Fresh Loaf

After spending three years traveling Europe and the U.S. as a performer with Cavalia, the Cirque du Soleil-inspired ode to the bond between humans and horses, Atlanta native Jesse Lee Cooper is finally able to show off his jaw-dropping talents in his own hometown. Cavalia has taken up residence under the big top at Atlantic Station through Nov. 22.

What do you do in the show?

I am a horse trainer and performer. I’m actually responsible for training the horses, as well as teaching them to go on the stage and do the acts that they do. And I work with the other acrobats and the other actors onstage.

What is the scariest thing you’ve ever seen happen during a show?

We have had a horse fall onstage in one of the acts that I do, which is always a terrible thing to have happen. We had riders with injuries as well. Luckily, we’ve never had a horse injured in the three years that I’ve been here.

What’s the worst human injury you’ve ever seen?

When I was new, one of our trick riders was doing a backbend on her trick-riding horse. Something went wrong and her shoulder snapped, and she ended up having to have four pins in her arm. That actually happened during a training period, so it wasn’t in the show. I think she was out for three months.

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Share your Pride with the world … or at least all of Atlanta.

We’re looking for your photos from this week’s Pride festivities. Send them to pridephotos@creativeloafing.com, and we will feature them in our Pride photo gallery at clatl.com/photos. We’ll be at the festival Saturday and Sunday, too, so stop by the Creative Loafing booth and we’ll see you this weekend.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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This photo was shot at 2:22 p.m. at the corner of Marietta and Peachtree streets in downtown Atlanta. The photo is of a sign advertising for Eddie’s Gold Teeth. I shot it really tight to emphasize the weirdness of all the open mouths.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Crystal Johnson marches down Peachtree Street in protest against police brutality.

A spirited group of demonstrators showed up at Woodruff Park on Oct. 22 to rally and march as part of the National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality. Organizers cited seven deaths in Georgia at the hands of police officers since March 2009 as a sign of the “epidemic of police brutality in Georgia” according to their press release.

Following the rally at Woodruff Park more than 50 protesters marched to the Atlanta Detention Center briefly shutting down one side of Peachtree Street. Outside the Detention Center a “speakout” was held. Some of the topics referenced by speakers outside the jail included the Kathryn Johnston murder, the Atlanta Eagle Raid and the need for an independent citizen police review board. As protesters spoke, cheers could be heard from prisoners inside the Detention Center.

Check out a gallery of photographs from the rally and march.

(Photo by  Joeff Davis)

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In the third installment in our series of videos chronicling the bizarre trials and unusual tribulations of political candidates you’ve probably never heard of, we bring you … someone you probably HAVE heard of: Atlanta mayoral candidate and grassroots activist Kyle Keyser.

After being robbed at gunpoint outside an Poncey-Highland Old Fourth Ward Pizza Hut, Keyser started Atlantans Together Against Crime, a community anti-crime group. In September, he qualified as a candidate for Atlanta mayor.

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Yesterday was the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. A group of Atlanta activists, who are part of a state wide “counter recruitment” effort, gathered on Ponce de Leon Avenue after a day of protesting recruitment tactics at various military recruitment centers around the city, as well as at Grady High School. At the recruitment stations they delivered an ACLU drafted resolution that called on recruiters to comply with International Protocol on the Rights of the Child which forbids any contact between military recruiters and children younger than 17.

According to American Friends Service Committee organizer Tim Franzen, this is a common practice by recruiters in high schools around the country. At Grady, Franzen said, they passed out counter recruitment literature with a couple of current Grady students which he says exposes some of the negative truths about recruitment practices and veterans lives after serving their country — including that 40 percent of homeless men in the United States are veterans. Another of their goals, according to Franzen, is to promote non-military options for low-income youth. The “counter recruitment” effort was  sponsored by the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition and the American Friends Service Committee.

Their campaign comes against the backdrop of last weekend’s ambush of American marines that caused eight American military deaths — the biggest loss of American military lives in Afghanistan in over a year. Last week in another military combat death, Staff Sgt. Alex French IV from Milledgeville, Ga., was killed in Afghanistan. It is expected that President Obama will soon announce his decision on his strategy for the Afghanistan war.

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In the third installment in our series of videos chronicling the bizarre trials and unusual tribulations of political candidates you’ve probably never heard of, we bring you Dave Walker — “over-educated citizen,” longtime City Council heckler, and lover of scrubs.

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Nearly 100 demonstrators braved the pouring rain this afternoon to rally at City Hall in protest of the Atlanta Police Department’s controversial Sept. 10 raid of gay bar Atlanta Eagle. Nearly a dozen people spoke out against the bust and called for an independent citizen police review board and more accountability from police and government officials. “The mayor needs to explain what happened,” Jeff Graham of LGBT advocacy group Georgia Equality said. “And we need to make sure the next mayor does not let this type of abuse happen again.” Justin Ziegler, president of the Atlanta Executive Network, encouraged the crowd to “go to your elected officials and demand answers.” Officer Dani Lynn Harris, the APD’s LGBT liaison, told the crowd that, when it came to police matters, “you have an ear with me.” In what felt like the tensest moment of the rally Harris defended the Red Dog unit who helped conduct the raid as a “good unit” and said that Chief Richard Pennington — whose leadership was the subject of controversy even before the questionable bust — had been her “biggest supporter“ as LGBT police liaison. She was met by shouts from the crowd of “when’s Pennington going?” Sex columnist and Huffington Post blogger Michael Alvear added some levity to the rally, joking that he would rather be water boarded then have to lie face down on the floor of the Eagle. (More than 60 patrons were reportedly ordered to lie on the floor during the raid.) Alvear said that the police thought that the possibility of a “hand job was more dangerous to the city then the reality of home invasions.” He also said the raid was motivated by “a deep fear and hatred of gay people.”

Check out more photos from the Eagle raid protest at City Hall.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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This “Group Transformation” exercise started with the idea of a “a day at the zoo.” Today was the first day of workshops at the Black Box Improv Festival, which includes an improv tournament, workshops and improv shows all weekend at Georgia Tech.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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>> Before you die tell us how we can kill you better

>> Everybody for more troops in Afghanistan raise your hand

>> So again, why’d you throw the shoe?

>> 44,000 Preventable American deaths

>> Sneeze refreshing course

>> Tell us what you really think about dogs in a bar

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Former president Jimmy Carter visited Emory last night for his 28th annual Carter Town Hall meeting for Emory University’s 1,300 freshmen. The freshman are required to attend the yearly ritual, in which Carter responds to seemingly random questions written by the students. This year’s meeting took place against a backdrop of Carter’s comment the previous day, quoted by Fox News, that Congressman Joe Wilson’s outburst during President Obama’s recent speech to Congress was “based on racism.”

The questions at the Emory event said as much about Carter as it did about the students themselves, many of whom spent the Q&A period texting on their cell phones. The opening question of the evening was not about Carter, or his monitoring of 76 international elections, or his thoughts on racism, or Iran but, rather, what he thought of Kanye West’s outburst at the VMA Music awards. Carter responded that he thought it was uncalled for and that West’s punishment was having to appear on the new Jay Leno show.

The following questions inquired about Carter’s favorite perk about living in the White House (going to Camp David), his thoughts on president Obama (most of the family voted for him), whether he always wanted to be president (no), what he thought about a photo of him standing with other former presidents in which he appeared to be the outsider (“When I am standing with a group of men I don’t usually stand touching them”), and how Carter would rate Bush’s time out of office (”Better then his time in office”).

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Music, food, dancing and cultural pride was the order of the day at the annual FREE Festival Peachtree Latino, which took over Underground Atlanta and surrounding streets on Sunday, August 23, 2009.

Check out our Festival Peachtree Latino photo gallery for more pics.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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In the first of CL’s series of videos chronicling mayoral candidates you’ve probably never heard of, tavern owner Rufus Terrill reveals his strategy for combating Atlanta crime. Behold, the Bum Bot!

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I just so happened to come across personal trainer John Lewis, working out teenager Prince Kent in front of Energy Fitness on Northside Drive. I asked him how he gets people pumped. “I motivate people by the tone of my voice and with positive words,” he said. His brother, Jamal Lewis, is a running back for the Cleveland Browns, and Lewis has trained him all his life.

Prince Kent admitted that with Lewis’s help, “working out is about getting better for me.” Kent was a standout high school football player at Norcross High and was offered a football scholarship at the University of Miami — but found out a couple of weeks ago that he can’t go because his SAT scores were too low.

“It was within a few points,” Kent said. “So now I am going to spend the next semester in a prep school and hopefully up my score so that I can go to the University of Miami in January.”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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My neighbors in northeast Atlanta heard a loud noise this morning around 1:45. They went outside to find that this huge tree had fallen and just missed the front of their house. They said it wasn’t storming at the time that the tree fell. The tree, a Bradford pear, is common in Atlanta and has a reputation as being susceptible to falling in high winds.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Last Saturday, the fifth annual reenactment of a horrific lynching at Moore’s Ford Bridge in Monroe, Ga., helped bring attention to the unsolved crime.

