The Serpent Mound Spring Seed and Water Blessing, Music Peace Summit is a celebration and blessing of ancient seeds from around the world; praying, energizing, and exchanging these seeds. Visitors will experience music, sound healing, water blessings, meditations, presentations, vendors, dancing and sacred ceremonies March 22-24, 2019. The event will also honor the spring equinox by bringing together delegations from the Americas and all around the world to talk and pray about and for international peace. Its message is: “It Takes a Village; All Nations All Races All My Relations”. The event takes place at the Soaring Eagle Retreat, 375 Horner Chappell Rd, Peebles, Ohio. A schedule of events, updates, camping and additional details can be found at www.facebook.com/events/132899697549858 or visit the website at www.alternateuniverserockshop.com/events.

Barry Jenkins, winner of the Best Director and Best Feature Film Independent Spirit Awards for If Beale Street Could Talk, proclaimed to the media that “the industry is responding” to America’s current conditions. Jenkins urged, “See the films nominated” for 2019’s Spirit Awards, which honor features and documentaries reflecting Film Independent’s mission statement to: “champion the cause of independent film and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.” Big budget studio productions, superhero, special effects-driven pictures, sequels and “A Star is Boring” remakes need not apply for the Spirit Awards, which pay homage to personal, character-driven cinema that says something about the human condition.

Led by their fearless leader Lizzie Lightning (Tania Verafield), the Brooklyn Scallywags are rolling back into Los Angeles. But this time the all-female teammates are skating into a much larger arena, presenting Gina Femia’s rough and tumble For the Love Of (Or, The Roller Derby Play) at Culver City’s 317-seat Kirk Douglas Theatre. Derby is one of three 2018 L.A. plays selected for revival by the Kirk Douglas’ third annual “Block Party” and the first one being mounted on the boards during this celebration of theater, which presents encore productions from L.A.’s outstanding intimate theaters.

Last May, Derby was mounted at the diminutive Theatre of Note, which is about one sixth the Douglas’ size. But as Dr. David Rubin once shrewdly (if not lewdly) observed, “size is not important,” and it’s noteworthy that this cutting edge freewheeling feminist-themed drama is being reprised. And it will be interesting to see how this adaptation on presumably a grander scale by Rhonda Kohl, who also creatively choreographed and directed the original at the Note, compares.