Kyle Brazzel
Stories by Kyle
Hip, young business owners market their dreams
posted: 01/05/2010 1:55 a.m. Discuss
When Nick Coffin and a business partner announced plans last spring to turn the former location of Little Rock’s Sufficient Grounds, beloved in the 1990s for bringing coffeehouse culture to the city, into a haven of locavorism
No rest for the wicket
posted: 08/31/2009 1:35 a.m. Discuss
Outside of high school football and possibly central Arkansas' active kickball leagues, Arkansas doesn't enjoy a bounty of adrenalized athletic rivalries.
7 kids, 4 days
posted: 08/19/2009 4:50 a.m. Discuss
On a recent afternoon at the C.A. Vines Arkansas 4-H Center, on the banks of the diamond-shaped lake that contributes to the camp's serenity, a few boys kicked around a soccer ball as they yelped and taunted in carefree voices that bounced around the greenery. Nearby, a lawnmower roared.
Lake Nixon offering choices for crafty campers
posted: 08/12/2009 5:31 a.m. Discuss
The rolling hills, picnic pavilions and sandy beach of the summertime day camp at Lake Nixon once represented the whole of recreational activities for Little Rock youth. Many made that pilgrimage down Colonel Glenn Road to the camp, which hosted dance parties for teenagers twisting their way through the 1960s, before its takeover by Second Baptist Church.
Neighborhood watch
posted: 08/01/2009 2:59 a.m. Discuss
National Night Out Dwight Davis calls him "the eyes" - that fedora-topped, silhouetted man seen in shadow, staring out from roadside signs designating a community as a member of Little Rock's Neighborhood Watch program.
New crown comes with little sleep, full docket
posted: 07/20/2009 5:04 a.m. Discuss
Sarah Slocum went to sleep early Sunday morning not with stars in her eyes but with rhinestones.
Slocum crowned Miss Arkansas
posted: 07/19/2009 5:40 a.m. Discuss
Sarah Slocum, a 23-year-old political-science major from Sheridan, who competed as Miss Ouachita River, was crowned Miss Arkansas on Saturday night at the end of a 3 1 /2 hour ceremony to determine the state's next representative in the Miss America pageant.
SUMMER READING: Vampires and admen in a tale of two media
posted: 06/30/2009 1:38 a.m. Discuss
Readers love going on about how the book was better than the movie, but what if it's a TV show the book is supposed to be better than?
Tour de pants
posted: 06/29/2009 1:29 a.m. Discuss
Eric Michael Morris is a great finder. No less than Davy Rothbart, editor of Found magazine, commended him as such, at a reading of some of the annual periodical's best finds - misplaced love letters, incongruous shopping lists - at a Little Rock art gallery last month.
Crimes of the art
posted: 06/21/2009 3:48 a.m. Discuss
Thot, shorthand for the full tag of the prolific Little Rock graffiti writer Thot 3000, appears throughout downtown in myriad ways. He might execute a quick tag, using a marker, on a utility pole, a Dumpster or marble tile, with a calligraphic flourish that makes the letters difficult but not impossible to make out.
Film finds makers of boxcar graffiti
posted: 06/09/2009 1:59 a.m. Discuss
When documentary filmmaker Bill Daniel arrived in Gurdon a few years ago for a meeting with a local artist known, depending on his medium, as either buZ blur or the Colossus of Roads, Daniel soon realized that he was something better than a disappointment but less than a fulfillment of his promise in the eyes of the artist.
Neighborhood watch
posted: 06/06/2009 3:17 a.m. Discuss
Sense of place isn't intrinsic to the success of Found magazine - let's hope not, since at a recent reading of the publication's greatest hits at Arkansas Community Arts Cooperative, one of the only artifacts editor Davy Rothbart used to represent the South was an abandoned Dear John letter salvaged from a North Carolina street, hinting at incest.
Scouts' honors
posted: 05/20/2009 3:46 a.m. Discuss
The Boy Scout merit badge program, that skill based scavenger hunt that occupies kerchiefed boys in disciplines ranging alphabetically from aviation to wireless, is so modern as to offer a merit badge that sounds like it should be earned from within a hazardous materials suit - nuclear science - and so culturally attuned to bestow one - in cinematography - that sounds like an Academy Award.
Booted up, ready to go
posted: 05/13/2009 3:45 a.m. Discuss
When 17-year-old Sam Setian dyed her hair black as a way to go an inky incognito from her twin sister, Nik, younger by a very crucial 22 minutes - not least of all to their mother, Rhonda, who by the tenth in-between minute had begun to question her natural-childbirth decision - the stakes were a little higher than with most acts of one sister un-twinning herself.
Don't miss films
posted: 05/10/2009 5:50 a.m.
If the award-winning documentarian brothers Craig and Brent Renaud of Little Rock had their way - and, as co-founders and chief programmers of the Little Rock Film Festival, they do - these films would emerge as don't-miss fare. The following recommendations were adapted from a list of favorite films issued by the taste-making duo.
