Wed March 8, 2023 – 7-9:00 PM This early spring weather brings a return of the white sangria that will be served for the In the Company of Writers presents a series of personal and conversational dialogues featuring guest writers/poets followed by an open mic forum. The Chicago blues music of “Mr. Jimmy,” welcomes you, continues during intermission and closes the evening. The next in the series features John Desjarlais, a published author, and speaker. In-person sign-ups for open-mic are 6:30 – 7:00 pm and guest authors begin at 7:00 – 8:00 pm with open-mic readings from 8:15 – 9:00 pm. These inspirational gatherings will elucidate and entertain those attending. If interested in reading your work, you may sign up at the door or online athttps://thebrandybar.com/writers-open-mic/ Presentations are limited to five minutes. A former producer with Wisconsin Public Radio and retired professor of journalism and English, John Desjarlais writes historical novels and contemporary mysteries. His first novel, The Throne of Tara: A Novel of Saint Columba, was a Christianity Today Reader’s Choice Award nominee, and his medieval thriller, Relics, was a Doubleday Book Club Selection. Bleeder, Viper (a Catholic Arts and Letters Award nominee), and Specter The Light of Tara: A Novel of Saint Patrick. constitute the ‘Higher Mysteries’ series. Blood of the Martyrs and Other Stories collects short fiction previously published in a variety of literary journals.
Thurs 3/9 – 4-9:00 PM – Crazy Horse cocktail specials: Incredible! By some strange computer technical sidetrack, we found that low and behold, the
Crazy Horse Memorial is still under construction after 70 years and still going on…. Everyone remembers the Oglala Lakota Chief “Crazy Horse” and “General George Custer” and the unforgettable battle at the Little Bighorn where the General met his match in the Chief on June 24,1876. If completed as designed, it will become the world’s second tallest statute, after the Statute of Unity in India. When the carving of Mount Rushmore began in 1927, the local Lakota Indians objected loudly. The Black Hills of South Dakota, by treaty, belonged to them. After Chief Henry Standing Bear’s request for a Crazy Horse monument was made to the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum, and remained unanswered, the Chief wrote to Korczak Ziolkowski, who had assisted in the carving of Mount Rushmore. The Chief asked him to help the local Native American tribes etch their own heroes into rock. Thus began the Crazy Horse Memorial.
The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by the Oglala Lakota and lies roughly 8 miles from Mount Rushmore. The memorial master plan includes the mountain carving, an Indian Museum of North America, and a Native American Cultural Center. It will depict the Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse riding a horse and pointing to his tribal land. The Chiefs felt it was most fitting to have the face of Crazy Horse sculpted since “Crazy Horse is the real patriot of the Sioux tribe and the only one worthy to place by the side of Washington and Lincoln.”
The face of the sculpture, a towering 87 feet, was dedicated in 1998. When completed, the sculpture will stand 641 feet long and 563 feet tall making it the world’s largest sculpture by far. For a size comparison, the head of Crazy Horse alone is 27 feet taller than the 6 story heads of Mount Rushmore. In fact, if you were to stack all the heads of Mount Rushmore on top of one another it still wouldn’t reach half the height of Crazy Horse. The horse head alone could easily fit two of Lincoln’s inside of it. After the death of Ziolkowski in 1982 the family took charge of completion of the sculpture and instead of completing the horse first, chose to finish Crazy Horse’s face first. The head and face has now been completed and work is under way on the much larger horse portion. As of 2022, there was no timeline for when the monument would be completed. However, the hand, arm, shoulder, hairline, and top of the horse’s head are anticipated to be finished by 2037.
Crazy Horse cocktail specials: Crazy Horse – Oglala Lakota – 1840-1877 -Douglas fir, rum, calvados, Cointreau, CB Frost, cranberry & orange juice; Sitting Bull Lakota – 1831-1890 – Courvoisier, rum, maple syrup, pumpkin puree, allspice, sour mix; Red Cloud – Lakota -1822-1909 – CB Frost, Apple cider, lemon juice ; Geronimo – Chiricahua/Apache – 1829-1909 – C & K brandy, limoncello, lemon juice, apricot jam, fresh sage leaves; Wilma Mankiller – Cherokee-1945-2010 – Cointreau, rum, Tina Maria, fresh brewed coffee; 1/2 price Armagnac/Calvados flight