Gannett takes aim
Gannett Co., Inc. has brought its battle for the hearts, minds, and spending habits of young readers to Rochester. Gannett confirmed last week that it has chosen Rochester; Wilmington, Delaware; Pensacola, Florida; and Greenville, South Carolina as launching sites for its next wave of free, youth-aimed weeklies. But details on the new Rochester…
Readers feedback 12.23.03
Angels or vigilantes, right-wing radio, poverty patterns, changing Kodak
News briefs 12.17.03
One more time around The current session of the county legislature will end on December 31, 2005, instead of December 31, 2004. The lej voted to extend the session at a meeting last week. The vote was 18-11, with all but two Democrats opposed. The session now matches the terms of most legislators,…
Under the big tent
Instead of griping about the property tax increase, maybe Democrats in the Monroe County legislature should send the GOP flowers. By most accounts, the brutal budget process that just finished has given Democrats the upper hand. After swearing up and down that they wouldn’t raise taxes and after running a county executive candidate on…
Even the nonconformists are familiar
Although it hardly constitutes a major genre, the academic picture, the movie about college students and professors, remains a moderately popular form for filmmakers and film audiences. When college flicks concentrate on students, they tend to move into anarchic comedy or slaughterhouse horror, both entirely suitable for the young demographic Hollywood loves so dearly. When…
Music review 11.5.03
Wagun Sokol / Brasby Glitch Beats Having established themselves as Rochester’s finest DJ duo with their Profiles release, DJs Wagun and Brasby (known collectively as Discolobos) have decided to split, à la Outkast, into their respective identities and release two solo albums that demand your immediate attention. But while Outkast tries to maintain a unified…
Put some soul in your stocking
Amores Perros, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s stunning debut, was as groundbreaking, devastating, auspicious, and from as far out of left field as Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. His equally impressive follow-up, 21 Grams (opens Friday, December 26, at the Little Theatre), is nearly as accomplished as Pulp Fiction, and it should see just about as much action during…
Lighting the way
There was a time when all I had to do to get in touch with DJ Green Lantern was open up a file cabinet in the office of my record store, pull out a folder of consignments from local artists, and give him a ring. “Green,” I’d say, “We need, I dunno, about 10 more…
The XX files
When my family was looking for a place to set down roots a few years ago, we wanted to move here because of Rochester’s high ratio of arts to people. For a town this size, we have a lot of public and private money and energy dedicated to visual arts, theatre, dance, and music. …
What would Roger do?
If a musician falls in the woods, and there’s nobody there to hear him, does he still make a sound? The late, great Unkle Roger, helped make that question irrelevant. Through his lifelong dedication to local music of all styles, Rog helped to fill that forest with lots of critters to hear the rock ‘n’…
Cultivating a collection
Librarian Carolyn VanNess wants to take the Rochester Civic Garden Center Library off any “best-kept secret” lists. She wouldn’t mind a few more people knowing that over 4,000 horticultural volumes are tucked into the second floor of RCGC’s home in the Warner Castle. The collection was begun in the late ’40s, and includes books…
Getting frisky
As stories of the North Pole and its jolly goings-on get updated for television and movie screens year after year, so too do those sweet stories’ foils. Jeff Goode’s The Eight: Reindeer Monologues is a dark comedy that has enjoyed success in the only society that could understand it: a society obsessed with celebrity and…
Gas prices: The heat’s on
Americans can wax nostalgic about the occasional energy crisis — What did you do in the Embargo, Daddy? — but frequent repeats get old fast. California knows this all too well, of course. But other states are getting in line. One big hint of this came recently: The price of natural gas in spot…
Cutting heads
Tuck was troubled by this thought: The Devil doesn’t visit us all. And the next: What if I don’t recognize him when he does? But he would. He knew it. There was a real shifty looking dude at Aces Down last week. Haunted the table by the bar all night long, but come set break…
Readers Feedback 12.24.03
Angels or vigilantes, right-wing radio, poverty patterns, changing Kodak Guardian Angels|Da’WahPatrol|right-wing radio|parenting|poverty|Kodak|Iraq|MaggieBrooks|Inner Loop Angels among us? Or paramilitary? I have some grave concerns over issues raised in the article “Angels Among Us” (December 10). As a South African national, I am reminded of over four years of gun battles between the vigilante faction, People…
Humbug uncontrolled
p>To spice up the holidays, