Kyle Maclachlan’s been in town working on Sterlin Harjo’s new TV show—which appears to have changed titles from The Sensitive Kind to The Lowdown, by the way—and I do like to imagine him ambling around our city Dougie Jones-style, enjoying a damn fine cup of coffee at Topeca or perhaps discovering evidence of unspeakable crimes like the time he found that severed ear in Blue Velvet. (My best guess for where? Soundpony bathroom.)
But, it seems reality in this case is a little off from fiction. In fact Maclachlan has been using his credentials as the (fictional) governor of Oklahoma to socialize with local beverage industry people. Who knew that the real guy has his own winemaking operation?
Maclachlan stopped by Provisions last week to spend his afternoon tasting wines and posing for photos with the staff:
Do any of our fine readers work for Provisions? If so, please get into the comments and let us know what the tasting notes are on Maclachlan’s Pursued By Bear wines. —Matt Carney
National Media Parachutes Into Lawton And Actually Does A Pretty Good Job
Usually when reporters from national media outlets drop in on small Oklahoma communities, the results are not so great. But I gotta say that the New York Times’ Eli Saslow recently reported a vivid, compassionate and intimate profile of Antonio Austin, a used car dealer in Lawton who’s feeling the full weight of the Trump tariffs. From the Times:
Antonio knew most of his customers by name, and they loved him for his prices and for his eccentricities. He cursed and then quoted Scripture in the same sentence. He carried a gun on his hip while serenading customers. He was a vegetarian in cow country and a self-described “hardcore conservative” who had always been skeptical of Trump. Now, the administration’s new tariffs had begun to disrupt his supply chain, as the 25 percent tariff on imported new cars drove more buyers to the used market.
It’s rich in detail and worth reading all the way through, to see, on a tiny car lot, the agglomeration of the many crises that disproportionately affect American small towns: the rising costs of essentials, unchecked rent-seeking behaviors by the tech and finance industries, and limited access to healthcare, to name a few. —Matt Carney
Trump Administration Terminates Grants For Oklahoma Arts Nonprofits
Over the weekend, news started to break that non-profit arts organizations across the country were having their National Endowment for the Arts grants terminated, just a few months after they were approved.
I wondered when this would hit Oklahoma. And then it did: the Sunny Dayz Mural Festival, the Tulsa Glassblowing School, and the Oklahoma Arts Institute (which supports the state’s groundbreaking summer program for high school students at Quartz Mountain) all got notified that they will not, after all, receive funding they were awarded after a rigorous, time-consuming, capacity-straining NEA grant application process. These groups are now scrambling to pull together private funding for programs that are already in progress in the communities they serve.
The email they got reads, ominously, in part: “The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.... Funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the Administration's agenda…. Your project ... unfortunately does not align with these priorities."
Trump has been threatening to shut down the NEA since his first term. Now, effectively, he’s doing it project by project. The immediate economic and personal impact of these terminations on local communities is going to be real. These are spaces where people gather to dream, build, and make change at a local level. That they’re now being starved of support is no accident.
The longer-term impact of moves like this on the arts in Oklahoma is even more worrisome. If the Trump administration can come for the little organizations based on its own whims, what’s to stop them coming for the big ones—like the Oklahoma Arts Council, a state agency that, as The Oklahoman reports, has historically used its NEA funding to provide “474 grants to 289 schools and organizations across 110 communities statewide”? So far, so good at the OAC, but we’ll be keeping an eye on it. —Alicia Chesser
Tulsa News
- New $8M visitor’s center at Turkey Mountain gets $2M boost as it enters fundraising mode
- Daigoro is now open in the old Blue Rose location along Zink Lake
- Oasis is plotting its second grocery store for downtown though there’s reason for a healthy skepticism here considering what NonDoc has reported in the past about owner A.J. Johnson
- Grocer/bodega CH/OP is in the plans for Crosbie Heights neighborhood
- Mary Beth Babcock Cinematic Universe announces expansion
- New Story Brewing opens on the east side of downtown
- Brad Carson is leaving TU to work for an AI policy maker in D.C.
- This weekend’s deadly downtown shooting began as a fistfight between two people, according to Tulsa police
- Tulsa Community College announces its first ever mascot and it’s a GOOSE
State & Regional News
- Firm that revitalized Mayo Hotel now owns Price Tower in Bartlesville
- New numbers show Oklahoma’s per-pupil spending is dead last among surrounding states
- Ground broken on new park in Osage Nation
- State Board of Education sued over its wack ass academic standards
- Homelessness has increased nearly 20% in Oklahoma City since 2020, according to new study
- Gov. Stitt vetoes bills that would’ve extended eviction timelines and increased funding for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples investigations; signs one-year school cellphone ban
Jobs and Opportunities
- Oklahoma Policy Institute is hiring a Southeast Regional Organizer | Full-time | Salary $50,000
- Atlas School is hiring a Student Success Coordinator | Full-time | Salary not listed
- Take Control Initiative is hiring a Legislative Policy Analyst | Full-time | Salary not listed
- CBRE is hiring a Mechatronic & Robotics Tech | Full-time | Salary not listed
- Tulsa Higher Education Consortium is hiring a Student Success Coach | Full-time | Salary $50,000-$60,000
