Life In Car

In two weeks, Ontario, Canada will host the Grand Prix of Mosport at the Mosport International Raceway. The race will have race teams from over 15 countries and will feature the American Le Mans Series on July 21- 24. This will be the only race in Canada that the American Le Mans Series will take part in.

The ALMS is the leader in green racing, or environmentally efficient racing, and touts higher end manufacturers than any of the other associations. Some of the manufacturers include, BMW, Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, and Jaguar. These cars are built for speed as well as looks as they have custom wheels and the best possible racing tires.

For the past three years Michelin has sponsored the Green X Challenge which is a competition that rewards the Series teams for environmental impact and overall performance at each sponsored event. The competition runs throughout the season and points are awarded for clean, fast, and efficient race teams as well as manufacturers.

The race will be four days long and will feature all types of races as well as things to do off the track. There will be autograph sessions, Driver talks, Tech how to’s, vendors who will sell race related merchandise as well as the Open Grid Walk, which allows fans to get up close with the drivers and racing teams right before the start of the race.

Tickets are rather inexpensive and are $70 for a four day pass until July 20. Children under the age of 12 get in free with the purchase of an adult ticket. There are facilities available to camp at the raceway for those who do not want to rent a hotel or would just like to be close to the event. This race will be one of the more exciting races of the summer and it will be in beautiful Ontario. With so much hype about the race, it is bound to be one of the highlights of the summer.

Car shows have always been a great family event to attend. There is always something for everyone. For the car enthusiast, it is a paradise and for the kids it is a new and exciting experience. There are also those who just like to go along and look at the cars and meet people with the same interests. One this is for sure though, people will drive from all over to engage in cars, camaraderie, and fun.

In Des Moines, Iowa the 20th annual Goodguys Heartland National will take place this weekend. The car show will take over the Iowa State Fairgrounds and run throughout Independence Day weekend.

The show has many different events going on including a “show n’ shine”, an automotive swap meet and vendor tents. You can expect to see all kinds of vintage cars with custom wheels from over two dozen states. These cars will have everything from a custom paint job to radial tires.

If you are looking for more than just the cars, there will be live entertainment, how to seminars and on Saturday night there will be a fireworks display. There will also be a race track for registered participants to take part in. Participants must be 18 years or older and have a valid driver’s license.

The show is one of 21 annual car shows put on by a California based company, but it draws people from over 30 states and some from parts of Canada. The Iowa State Fairgrounds were chosen as a part of a road trip taken by the chairman and founder of Goodguys, Gary Meadors. After an event in Oklahoma, he drove to Des Moines to check out the fairgrounds and decided that it would be a great place to host the event. Since then the Heartland Nationals have been a 4th of July tradition.

The idea of adult proms started out in the gay community but has now branched out into other segments of the population. Whether it’s designed to be a nostalgic return to the past or an attempt to create an experience that never happened, adult proms are growing in popularity across the country.

Basically, these proms are just an excuse for men to get a tuxedo rental and women to buy an expensive gown. They usually have themes, as with traditional high school proms. Many are tied to romance or to a specific era, such as the 1980s or grunge. This allows party organizers to tap into the music and memories that are readily-associated with that theme to create a unique experience for prom goers.

At their heart, though, adult proms speak to something deeper in the American psyche. A desire for finer things and special occasions that have been lost along the way. Having one special night a year to dress up and focus on an evening of fun with a significant other or group of friends can fill a hole that many people didn’t even realize was present in their life. The aura of a prom is one of anticipation of things to come combined with nostalgia for what is being left behind — something that modern society with its rapid changes needs to recognize more often.

There are so many cultural attractions in the city of Miami that a great number of the people who visit it simply for the fabulous beaches and water park events decide to return to check out one of the great professional productions that occurs there. In addition, some of the guests at some of the finest hotels in Miami prefer to spend their days on the beach and their nights at the symphony or theatre, which makes Miami the ideal place to vacation. The arts and entertainment scene in this city are known for maintaining a high standard of excellence and this is demonstrated by the quality of the performances.