On July 25, 1946, two African-American couples and an unborn child were killed by a group of armed men, who riddled them with so many bullets that their bodies were practically unrecognizable. Some of the men are still believed to be living in Walton County.

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Sometimes the city feels like a fun house mirror. Everybody is so
close together but also so far apart. This photo is a spot I drive by
all the time and I always notice the way the reflection distorts the
people on the street if you pass it in a certain way. At times it is
hard to tell which side is reality.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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The Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials [GABEO] gathered this morning at the state Capitol to announce a week of activities commemorating the victims of lynchings across America.

The events will culminate with the 5th annual reenactment of the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching that took place in Monroe, Ga., on July 25, 1946. Five people died at Moore’s Ford Bridge that day, two couples and an unborn baby who was cut out of her mother’s womb by the Ku Klux Klan.

GABEO met underneath the statue of former Georgia Gov. Eugene Talmadge, who was a gubernatorial candidate at the time of the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching. “Talmadge played a major roll in inciting the Ku Klux Klan to raise up and put down African-Americans,” state Rep. Tyrone Brooks said.

Walter B. Reeves, who will be playing the governor during the reenactment Saturday, added: “Gov. Talmadge made a career out of race-baiting.”

The point of the reenactment is to raise awareness of the brutal history of lynching in this country — and specifically in Georgia — and to demand the arrest and prosecution of killers who are still living.

(more…)

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Sacred Harp singers from around Georgia gathered today for the 7th annual “All Day Sacred Harp Singing at Spivey Hall” at Clayton State University in Morrow. More than 65 people attended the all-day event, which started at 10 a.m. and continued until 3 p.m. Singers take turns leading the group in pieces from a songbook first published in Georgia in 1844.

Check out more photos from “All Day Sacred Harp Singing at Spivey Hall”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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I met Angela Arnold this morning in the parking lot of Helping Hands Thrift Store in southeast Atlanta, where she was hard at work serving up plate after plate of affordable grub.

“I make barbecue ribs, barbecue chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers and fried fish. Everything here is home-cooked and it all comes with a side order of potato salad, baked beans, coleslaw and two slices of bread. It’s $5 for the chicken dinner, $6 for the barbecue ribs and $6.50 for the fish. You can’t beat it.

“I keep the prices lower down so everybody will be able to eat here. I quit my job as an administrative assistant to sell food here, and now I will be out here every Thursday and Friday. Yesterday was my first day, and we sold 20 meals without any advertisement.”

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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This photo was taken this morning at the sprawling treasure trove that is Paris on Ponce, an antiques shop housed in a hard-to-miss orange warehouse on — you guessed it — Ponce de Leon Avenue.

I was working on capturing an image for a story on the Beltline, which (if it ever gets off the ground) would run right behind Paris on Ponce.

I went inside to see if I could shoot a picture from their roof. When I couldn’t find the exit, I accidentally walked into a creepy-cool room filled with mannequins.

(Photo and text by Joeff Davis)

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On Saturday, July 4, 2009, 529 in East Atlanta hosted a funeral benefit for B Jay Womack, aka Bobby Ubangi. The benefit, planned while Womack was still alive, helped raise funds for his funeral. Womack died of cancer on Wednesday, July 1. This image is from the performance by Carbonas, of which B Jay was a founding member. Womack’s funeral was held this afternoon in Conyers.

More photos from B Jay Womack funeral benefit

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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Hundreds of people rallied in front of CNN center in Atlanta on Saturday to protest the violent reaction of the Iranian government toward demonstrators in Iran. At the same time, hip-hop fans were gathering for the Hot 107.9 (WHTA-FM) Birthday Bash, a concert at Phillips Arena, which is next to CNN center. At moments the two groups crossed paths.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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This photo is from today’s “American Idol” auditions at the Georgia Dome. Robert Peters, 23, from Richmond, Va., planned to sing  “Boss D.J.” by Sublime for his audition. He sang it for me and spoke to me before going in for his try-out.

“My weakest thing in singing is eye contact,” Peters said. “When I sing, I close my eyes when I really need to keep my eyes open and look at the people that I need to look at. My best talent as a singer is hitting the high notes. I like singing songs that have soul, but I think I have a lot to learn. I think soul is feeling. A lot of people can sing loud, but soul is how you feel it, you just gotta feel it, you just gotta feel it. I flew from Richmond, Virginia to try out. I work at a Thai restaurant there. I saved up to come here. I hope to make it to the second round.”

More photos of American Idol contestants

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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