Posted by Terry Rombeck August 30, 2006 at 8:04 a.m.

Dancing aliens, local music and native artifacts

¢ Lawrence's North vs. South Music Festival got a rave review in the Minnesota/St. Paul [City Pages][1], even if he calls Lawrence the state's third-largest city, which it is not. The writer also gives his take on Lawrence in general and weaves in a lot of Truman Capote references.Sometimes called "the Madison of Kansas" (in our van, anyway), it's a pocket of liberalism in an otherwise blood-red state, and by the look of Massachusetts Street, the town's main drag, the folks here are plenty cultured.¢ Justin Crockett, a Lawrence man who helps organize the crazy mob of people usually on stage for concerts by The Flaming Lips (which generally include, say, people dressed as animals, super heroes or Santa Claus), is featured prominently in this profile story on the band printed in the [St. Louis Post-Dispatch][2].Standing between clothing racks, one holding futuristic, Jane Jetson-style dresses and green alien masks, the other Santa Claus suits in the traditional red and white, Justin Crockett addresses a hastily gathered roomful of people backstage at the Pageant on Saturday night."Welcome to the wonderful world of the Flaming Lips!" he says.Crockett, of Lawrence, Kan., is a man with a scruffy beard, a Drive-By Truckers baseball cap and the power to make a singular rock 'n' roll dream come true. He is the Flaming Lips' "animal wrangler" - so called because it is his job to recruit fans who will don costumes and dance onstage with the band.¢ KU's efforts to repatriate some American Indian artifacts to tribes is the subject of this blog on [BeyondChron][3], an alternative online daily publication in San Francisco._ Kansas, goes the thinking, usually catches on to national trends only years after they have flitted from coast to coast, passing over the heartland without stopping to dilly-dally en route to New York City or Los Angeles or vice versa. NAGPRA, an important step in healing the historical ugliness of this nation, is one such movement. And in this case, later is definitely better than never. ¢ KU was mentioned throughout the country - and around the world - in an Associated Press story about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's worldly travels. KU, the AP reported, paid for the justice to travel to Istanbul. Here's the story as posted on the [Sacramento Bee's Web site][4]. Trinity College in Melbourne, Australia, paid for Scalia's trip Down Under in October. The National University of Ireland in Galway sponsored Scalia in February. The University of Kansas School of Law sent the justice to Istanbul, Turkey, for 11 days in July.¢ Jim Marchiony, an associate athletics director at KU, is quoted in [The Maneater][5] (a student newspaper of the University of Missouri). The story is about the competitive and business natures of college athletics, and changes going on at MU."Division I athletics is a very competitive enterprise," said Jim Marchiony, University of Kansas Associate Athletics Director. "Each school has to determine for itself what hiring policies are used to ensure it fits within the goals of the university."_ [1]: http://www.citypages.com/databank/27/1343/article14668.asp [2]: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/entertainment/stories.nsf/music/story/740A161DE979EA3B862571D9006E4837?OpenDocument [3]: http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Blue_Thoughts_from_a_Red_State_Brush_with_History_3628.html [4]: http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/politics/story/3360751p-12369552c.html [5]: http://www.themaneater.com/article.php?id=24457