The Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) is bringing German culture to the Glass Pavilion on Oct. 21 with Artoberfest, presented by the 2445 Series.
“When we sat down for this event, one of our directives from [TMA director] Brian Kennedy was everything we do must seek to add value and connect with art,” said Nabeel Jabarin, development officer for planned giving at TMA. “I gave those parameters to the TMA Cultivation Committee. Through a lot of discussion, different things came about like flashlight tours and how to have the event in the Glass Pavilion. Having it on Fridays is successful for us since people are already out and the museum is already open.”
While the event is centered in the Glass Pavilion, the highlight is a scavenger hunt involving art in the Glass Pavilion and the main museum.
“I am really excited about the scavenger hunt,” said Dustin Hostetler, a Toledo artist and member of the TMA Cultivation Committee. “I have purposely not looked at the questions and answers yet, because I want to take part the night of the event. It’s a great excuse to rediscover some of the pieces in the museum’s collection.”
The scavenger hunt involves art centered around the themes of Artoberfest. The art included depicts people drinking, objects used for drinking or art made of objects used for drinking.
“It draws people across the street to the main building to look at the collection,” said Dana Syrek, development officer for foundation and corporate funding at TMA. “It makes looking at the collection fun and accessible and part of the evening activity instead of something separate.”

The hunt will take approximately 30 minutes. Participants receive a free raffle ticket for a drawing to win one of five glasses made for the event by Jeff Mack, the manager of the Hot Shop at the Glass Pavilion.
“The glasses I created for this event were inspired with the idea of function first and foremost,” Mack said. “They are things I want people to enjoy using. For the event, the planning committee picked out works of art for a fun museum-wide scavenger hunt that focuses on October-festive themes relating to the table, abundance and celebration. I looked at these works of art for inspiration, in some cases translating the glass directly from paintings. Such was the case with the roamer design, borrowed from Pieter Claesz’s “Still Life with Oysters,” or the tall flute form taken from Diego Velazquez’s “Man with a Wine Glass.”
Mack made the glasses in the furnace at the TMA and will be demonstrating glass blowing at Artoberfest.
There will be a sample of German beers and wines available in the Glass Pavilion “Bier Garten” along with a cash bar from Heidelberg Distributing, which is a sponsor of the event along with the TMA Cultivation Committee and Toledo Free Press Star.
The menu for Artoberfest includes streuselkuchen, currywurst, German potato salad, potato pancakes, chive creme friache, apple chutney, cheese, pretzels, smoked almonds, fruit and crackers.
Toledo City Councilman Steve Steel and Old West End Records owner Ben Langlois will provide the German music for the event.
“We both play accordion, which is not a common instrument in the music scene these days,” Steel said. “Me and Ben are going to do sort of a dueling accordion-type show. In general, we’ll be doing sort of German-type polka music.”
Steel and Langlois have known each other for years, but Artoberfest will be their first live performance together.
“We’ve never played together publicly, but we’ve been involved in a number of projects where our paths crossed a lot,” Steel said. “We’ve jammed together before, but we’ve never actually put it together as a show. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Artoberfest will run from 6-9 p.m. Oct. 21. Tickets are available in advance at $15 for members and $25 for nonmembers. Tickets at the door cost $20 for members and $30 for nonmembers. On Oct. 21, nonmembers buying tickets can apply the $30 to the cost of a membership, which is $55. To purchase tickets in advance, call (419) 255-8000 ext. 7432. TMA is located at 2445 Monroe St.
“The new director of the art museum is working really hard to make it play a larger role in the community,” Steel said. “Anything they can do to increase the outreach is a benefit. It’s one more way to get people to the art museum and spread the amenities of the museum into the community.”
“It’s a really stimulating way for people to interact with and celebrate art and each other,” Mack said. “This is the traditional time for the harvest festival, the Oktoberfest, especially in this region with its strong agricultural roots. It only makes sense for the museum to want to participate in that.”
Following Artoberfest, a flashlight tour of the museum is available at 10 p.m. at $5 for members and $10 for nonmembers. There are 100 tickets available, and flashlights are not provided. The tour takes approximately one hour.
“They take you to different parts of the museum you normally don’t get to see as well as highlighting some objects that look considerably different by flashlight than they do by the light of day,” said membership sales manager David Urbank. “One of the statues, by using the flashlight the shadow looks like the horse is galloping.”

