Join us today on Smile Politely Radio as we chat about Record Store Day with local record wizards from Exile on Main Street.

Smile Politely Radio airs each Friday at 5:30 on WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign and is available as a podcast the following week.

Prairie Fruits Farm will be open on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. Stop by for breakfast and to see the baby goats. 

Here's the breakfast menu:

**Smoking Goose Ham, Old Heritage Creamery 2-year Aged Cheddar Cheese, Fried Egg, Bechamel Sauce, Pickles, and Mustard Sandwich (Vegetarian option is available)

**3 Sister's Oatmeal with Vanilla Yogurt, Apricot Preserves, PFF Honey and Almonds

**Seldom Home Farm Blueberry Pancakes

**Kid's Short Stack of Pancakes

**Oat Scones with Maple Glaze

**Easter Cupcakes

Hey you!

Do you like shopping local?

How about fresh bakery items, locally-made arts and crafts, produce and more?

That's what we thought.

This Saturday, April 19th, is the last market of the season before Urbana's Market at the Square kicks off on May 3rd. If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, now's the time!

The details:

Saturday, April 19th
8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Inside Lincoln Square, Urbana

The Pygmalion Festival is having a blind ticket sale tomorrow. More details below and at the ticketing page. 10 a.m. CST, folks. Act fast.

From the press release:

First annual Aruna 5k to be held on Saturday, May 3, at 10 a.m. at the University of Illinois Arboretum.

The Aruna 5k presents the opportunity to run for women and children enslaved in the brothels of India.

In a two square mile area of India, an estimated 15,000 women and children are held captive in Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE) — some as young as 11 years old. Aruna, a Hindi word meaning 'bright morning sun', is the name of an initiative in South Asia working to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate these women and children back into society.

The Aruna 5K is a race held in cities across America, with all the proceeds from the event going to the Aruna Project. The Aruna Project is a relationally driven effort on the ground in India that seeks to free women and children from sexual exploitation. This is primarily done through relationships that the Aruna Project staff develops over time by means of daily visitations into the brothel system. They serve to rehabilitate these women and children through counseling, adult literacy classes, and skill and trade development, with the end goal of helping them to sustain lifelong freedom through dignified employment.

By registering to run, walk, or sponsor someone else to run in the Aruna 5K, you are actively helping set women free. The first annual Aruna 5K in Champaign-Urbana begins at 10 a.m. on May 3rd at the University of Illinois Arboretum. To register for the race or sponsor other runners, please visit www.Aruna5k.com. Every runner and dollar counts because every woman and child counts. Join us in running for their freedom.

Aruna 5k, Run for Their Freedom.

From a University of Illinois press release:

To celebrate acquiring the papers of poet and writer Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000), the University of Illinois Rare Book & Manuscript Library and numerous campus partners are organizing an evening of poetry, song, and appreciation called: Full of Pepper and Light: Welcoming the Gwendolyn Brooks Papers to the University of Illinois. The event will take place in the newly-renovated Lincoln Hall Theater (702 South Wright Street, Urbana) at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 24, 2014.

Admission is free.

The evening’s performances will include poets, scholars, singers, and dancers reading, discussing, and expressing their appreciation for Brooks’s art and inspirational legacy. The production and performance is directed by the Interim Head of the Theatre Department, Thomas Mitchell.

Brooks was the third Poet Laureate of the State of Illinois (following Carl Sandburg), poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, and the first African-American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize.

Performers will include the University of Illinois Black Chorus, conducted by Dr. Ollie Watts Davis; Aurora, a troupe led by Brooks's daughter Nora Brooks Blakely; poets Janice Harrington and Laurence Lieberman; artist Amos Kennedy; local high school students; and Dr. Haki Madhubuti, co-founder and director emeritus of the Gwendolyn Brooks Center for Black Literature and Creative Writing.

“A special ‘Poetry Bus’ will shuttle audience members between the Champaign Public Library, the Urbana Free Library, and the Douglass Branch Library and campus,” said Rare Book & Manuscript Library Director Valerie Hotchkiss. “This spares folks the parking hassles and will get them in the mood for poetry!”

The celebration begins earlier in the day with a lecture by Dr. Haki Madhubuti entitled, “Gwendolyn Brooks: Beyond the Word Maker, a Black Poet and Activist,” at 4 p.m. in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Full of Pepper and Light is produced and sponsored by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library; the Departments of English, African-American Studies, Religion, Theater, and Music; the University Library; the Office of Public Engagement; and the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Spanning more than six decades, the Gwendolyn Brooks Papers include some of Brooks’s earliest surviving poetry and prose, as well as scrapbooks and clippings of pieces she published as a young woman in The Chicago Defender. In addition, it contains extensive correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, and informal jottings, annotations, and observations. The largest portion of Brooks’s papers documents her career after leaving mainstream commercial publishing to produce her works with small presses and black-owned imprints, including her own imprint, The David Company. 

For more information, visit go.library.illinois.edu/brooks.

###

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library holds more than thirteen million volumes, more than 120,000 serial titles, and more than nine million manuscripts, maps, slides, audio tapes, microforms, videotapes, laser discs, and other non-print material.  The University Library is ranked highly nationally and globally, and its collections and services are used heavily by students, faculty, and scholars. More than one million items are circulated annually, and many more are used on site and virtually from anywhere in the world. For more information, please visit www.library.illinois.edu.

Come join University of Illinois students and celebrate Earth Day at the Orpheum Children's Science Museum! There will be a variety of sustainability friendly crafts and activities for children including a bike powered smoothie machine, bird feeder decorating, a "Recycle-Ball" and much, much more! This event will be held at the Orpheum Children's Science Museum at 346 N. Neil St, Champaign, IL 61820 on April 19th from 1-4 p.m. We hope to see you there!

Questions? Contact Katie and Cara, the event coordinators, at environment.apo.aa.com.

Are these the new Illinois uniforms, rebranded by Nike? It appears to be so. Here are some shots below, but click the link to see all of the rebranded Nike uniforms.

Attention all zombie enthusiasts! There will be a zombie pub crawl this Saturday, April 19 from 6 p.m. to midnight, starting at the corner of Race and Main. Dress up as a flesh-eater and join your friends at the following places:

The Courier Cafe
Bunny’s Tavern
The Rose Bowl
Crane Alley
Black Dog
Iron Post
Sitara
The American Legion

Tickets are $14 and can be purchased in advance here, or for $20 at the door.