High- and lowlights include cult films, video competitions
posted: 05/10/2009 5:49 a.m.
No film festival would be complete without wine-bar parties with cineastes (see 10 p.m. Saturday, Crush Wine Bar, 115 E. Markham St., Little Rock) following a day of shorts.
Fest is really rolling
posted: 05/10/2009 4:14 a.m.
The story of the Little Rock Film Festival - entering its third year Wednesday with a 140-screening lineup that extends to May 17 - is a two-sided coin that, symbolically at least, features a film like La Linea as heads and Resurrection County as tails.
Spotlight not so hot to Joshua
posted: 05/05/2009 4:13 a.m.
Fans of the Little Rock musician who goes by the single name of Joshua and fans of the Little Rock fashion designer Korto Momolu - who are often, although not to a person, the same enthusiasts - might think of the Bryant Park fashion show filmed for Momolu's participation in the finale of Bravo's Project Runway as the moment that fused Joshua's soulful Afro-Beat track "Binti" with the designer's procession of jewel-tone exoticism.
Neighborhood watch
posted: 05/02/2009 1:55 a.m.
ARCH STREET, LITTLE ROCK Neighbors of Dennis Hendrix think of him as the "Mayor of Arch Street," not so much for his political finesse - although he affects the calm, friendly demeanor of a consensus builder - as for an authoritarian streak coupled with the judicious, panoptic view he takes from his post at the corner of 17th and Arch streets in downtown Little Rock.
Birth of 'mom-oir' challenges author
posted: 04/29/2009 1:49 a.m.
Kyran Pittman doesn't seem the type to have a confession to get off her chest - mostly because the act of confessing usually follows a pang of guilt to which the parenthood-examining writer doesn't find productive.
Gather the children
posted: 04/15/2009 4:28 a.m.
By Cappie Swaim's reckoning, her chances in life were greatly enhanced by two providential gifts from her mother.
What recession?
posted: 04/14/2009 4:43 a.m.
When Holly Ingebo opened a grocery store, the one that she had in mind, if not the store that she actually built, was Carson's.
Spinning a Web of design
posted: 04/11/2009 1:46 a.m.
When interior designer Kate East builds presentation boards - collages of ideas, trends and design schemes - for clients like Copper Grill, War Memorial Fitness Center or a River Market condominium, she culls ideas from a fresh source apart from trade journals and consumer magazines.
School talk set to peel The Onion
posted: 04/07/2009 4:43 a.m.
The satirical newspaper The Onion knows no sacred cows. And, as objects of scorn and derision by humorists, U.S. presidents are neither sacred nor even remotely bovine.
Neighborhood watch
posted: 04/04/2009 3:51 a.m.
Some of the questions on a current survey being used to assess interest in The Village at Hendrix - a planned town-square-revival-style neighborhood in Conway - sound less like instruments for real-estate assaying and more like a diagnostic tool for personality disorders.
ARCHITECTURE New film lauds life of Fay Jones
posted: 03/29/2009 2:45 a.m.
Late one night, much later than is generally considered polite, Glenn Parsons placed a call to the architect who was designing Parsons' new house in Springdale. This was several years ago, a time when a call to a nightstand telephone would slice the midnight silence instead of vibrating faintly inside a cell-phone sleeve or going straight to voice mail while its recipient slumbered.
When a Poe marries, all roads lead to Little Rock
posted: 03/29/2009 2:37 a.m.
As a diversion for guests during their post-nuptial party in a reception hall in Little Rock's Union Station, Tony Poe and the recently former Laine Rosen rented a vintage photo booth - the kind where you draw the curtain and mug, for six frames, to be exact.
Jedi jesters of 'Improv Strikes Back' to send up Star Wars
posted: 03/24/2009 3:26 a.m.
"May the force be with you." That old George Lucas benediction is sort of the "aloha" of movie catchphrases: it can mean whatever you want it to.
All my children
posted: 03/18/2009 1:06 a.m.
It might not be the easiest route to reality-show and tabloid stardom, but these days the surest route is to have a lot of children.
Clearing the crags
posted: 03/16/2009 3:32 a.m.
SAM'S THRONE - The roar of a chain saw in a wooded area populated by camping teenagers at play generally leads to terror in a slasher movie, so it was fitting one Saturday in mid-February when around 20 sawyers hiked into the woods near Newton County's Horseshoe Canyon Ranch juicing their motors and joking about a "Valentine's Day Chain Saw Massacre."
Neighborhood watch
posted: 03/07/2009 3:28 a.m.
Woodland Heights The recession and its 401-K.O. have lent an aspect of aversion therapy to certain retirement daydreams
Life is a cabaret
posted: 03/01/2009 2:34 a.m.
Norman Jones sits at a cool ivory bar strewn with hundreds of dollar bills stacked and secured with rubber bands. It is a Monday afternoon; the money represents the "bank" for the two of Jones' four bars that operate during the week.
Have a heart!
posted: 02/13/2009 2:19 a.m.