Soraya Miré will never forget the sound of scissors, cutting the flesh between her legs as she underwent ritual female genital mutilation (FGM) as a teenager.
“The pain was horrendous,” Miré, who was 13 at the time, recalled years later during an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” “I struggled to get away, but I was held down by three people, including my mother.”
Four years later, Miré left her native Somalia to live in France and later the United States, where she is now an author, award-winning documentary filmmaker, recipient of the U.N.’s Humanitarian Award and activist raising awareness of the ritual cultural practice she calls child abuse.
“God will never give you anything you cannot handle, I know for sure right now,” Miré told Toledo Free Press Star in a telephone interview. “I was given a chance to go to the Western world, where I saw how other people lived and what it means to be a woman.”

Soraya Miré

Reconstructive surgery and years of therapy helped Miré recover from her physical and emotional wounds, but healing will be a lifelong process.
“Those early years with my doctor were a foundation of the strength I have and the recovery I’ve made thus far, but as any trauma survivor could tell you, the flashbacks come back without notice,” Miré said. “There are times you feel overwhelmed with the pain inside. My job is to stay strong and help others because I’ve been helped. I’ve been so lucky to find hope in this world.”
Miré will appear in Toledo on Oct. 20, as part of a nationwide book tour to promote her new memoir, “The Girl With Three Legs.” The free event is set from 7-9 p.m. at People Called Women bookstore, 6060 Renaissance Place.
The title refers to a belief in some cultures that if a girl’s clitoris is not cut it will grow. That belief led to Miré being shunned by her classmates until she had the operation.
An estimated 135 million women and girls, mainly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, are affected by FGM, which is performed with the purpose of keeping a woman’s honor and purity intact until marriage, Miré said.
“No one came and asked our consent. Honestly, we couldn’t say ‘Stop.’ This was a mutilation. We were told this was our destiny,” Miré said. “So my job became to never forget, to always be persistent to talk about those young girls that are going through this every day. It’s a crime, it’s shameful, it needs to be stopped. It’s child abuse. This is my life mission. As long as FGM continues, I’m going to be shouting from rooftops, making films and keep writing my story, going to everywhere I can.”
Miré hopes her story inspires people going through any kind of struggle.
“Anyone who is feeling like there is no hope, I want to give that hope to them,” Miré said. “I think reading about my life and seeing how difficult it was and yet somehow I found these angels who, without their help, I couldn’t be here today. I want my readers to know whatever they are facing, they too will find amazing souls who will help them through their problems just as I did.”
Before Miré’s appearance, from 6:30-7 p.m., local organization Nirvana Now! will host “Sistas Movin’ On: SPEAK OUT! Support and Sisterly Love for Women Incest, Child Sexual Abuse and Rape Survivors,” an opportunity for survivors and co-survivors — partners, mothers or sisters struggling to know how to support and react to what loved ones have experienced — to speak to other survivors about their experiences.
“It’s an opportunity for women to talk privately and yet publically,” said Nirvana Now! founder CeCe Norwood, who plans to host SPEAK OUT!s from 6:30-8:30 p.m. each third Thursday of the month at the bookstore. “I have been working in this field for more than 30 years now and one of the things I have learned that’s a key component for folks on their journeys to recovery is they have to talk about it publicly. If a person does not do that, they end up stuffing all those feelings and emotions inside, which leads to all kinds of negative effects.”
Norwood, herself a survivor of sexual violence, said she hopes the event will be empowering, liberating and show survivors that happiness is possible again.
“In our world, there is this notion that once you are sexually violated that somehow or another your life is over, but it’s not,” Norwood said. “It was wrong, it was horrible and you’re going to go through all kinds of hell for the initial part of it, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”
Gina Mercurio, owner of People Called Women, said there has been a good response.
“Her [Miré’s] focus is violence against women and a lot of the people connected to the store here care very deeply about those issues,” Mercurio said. “I think it will be a fabulous event.”
Event sponsors include People Called Women, Nirvana Now!, the University of Toledo Sexual Assault Education and Prevention Program and UT Women’s and Gender Studies Department.