In addition to the quality of talent and skill of performers the theatre scene in Miami is also extremely diverse. Some of the top Broadway shows tour through and make stops in the city and it also hosts some incredible original and innovative local and regional productions. The Actor’s Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre is one of the area’s top production companies and it is a great place to see some of Miami’s top talent. Actors from other cities are also seen on the stage, which is typical to most regional theatres, who hold auditions in major cities such as Los Angeles and New York in addition to pulling from the local pool.

The company’s mission focuses on the importance of theatre to communities and emphasizes the cultural vitality that classic and contemporary performance offers. In addition to the productions, they offer educational and outreach programs and stress the importance of multi-cultural dynamics in performance. In addition to the mainstage productions, the company offers a children’s theatre, which is great for younger audiences. Unreasonable Doubt, a play by Michael McKeever is currently onstage at the theatre. It is a new script by a south Florida playwright and it addresses complicated issues of the legal system in dealing with a family tragedy.

If you’re an Opera lover, then plan for next years New York City Opera – VOX series . VOX is an annual series of concerts featuring excerpts from operas-in-progress. VOX is an exciting opera lab and showcase of new works that gives an opportunity for American librettists and composers to hear their works-in-progress a full orchestra and the use of professional artists.

Every year, around the end of April and the beginning of May, VOX presents approximately 12 new, previously un-produced works from established and emerging composers with orchestra readings that are open and free to the public. In 2009, the New York City Opera showcased 10 new operas such as Armide, A Bird in Your Ear, Car Crash Opera, Cresent City, Invisible Cities, Katrina Ballads, Mosheh, No Easy Walk to Freedom, The Rat Land, and Seance on a Wet Afternoon. In 2008, the NYCO also produce 10 new work-in-progress operas.

The VOX festival also has included excerpts from 70 new operas with more than 30 of the 70, going on to full productions at other opera companies, such as Houston Grand Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Michigan Opera Theater, Washington National Opera and the Santa Fe Opera.

The works featured in 2010 were experimental, diverse and all pushed the boundaries of American opera. This year’s crop of presentations were whittled down from 99 applicants to 10 and included new inventions and works by returning artists, like Beth Morrison who is a young entrepreneur that specializes in the avant-garde. The New York City Opera has been the leader in the development of American opera and will continue to be the leader as long as there are still opera lovers willing to expand their repertoire and embrace what keeps Opera alive today, its willingness to stay fresh and current.

Make your reservations now at a New York hotel , for the 2011 VOX festival; its opera you don’t want to miss. Stay afterwards and participate in a panel discussion that promises a revealing glimpse behind the opera making scenes.

Visitors to New York City are in for a very real treat this season. In a time when the theatre here seems to be reviving everything under the sun in a mad dash to attempt to get some kind of box office revenue coming in, it’s very rare to see a new work of theatre done with any kind of pomp and circumstance. It’s one of the pitfalls for theatre artists working on new plays, where the working circumstances are often far less than ideal. True, these closet and back room productions are often the most exciting things in the city, and give visitors and residents the opportunity to see what theatre is all about. It’s still nice once in awhile to see the full-blown thing.

That’s certainly happening with the Epic Theatre Ensemble ‘s production of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, that opened here in late March. It’s just one more reason for out-of-towners to make their vacation plans, book a nice hotel , and start making arrangements for tickets for their favorite entertainments. This work, however, is certainly one that is not to be missed, as it holds all the theatricality that any play ever held, and delivers over and over in each of its complicated and dazzling acts.

It’s already gotten good notices from its production at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, which served as a kind of testing ground before its New York premiere. Sarah Ruhl’s relentless examination of the human psyche has always taken on war and love in the context of archetypal stories, moving huge themes into even larger realms with a bold sense of the experiment. This one proves to take on no less heavy tropes and myths, and investing them with her own fantastic imagination and richness of language. It’s been a long time coming, too. The work started over ten years ago, when she was a student at Brown. Big works need time, and the time for this one is finally here.