Believe whatever Valentine's Day origin story you want: We're partial to the one that has St. Valentine carve out his still-beating heart and sending it to the mistress who rejected him.
A new page
posted: 02/12/2009 4:42 a.m.
Ted Parkhurst shaped storytelling into print form for years through August House, his Arkansas-based book imprint. But when the folklore-oriented publishing company changed hands and moved to Atlanta in 2006, Parkhurst turned his focus to a more immediate storytelling medium.
All downhill from here
posted: 02/04/2009 2:55 a.m.
As much as Ben Dalton might have wanted to shrink and escape notice as he walked into a roomful of his fellow teenagers four years ago, he knew he couldn't. Steroids that were helping mend his body after treatments for spinal cancer left the 15-year-old feeling like he was wearing a suit of padding he couldn't slip out of.
Disfarmer inspires puppeteer
posted: 02/01/2009 2:45 a.m.
Dan Hurlin remembers the first time he looked upon the baleful gazes, bony shoulders and weatherbeaten nobility of the subjects of the Heber Springs portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer.
Hip places to hop, mix and chill
posted: 01/23/2009 3:17 a.m.
Maybe the city's rappers want to show off their new Christmas clothes. Maybe it's because Notorious is finally in theaters.
On the rebound
posted: 01/12/2009 3:53 a.m.
The thwak - clop - sneaker-squeak - thwak - clop rhythms of racquetball might sound as tied to the 1980s as a Duran Duran record, but those four little walls where yuppies once worked out their aggressions are closing in again.
Hard-candy Christmas
posted: 12/17/2008 2:54 a.m.
For many, Christmas 2008 will not go down in the history books - or the family scrapbooks - as a season of plenty. But for a generation of Arkansans who have lived through Christmases lean as well as flush, celebrations arrive with the assurance that a make-do Christmas can yield more cherishable memories than one in bounty.
Right in step
posted: 12/12/2008 1:39 a.m.
The point of dancing is to elevate one's head into the clouds, but at American Legion Post No. 1 in downtown Little Rock, the point is also to keep one's feet on the floor.
Eggnog with a twist
posted: 12/12/2008 12:06 a.m.
The nicest little gift of Nothing Like the Holidays, which tracks a Puerto Rican family for a few snow-blanketed days in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood, is that it is a movie that happens to take place over Christmas rather than being a Christmas movie.
FILM Food is character in Nothing
posted: 12/07/2008 3:29 a.m.
Many directors like to extoll their abilities to make a nonbreathing entity emerge as an unofficial but essential member of a film's cast: Think of Sex and the City, whose makers liked to claim the backdrop of New York was the show's "fifth lady." In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, it's a pair of blue jeans.
Neighborhood watch
posted: 12/06/2008 2:05 a.m.
Dunbar neighborhood While the museum at Little Rock's new Mosaic Templars Cultural Center celebrates the Ninth Street business district that once thrived on the work of commuters from the Dunbar neighborhood, Susan Bell curates Dunbar-focused celebrations on a smaller scale.
Roll over, Def Leppard
posted: 11/30/2008 2:13 a.m.
On a recent night on a dimly lighted west Little Rock stage, 16-year-old Ian Russell dragged his sidecombed tousle of hair into place and broke formation with his bandmates to turn up his amp before fingering a quick guitar solo. Then he receded back into the ensemble silhouette of thin frames, tight jeans and checkerboard-print slip-on sneakers that is the Flaming Ice Cubes.
Top of the Rock
posted: 11/30/2008 1:51 a.m.
So far, Washington's Democratic reboot is putting everybody from the Bill Clinton days back on top except Bill Clinton.
Mike or Spike?
posted: 11/23/2008 4:10 a.m.
Yep, it's another Mike Huckabee joint - er, book. Last week Huckabee released his campaign-trail memoir, Do the Right Thing, which conspicuously shares a title with Spike Lee's groundbreaking 1989 film. Do Mike and Spike share anything besides a title? Quiz yourself on which quotes are from Lee's script and which are from Huck's tome.
How tasteful!
posted: 11/22/2008 4:28 a.m.
Cooking, cleaning and serving on Thanksgiving is only half the battle.
Entertainers Hall of Fame salutes seven Arkansans
posted: 11/18/2008 2:21 a.m.
HOT SPRINGS - At its best, the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame induction ceremony blends the laudatory completism of a lifetime achievement award with the uncontainable jocularity of a front-porch storytelling session.
Gee got the beat
posted: 11/13/2008 2:14 a.m.
A few short years ago, the Little Rock rhythm and blues singer Regina Gulley was fetching champagne and chicken wings to stock the Little Rock hotel room of Lil Flip, the Houston rapper who had been brought to town by Gulley's then-employer, radio station KHTE-FM, 96.5.
Snubbing the snobs
posted: 11/09/2008 2:55 a.m.
Some of the rhetoric of the 2008 presidential campaign will be easy to forget. Lipsticked pit bulls (if not pigs) and John McCain's debate utterance "that one," for example, will probably be one-hit wonders.