The show had a deceptively simple concept: Play music videos both new and old, adding little information nuggets on top which complemented — and undercut — the action onscreen. It was called simply “Pop Up Video,” and it became a phenomenon.
“Pop” ran for six seasons (1996-2002), though reruns have aired consistently in the years since. And those eyars have seen massive changes to its home network, VH1, and the music business in general. The rise of YouTube and iTunes, the “American Idol” era, the dominance of hip-hop. American music is just as important — and self-important — as ever.
And now, like a sheriff returning to an out-of-control saloon, “Pop Up Video” is back. On Oct. 3, the show began an all-new season on VH1, with a fresh batch of music and artists available to both highlight and make light of.
So, why resurrect “Pop Up Video” after nearly a decade of absence?
“I think that it is actually the perfect time, when you look at music videos,” executive producer Woody Thompson said in an interview with Toledo Free Press Star. “It’s an interesting thing, because ‘Pop Up’ came out at the time when the Internet was just emerging, and email was just emerging, there was no real texting. So, I think, at the time it came out, it feels like, now, looking back, it was really ahead of its time.

Woody Thompson

“Now, for it to come back and hopefully establish itself again as the original, kinda snarky voice of text, is kind of an interesting play. If it was up to me, I would have kept it on the air the whole time. But I think that we’ve allowed 10 years of music videos to go by, and there was quite a lull there.”
Indeed, for a while it seemed that music videos were drifting from the public consciousness. Networks like MTV and VH1 devoted more and more time to vacuous reality shows and less time to the programming that launched them. But videos are gaining traction once more. Thompson credits Lady Gaga specifically for bringing “renewed interest to the art form.”
“It’s a good time to come back and be a little bit nostalgic — if you can be nostalgic about the late ’90s and early 2000s,” Thompson said. “We’re doing 300 videos right now, but there’s plenty of videos to mine.”
All the new material to cover excites Thompson, who has been one of the driving forces behind the show since co-creating it with Tad Low in 1996. Though he’s extremely enthusiastic now about the revival, Thompson was hesitant when he was first approached about bringing “Pop Up Video” into a new decade.
“I haven’t been watching music videos at all. I kinda lost touch with the music business — I’m not as much a music fan as I am a pop culture fan and news fan. So, I was a little nervous, because in the last decade, not very many people have talked, to me at least, about a music video that they have watched and that I need to go see,” Thompson said.
“And then, I started realizing what we missed in the decade, and felt like there was ample material. And they asked if we needed to go back and mine the past. And I said, ‘Well, let’s get this out there.’ There’s a whole new generation of kids who have never heard of ‘Pop Up Video’ and have never seen it. So we have a chance to capture them, and the best way to capture them is to give them current music.”
For anyone who watched “Pop” in its heyday, the first few episodes of the revival have felt like coming home — the show’s format and structure have remained basically unchanged from its original run. Thompson said there was a “surprisingly short” debate about whether to alter the formula.
“It’s all about the writing. So, if the writing’s not gonna change, and it’s all about legibility, there’s not much that you can do. So we all kinda decided, let’s start with the writing. Let’s make sure that we can get a team together that can pull it off, and get the research, and pull off that tone and the timing,” Thompson said.
Thompson described his writers as “a band of misfits,” a varied group of individuals who collectively give the show its signature tone.
“What I try to do is build a writers’ room of kind of eclectic savants, who bring very different interests,” Thompson explained. “We have 22-year-olds on the staff and we have 45-year olds on the staff. We have men and women, we have black and white, we have goth kids, we have kids who don’t listen to music at all, we have some hip-hop freaks. And we all sit in a room together.”
From a list chosen by the network, the staff sits and watches the videos, tossing out ideas, jokes, comments and potential leads for interviews. Despite the show’s fun-loving tone, the writers take the facts they report very seriously, often talking with several individuals involved with the production of each subject.
“We do call directors and producers, but we are also aware that there are like 15 people in the business who do almost everything, and so getting 25 calls from us a week is probably not gonna work for Dave Meyers,” Thompson said of the prolific video director.
So, they seek out alternative sources of information. “Facebook and Twitter have been a godsend, because back-up dancers have nothing to lose. And those are the girls and the guys who are talking to us more often than not.”
It’s up to the individual writer to whittle the facts down to about 40-70 nuggets of information. And there’s always the question of tone — finding the balance of fitting both the show and the video in question.
Of course, sometime events in the real world drastically change the tone of the story the “pops” tell. Such was the case with an early video of the new season: “Rehab” by Amy Winehouse.
“That was one of the first videos we wrote, and we wrote it last summer, before she passed,” Thompson explained. “And we took the video back, and had to rewrite — we had a lot of information there about her coming out of rehab and still being in trouble — so we had to go back and rewrite it.
“I think that video walks the line for us. It’s respectful, but it also —we’re not gonna pull any punches. We are gonna tell you what she has done in her past, how many times she has run out of rehab and how much trouble she was in.”
But no matter what the subject matter, Thompson hopes viewers will once again enjoy the smart and sarcastic nature of his staff’s pop culture creation. “The tone has always been one, I hope, of confidence — you think that you trust the conductor of this reference train, and that you just sit back and let it take you on a ride.”

