FAUX REAL THO

Hilda the Pin-Up: Chunky but Funky

The allure of Hilda is not that she’s sexually available, but that she is active, curious, adventurous, and unconscious about her zaftig body. She had a full and romantic (if fictional) life, was kind of a goober, and possessed the magnetic, sexy goodwill that comes from living a life of happiness, much like many of…

I Wrote a Thing: Secret Fine Dining, Local Food, and Red Tape with Pop-Up Lafayette

A review of Pop-Up Lafayette, the new, elusive, all local and organic “supper club” that is taking over the imaginations of area foodies. “Our political philosophies are layer upon layer,” one chef said. Another said, “We just want to cook beautiful food in an interesting way.” Another said, “We want to cook food we are…

Mystery! Intrigue! Food!: A Night with Pop-Up Lafayette

To get an invite to the hottest dining spot in town, you have to know people. If you’re lucky enough to know people, you then have to follow a series of instructions to get a ticket. It’s a limited seating event, in a secret location, thrown by a secret group of chefs who want to…

More on Thrift Store Shopping

1. I don’t thrift in town if I can help it. I travel to the smaller towns in the region, avoid Goodwill and Salvation Army, and hit up the little church thrifts in Nowhere, Indiana. One major reason I skip town that the tiny towns may not have excellent quality clothing, but they have a…

Who Was G.G. Drayton?

If you’re local to the Lafayette, Indiana, area and you’ve eaten at Arni’s, you are probably already familiar with G.G. Drayton’s art without realizing it. She was well-known in her time for creating the “Dolly Dingle” and “Kaptain Kiddo” characters, including an extremely popular line of paper dolls — which are featured in jumbo size…

Riding Bikes with a Toddler

If you’ve considered riding bikes with a toddler, you know the needs and options for outfitting yourself for a ride can be overwhelming. When wee Baby Cletus turned about a year old, I located a helmet that fit her head and promptly began sourcing iBerts on Craigslist. I liked the idea a lot — baby…

Review: The Great Gatsby

I dragged the big kid to see The Great Gatsby a few weeks back. I didn’t say much about it because there was so little to say. Like the rest of the Luhrman catalog, it was big on visuals and light on substance. (Like Daisy! Ha.) In all seriousness, this was the movie’s weakness. It…

Pin-Up Queens

In the golden days of pin-ups, some of the best artists were women basing their art off their own bodies and fantasies.

I Wrote a Thing: Riffing with Dave Bangert

Last month, when Lafayette Journal & Courier Opinions editor Dave Bangert asked to interview us at Think Lafayette to figure out where we fit into the Community of Choice narrative, I told him we’d only do an interview if he would oblige for an interview at our site as well. He was game. At least,…

Riffing with Dave Bangert

A few weeks ago, Journal & Courier Opinions page editor Dave Bangert conducted an interview with yours truly to delve deeper into how Think Lafayette fits into the new Community of Choice era. He honed in on the idea that we are a love letter to Lafayette, a celebration of what we get right and an…

“Showrooming”

It turns out they have a name for this thing I do, where I go to a store to get a look at something, decide whether I like it, then go home to find it online for the best price: Showrooming. [Finding something you like in store, then looking for it or a comparable item…

I Wrote a Thing: Banana House

For Think Lafayette, I wrote a quick post outlining the issues with city code, tensions between gov’t officials, city codes, landlords, and homeowners in West Lafayette near Purdue campus. The latest controversy is related to a rental house near campus with a huge banana painted on the side. At issue: the city told the landlords…