Louisville Is Extremely Cool

Harmonic What?
There are few cities where quirkiness and culture collide as perfectly as they do in Louisville.

A few years ago we did some research, and we discovered something special, something our eggheads called “Harmonic Convergence.” Harmonic Convergence describes a situation where two seeming-extremes exist in balance. (Think of the Skate Park next to the Louisville Ballet, or the contemporary Humana Building nestled against our famous iron-faced Victorian architecture.)

Wherever this phenomenon happens you’ll find a wide range of opportunities that are characterized by a community spirit of openness, tolerance, and creativity.

We discovered it’s actually quite unusual for cities to have this quality, but Possibility City seems to exemplify it. Which is why Louisville is such a great venue for a wide selection of contrasting gatherings — or at least gatherings of people with wildly different interests.

For Example . . .
From July 16–22 the National Association of Pastoral Musicians National Convention is meeting at the Kentucky International Convention Center, Louisville’s world-class 300,000-square foot facility. The NAPM fosters the art of musical liturgy, and its members serve the Catholic Church in the United States as musicians, clergy, liturgists, and other leaders of prayer.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away on July 15, Halfway to Forecastle— a nationally acclaimed celebration of music, art, and activism — will feature acts such as Pretty Lights, Big Boi, RJD2, Twin Shadow, and Boombox. Forecastle is rapidly becoming one of the most celebrated music venues in the region.

Simultaneously (not surprisingly), the KICC is also hosting the Derby City Comic Con, the first all comics-centric convention in Louisville, with dealers setting up selling everything from rare comics to local music to toys and original art, and over 100 creators attending from all over the country. Some local creators include: The Louisville Cartoonist Society, The Pantheon, Jenevieve Broomall, and many others.

While on the other end of the spectrum the Speed Art Museum is hosting Quilts from Kentucky and Beyond: The Bingham-Miller Family Collection, featuring 30 incredible quilts that demonstrate the visual arc of American quilting from the 1830s through the 1940s.

Not harmonically convergent enough for you yet?

How about some movie-inspired convergence? On July 15 and 16, the ever-so-cool-and-funky Lebowski Fest (an event celebrating the Coen brothers’ cult comedy The Big Lebowski) comes back home for the tenth time . . . featuring  music by J. Roddy Walston and The Business, Those Darlins, The Seedy Seeds, How I Became The Bomb, and Broken Spurs, and others. Click here for details and locations.

About the same time, based on the Ingmar Bergman film Smiles of a Summer Night, The As Yet Unnamed Theater Presents A Little Night Music at the MEX Theater in the Kentucky Center. Click here for details about this universal-love-themed Stephen Sondheim classic.

Can This City Get Any Cooler?
We could go on (and undoubtedly will in upcoming emails), but for now we’ll end with another one of our irresistibly nifty surprises:

Give us your example of Louisville Harmonic Convergence, and we’ll give the best answers one of five prize-packs that contains an autographed show poster and a lifetime pass to Derby City Comic Con!

Click here to post your response of the Friend of Lou facebook page.
Five winners will be chosen by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, July 15.