Horror comics have been haunting readers for decades, but precious few of them have managed to conjure the creeps the way a good scary movie can. Ed Katschke, our comics medium at Monarch Cards & Comics, said there’s still a ghost of a chance for modern horror comics to rise up and populate our nightmares. Two current projects head up his panicky picks for Halloween.
“’Severed’ from Image Comics is the tale of 12-year old Jack Garron who, while growing up in the Midwest during the Great Depression, has run away from home in search of his missing father,” he said. “During his journey he has gained the attention of a sadistic serial killer who is bound and determined to serve him up as his latest victim … and I do mean ‘serve.’ Writers Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft have crafted an engaging and suspenseful narrative with pitch perfect attention to period detail and dialog. The illustrations by Attila Futaki are rich, with a muted color scheme that makes some segments look ripped from old newsreels while others are imbued with a sense of dark menace.
“The horror angle is what will pull most readers in and it is quite well done, but I really enjoyed Garron and the various characters he encounters even more. ‘Severed’ is so good that they could easily ditch the serial killer storyline and it would be just as, if not more, entertaining.”
Katschke also noted the difficulty in crafting horror comics from fright films and retain their shock value. BOOM!Studio’s new “Hellraiser” title, according to Katschke, manages to sequelize the infamous movie series to “terrifying effect.”
“Written by ‘Hellraiser’ creator Clive Barker and Christopher Monfette and picking up where the second film in the series left off, the book follows the continuing adventures of Kirsty Cotton, a former victim of the nefarious puzzle boxes which open gates to Hell, and her companions, collectively called The Harrowers, as they match wits against Pinhead and his grotesque minions,” Katschke said. “Many modern horror icons don’t translate well to comics, as the conventions which make them scary on the screen don’t play out well on the printed pages, but the excellent writing and hauntingly atmospheric art on display here are guaranteed to provide a few well-placed chills.”

The Haunted Hyrdro in Fremont has expanded and improved its classic Halloween haunts. New this year in the Hydro is the “Teleport to Terror.”
“You enter a teleportation machine; it’s a big tunnel that takes you to another dimension of fear. Inside you’ll find a room filled with doors. It’s a big circle and you don’t know where each door takes you,” said Haunted Hydro owner/operator Beth Turner.
With such a massive amount of square footage to cover, Turner said that on any given night there are at least 35 actors at the haunt.
“The theme this year is the 100-year curse,” Turner said. “It’s the building’s 100-year anniversary and our 22nd year in operation here. We’re featuring ghosts from Hydros past. We researched old rooms and scenarios and things that have worked for us in the past. We brought all that back in a new way, in a new format.”

