for purchase via The Scandinavian Shop.

Photos courtesy of The Scandinavian Shop.

"Slapped Actress"

Pimento Cheese Grilled Cheese (thanks Suzanne!)

Fried chicken hoecake

B&G

Shrimp & Grits

croquettes

hush puppies

Kale salad

Pickle plate

Beignets

White Rice

Green Ice Cream

Will you be ordering the green spaghetti or blue turkey? California-based Lawrie Brown invites us to consider the manufactured and processed methods with which food reaches our table, presenting bizarre amalgamations of familiar dinners and snacks in his Colored Food Series. The work also plays with our individual psychological response to color, the viewer either fascinated or repulsed by the hyper-bright synthetic transformation of everyday meals. Using latex house paint, Brown disrupts the generally appetizing vision of food photography, making us a little queasy when we think about all the actual artificial coloring and process that goes into most Western food production.

Orange Cheese

White Noodles

White Sugar

White Bread

Yellow Butter

Pink Cereal

The post Green Spaghetti, Blue Turkey and Pink Cereal: Food Photos Freakify the Everyday Meal appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Laura Barron-Lopez wrote Friday in The Hill's Energy IssueWatch Newsletter:A Senate panel is set to consider President Obama’'s nominee for...

Male federal judge has some advice for female lawyers about what to wear in court: "If they are likely to label you, like Jane Curtin, an ignorant slut behind your back, tone it down."

The Indiana Court of Appeals will rule at a later date after hearing oral arguments in a case against a former state utility regulator. The Indiana Attorney General's Office wants misconduct charges reinstated against David Lott Hardy.

We’re not gonna lie, we were worried this was some sort of kitty vending machine, but it’s actually a shot of a cat’s version of backstage, captured by Amsterdam-based photographer Rene van der Hulst back in 2002 at the Hoogvliet Circus near Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The cats were part of an act by a dwarf duo that had trained the cats to do a myriad of tricks. Van der Hulst happened upon the stars of the show just before going onstage, and was quite taken by the surreal nature of these felines waiting to perform—he assured us, too, that these little guys only spent a short time in their backstage quarters.

The post Photo du Jour: Circus Cats Backstage appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Here is Governor Pence's bill watch page; all the bills are now accounted for. There were no vetoes. As John...

Boston-based photographer Caleb Cole’s curiosity about the lives of others led him to make his amusing series Other People’s Clothes. In the series, he becomes the stranger by using scavenged clothing and a location in which to create these imagined stories of strangers’ lives. There is an underlying empathy in Cole’s work, even if the humor is front and center. About the deeper meaning behind his witty portraits, Cole says, “Though I am the physical subject of these images, they are not traditional self-portraits. They are portraits of people I have never met but with whom I feel familiar, as well as documents of the process wherein I try on the transitional moments of others’ lives in order to better understand my own.”

Cole’s work is on view through April 5, 2014, at Nave Gallery Annex in Somerville, Massachusetts.

The post ‘Other People’s Clothes’: A Photographer’s Humorous Self-Portraits Imagine the Lives of Strangers appeared first on Feature Shoot.

Vectren Energy Delivery of Indiana-North has announced two multi-year natural gas deals. The utility says it has secured about one-fifth of its annual supply purchases with long-term contracts.

i was instantly smitten with the bold, colorful work of artist jenny sharaf at tappan collective. but then, it was the portraits of jenny herself, taken by Hans Kwiotek that made me want to learn more about her. she just looks so cool and confident, right? his captures of jenny in her studio space are rad! tappan has a wonderful interview and studio visit with the artist, you should check out — her current medium? “Housepaint and cheap craft paint from Michaels!” Jenny is a an artist born and raised in Los Angeles, currently living in San Francisco, and is also the founder of Gallery Daily, which bridges the gap between art and technology in the Bay Area. Through painting, video, works on paper, and installations, Jenny Sharaf explores “the mythology of the California girl, the role of the female artist, and the image of the role of the female artist, and the image of the 21st century woman in order to illuminate the evolving generational shifts of feminism and contemporary notions of the gaze”. you can see all of her work at tappan collective, as well as her own website. oh, and she has an excellent instagram photostream and tumblr, as well.

• Photos are taken by Hans Kwiotek, Photos via tappan collective.