Can’t sleep — clown’ll eat me. Can’t sleep — clown‘ll eat me. Photo By Katie Feher

The Haunted Hydro is again featuring zombie paintball, tarot card readings and a wicked little gift shop selling Hydro shirts, hoodies and oddly enough, underwear.
“We have the Wheel of Misfortune again this year, hosted by ‘Nemesis’,” Turner said. “And of course we still have the ‘Twilight Zone’ monsters roaming the courtyard entertaining our guests as they wait in line for the haunts.”
The Hydro itself isn’t the only haunted attraction. In a bigger and longer outdoor walkthrough dubbed “Hell Gate,” visitors have the chance to experience two brands of exhilaration.
“We have about 20 actors in ‘Hell Gate’,” Turner said. “We added more walkthrough action down by the river and we walk you into the woods this year.”
The Haunted Hyrdo is open from 7:30-11:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and from 7:30-10:30 p.m. on Sundays. The “Ghoulabration” pre-show starts at 7:30  p.m. and features T3 Fire Toys and the Trio of Fire group.
“They are one of the few licensed fire exhibitionist groups in Ohio,” Turner said.
$12 buys a ticket to either The Haunted Hydro or Hell Gate; $17 provides admittance to both. With the $21 Monster Bash ticket, visitors enjoy both haunts, a free round of Zombie Paintball, a Monster energy drink, a souvenir photo and a $2 coupon good for any gift shop item or tarot card reading.
Visit thehauntedhydro.com for information.

Halloween horrors await with two recent video games full of visceral content and endless action in crowd-pleasing multiplayer modes or single player blood fests.
“F.E.A.R. 3” (Warner Brothers)
This horror first-person shooter features single player, multiplayer (including cooperative play), and online play (with a pass card) that expands when players unlock multiplayer modes and maps (six total). The four multiplayer modes (three maps per mode) are f***ing run, contractions, soul survivor and soul king — each is available for a four player maximum. One to four players can enjoy the multiplayer mode with optional headsets
Time manipulation, psychic powers and slow-motion mode options all factor into a great experience bending reality into a uniquely twisted world. John Carpenter and writer Steve Niles contribute to this continuing series involving a very dysfunctional family with different brothers who confront their mother, Alma Wade. Enough suspense and scares for previous fans while the excellent shooting controls provide easy aiming and fluid movements that blend into each action scenario with minimal flaws (***1/2, available on PC, PS3, Xbox 360, rated M for blood and gore, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language).
“Shadow of the Damned” (Electronic Arts)
This one-player action horror game has mini games, boss battles and puzzles among the main storyline where weapon upgrades and item collection. The main character Garcia Hotspur constantly quells the demon world, so the demon lord takes his girlfriend Paula, luring Garcia through that world to get her back. Garcia uses “light to beat the dark” in the combat system, which also includes melee attack options when ammunition is low.
The Suda51 team and developers from No More Heroes and Resident Evil also created interesting combat situations and secondary characters like an ex-demon named Johnson who helps Garcia and upgrades weapons. The Johnsonpedia provides helpful information while success depends on razor-sharp player reflexes and quick reaction times.
The challenging combat system requires player adaptation, especially during the boss battles.Bottom of Form Players can throw logic out the window with bone shooting guns, teeth firing rifles and constant hard alcohol consumption that boosts health without impairing movement, aim, or overall gameplay. The male-centered violent style and largely immature content limits its appeal, but the core audience definitely gets enough variety throughout the game (***, available on Xbox 360 and PS3 with special editions, rated M for intense violence, nudity, sexual themes, strong language, and blood and gore). O\

In honor of National Coming Out Day, which was Oct. 11, I wanted to dedicate this column to my coming out story in hopes that it will inspire those still “in the closet” to step out, or provide others with a new perspective on being a member of the LGBTQA community.
Attending Catholic school for 12 years and only playing with the kids around the block did not provide me with many opportunities to interact with members of the LGBTQA community. My only impression of gays and lesbians growing up was negative because my family and friends never talked about it and my education preached that it was a sin.
That being said, even though everything around me told me being a lesbian was unfavorable, I couldn’t help but constantly question whether I was normal or not sice I was drawn to women more than men.

Does every girl think about these things? Is this just a phase you go through while growing up? If I were a lesbian, would every good thing in my life disappear? Would my family still love me? Would I be cast out from everything I know to be “normal?”
Questions like that ran through my head every time I thought a girl was extraordinarily pretty or I caught myself dreaming about beautiful actresses. Regardless of how many times a week I questioned my sexuality, coming out or even exploring was never an option. None of my friends were trying to kiss girls, no one in my family was gay, no one in school let it ever become a thought.
So I continued on through elementary school, junior high, high school and even a little bit of college dating boys and seeming to be boy crazy, only to be tortured by the options I never had. I never had the option to think it was OK to be a lesbian. I never had the option to date a girl in high school without public humiliation or expulsion. My life was conditioned to be boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl.
I did date some amazing men who were compatible with me on nearly every level, but there was something significantly huge missing. It was as if I was just going through the “normal” motions when it came to my dating life but I never saw myself being truly happy.
Rooted deep inside, I always knew that I was a lesbian but it wasn’t until I had my first girlfriend that it all made sense. I discovered a sort of bliss that I never knew existed. It was a happiness that never faded and once I found it I knew I was never going to let it go.
I came out December 2009 to my immediate family and closest friends. Now, nearly two years later, I could not be more loud and proud. To be me feels good and to advocate for others who just want to be themselves feels even better. It can be a very harsh world out there for those that dare to step out of the “closet,” but to take that risk means to potentially gain the dating experiences you were meant to have or even the love of your life.
While it may have been difficult for some in my life to accept, I continue to tell myself the people that are meant to be in my life weren’t there for me just because I was straight. They were in my life because they love me, all of me, including the lesbian me. There is just something so liberating about being able to truly fall in love, start a family with the woman that I fall in love with and share that love with the world around me.

Emily Hickey is an advocate for the LGBTQA community through Toledo Pride and OutSKIRTS Toledo. For more information, visit www.toledopride.com or OutSKIRTS Toledo on Facebook.

Football. This one word describes my family’s weekends for months. These two syllables also describe the atmosphere of countless other American households. I never liked football until my husband took the time to help me better understand the game while watching the Super Bowl more than a decade ago. Now football is part of my anxiously awaited fall repertoire and, believe it or not, football easily relates to yoga.
Football plays are often complex and intricate, a single play taking significant preparation. And then it’s over. Yoga poses are much the same. One pose can take years to master. And then you’ve done it. Your goal is met. There’s an ironic letdown that accompanies this glorious feeling of triumph.
As yogis we can forget to enjoy the journey it takes to get to a single, successful posture, and, as football fans, it’s challenging to enjoy watching beautifully executed plays if the desired goals are not achieved.
Often we fail to remember that many less complicated postures are the physical and mental preparations for more challenging poses. Similarly, some football plays are only called as preparations for other, more rewarding plays.
Yet another way a football play is like yoga is the all-important concept of team. It takes several working parts, or players in the case of the game, to create a properly working play. These parts can be readily equated to our bodies. It takes our various body parts working as a team to create a single, beautiful pose. To examine these unorthodox though apt connections between football and yoga, we’ll take a deeper look into one of yoga’s most celebrated plays — I mean poses — fierce pose.
In English, “Utkatasana” is typically translated from Sanskrit as “chair pose.” However, “powerful” or “fierce pose” is a more accurate interpretation.
We’ll use this less common translation of fierce pose, not only because it better relates to football, but also because this name helps get the practitioner into the mindset required for this pose.
Fierce pose has many variations. Some (for example, one-legged and twisted chair poses) are seriously challenging, or fierce. These poses are typically used as prep poses for other, more complex ones. Twisted chair pose, for instance, has exactly the same architecture as the arm balance side crow pose. Thus, it’s important to intrinsically understand side crow’s twisted sister, a variation of fierce pose. We’ll start by tackling a more simplified version.
To begin, stand with your feet parallel and hip-distance apart. Sit powerfully into your imaginary chair. Feel the length in your lower back and strength in your lower abdomen as you slightly tuck your tailbone and release it toward the floor.
Take your thighs as close to parallel to the floor as possible, keeping your thigh bones parallel to
each other.
Don’t allow your toes or knees to wander out. If you sit deeply enough into this pose your knees will jut slightly past your feet and your core will lunge forward a little, but try to keep your core upright as much as possible. Imagine helium in the heart, lifting your upper spine skyward, shoulder blades sliding down away from your ears and firming into your heart center.
Maintaining length in your lower spine and engagement in your core (and with breath still flowing evenly in and out of your nose), extend your arms overhead shoulder-width apart with palms facing each other, pinky sides of your arms rotating slightly in to activate the triceps.
Allow your front ribs to feel knit together in the front, but continue to open your shoulders by pulling your arms back further; possibly alongside your ears or maybe even behind them.
Keep your chin parallel to the floor and find balance in your feet. For a moment, pick up your toes and make sure that you aren’t sitting too heavily into the balls of your feet. Breathe deeply as you hold your fierce pose for five to eight breaths.
On your final inhalation, straighten your legs and exhale as you return your arms to your sides. Feel the personal power you’ve tapped into by sitting in fierce pose.
With another glorious fall weekend of football watching ahead, take the time to truly enjoy the game (even if your favorite quarterback gets sacked), and also take a moment to tap into your own personal power with fierce pose.

Jennifer White is a certified yoga instructor. Email her at yenniwhite@hotmail.com.

The city has been abuzz for the last few weeks about its native son Will Lucas, founder and CEO of Creadio and thankyouaga.in. Surviving a busy week of press flurry about his radio business and phone applications, he is living in the moment. But allow me to give you a bit of back story about Lucas’ experiences growing up in Toledo, the enrichment he received from its resources and how he gives back to his city.
So far, life’s journey has been interesting for the young man who embarked on a radio career at the tender age of 17.  While he was in high school, he attended a Teen Summit where he met Charlie Mack, the program director of the then-new urban radio station in town, The Juice FM 107.3. After explaining his interest in the music industry, Lucas became an intern at the station and soon hit the airwaves, quickly dominating his time slot.

He later began professionally writing and producing music, but inside was a young entrepreneur who didn’t know exactly what he wanted to be; he just knew he “wanted to be great.” Today, a mature Lucas is focused and the world is about to take notice of how great he can be. He is known on the airwaves as King Keyser, a popular radio personality playing Hip-Hop and R&B weekdays from 7 p.m.-10 p.m. on Toledo’s Hot 97.3. He is the founder of Kings Academy, which holds an annual lock-in for young boys featuring professional male mentors who take the time to come out and encourage the youth in the program. The many hats worn by Will Lucas have helped fuel his entrepreneurial spirit and as a result he is inventing technology capable of impacting the world.
Let’s start with his business-based radio program Creadio, a radio service that offers radio programming tailored to companies, complete with advertisements exclusively for and/or from that company.  Lucas has currently secured accounts with 100 McDonald’s across the country and all six Toledo-based Andersons stores.
Pushing his career beyond music is his creation of phone applications, or apps. Having no prior knowledge in application development, Lucas began educating himself by reading books while actively searching
for a developer. After months of searching and a disappointing lack of response, he found a developer through the power of networking. It could not have come sooner, as this crucial piece to his puzzle was discovered the day after he conceived his current project, thankyouaga.in. Imagine social media that is made up of good news only. The concept is like Twitter in function, but unlike Twitter it is exclusively reserved for the positive news in your life. The application is available through iPhone in Beta form and just recently became available for Droid phones.
Martini Rox: Describe thankyouaga.in and what do you want it to do for the world.
Will Lucas: Thankyouaga.in is the emotional connection of Facebook, the micro-blogging functionality of Twitter, along with the reward mechanism of Foursquare, all put in a big bucket of “thankyouaga.in is collecting the good.” Negative news is easy to find, but with thankyouaga.in it’s a super-long stream of constant flow of good news.
Martini Rox: What stage are you in with thankyouag.in and how can people get this application?
Will Lucas: The first step is to go to thankyouaga.in. It goes live to the public and it will be in the Apple app store and on Google’s app store on Nov. 15. Already looking to the future, Lucas will launch vinyu.com, a “check in” style phone application that will allow users to socially network with friends through locations they check into around the city. Will Lucas is a product of Toledo’s vast resources and actively gives back to his community.
He is featured in October’s issue of the business magazine Black Enterprise, on stands now.
As we continue on …

WASHINGTON, D.C. – More than four decades after his death, Martin Luther King Jr. is still a larger-than-life symbol of hope, freedom and change in the minds of millions of Americans.

Thirty-five Toledo area residents took a weekend bus trip to Washington, D.C., joining tens of thousands of others who flocked to the capital Oct. 16 to honor that legacy and witness the dedication ceremony for the recently unveiled four-acre, $120 million Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

Among the dozens of speakers and performers were President Barack Obama, King’s children, Rev. Al Sharpton, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Tommy Hilfiger, poet Nikki Giovanni, actress Cicely Tyson and many others.

The memorial, the first on the National Mall to honor a black leader, features a granite statue of King standing with his arms folded, emerging from a “Stone of Hope” and gazing across the tidal basin toward the Jefferson Memorial. A thin entrance path through a granite “Mountain of Despair” represents the struggles King faced in the pursuit of social equality and peace. The memorial also features two inscription walls filled with King quotes.

“It’s honoring a historic person,” said trip member Lisa Griffin, who called the experience a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “He made the way for colored people to do a whole lot of things.”

“He had a dream that changed our lives,” her daughter Marlydia King added.

It was the first visit for both to Washington, D.C.

Trip organizer Michael Huggins said the day was moving, exciting and uplifting.

“I think everybody enjoyed it. I can’t wait to take it back to Toledo and share it,” Huggins said. “I think the youth that went down fulfilled the legacy they had heard on King. I could see it on their faces. They were really excited. I think we all got what we were looking for.”

Ben Williams, a longtime local coach and educator and executive director of Ben E. Williams Youth Services Inc., was also instrumental in organizing the trip.

His daughter, Leah Williams, who rode the bus to Washington, D.C., said her father shares King’s passion for equal rights.

“It was important to him that the accomplishments of Dr. King be recognized and that there be people, especially young people, from our community there,” Williams said.

Former Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner addressed the group before the bus departed, telling riders they were on their way to celebrate one of the most respected individuals ever to walk and talk on this earth.

University of Toledo freshman Allaina Peraza, a history buff who plans to major in African-American Studies, said it meant a lot to her to be there for the dedication.

Joe Gerlach and Verna Anthony

“I have freedoms that, when my grandmother came up from Mississippi, I wouldn’t have had,” said the 18-year-old Peraza, who recently register to vote for the first time. “It’s just a symbol of freedom. I was looking forward to seeing it this whole week.”

Verna Anthony of Toledo treated herself to the trip as a 70^th birthday present.

“I have been waiting on this and waiting on this and waiting on this,” Anthony said. “1968 until now has been a long time, but we finally got here. Eventually I knew it was going to get here; I was just hoping I’d be here to see it. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

Anthony said the best part was seeing people of so many different backgrounds celebrating harmoniously.

“This is like the United Nations here,” she said. “This is just a prelude to equal opportunities for everybody. It’s not as good as no color to be seen, but it’s getting there. It’s just so beautiful.”

Eight-year-old Laraya Parker made the trip with her father Larry Parker Jr., uncle Paul Parker and grandmother Mildred Parker, who said the trip was an opportunity to witness history and be part of the future.

“It was great,” Laraya said.

Her father described King as a monumental and influential leader.

“Like the speakers said, this has been a long time coming, but we’ve still got a long ways to go,” Larry said. “A lot of the speakers were comparing today to then. They didn’t have GPS to get here then, but people showed up by the thousands. It shows how great a leader he was.”

Toledoan Josh Fowler said watching the dedication made him proud and he hopes sentiments expressed during the ceremony will be carried out upon everyone’s returns home.

“I think the trip proves people can unite for a common purpose and a common cause, but it’s still vital to sustain that unity,” Fowler said. “Oftentimes trips are over and we just wait on the next trip. I believe it’s time to step up to the plate and exude the characteristics of this trip and what it represented, to be active in the community and raise social awareness.”

Others with Toledo connections were also at the event.

Toledo native Erika Manuel came to Washington, D.C., with a group of students from Tennessee State University in Nashville, where she is a senior.

“Not a lot of people get memorials in their names, especially African Americans,” said Manuel, a Woodward High School graduate. “I can’t even imagine living in a time when people say I’m not good enough because I’m black or a female. I challenge things like that. I don’t know if I would have been as peaceful as Dr. King, so I admire him for that.”

Kristin McMillan was at the ceremony with a group from Morgan State University in Baltimore. The Cincinnati native attended UT for two years before transferring.

“Martin Luther King means freedom to me,” said McMillian, who wanted to come so she can one day tell her children she was at the historic event. “He showed the way.”

The dedication was originally scheduled for Aug. 28, the anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but was postponed due to Tropical Storm Irene.

For more information, visit www.mlkmemorial.org.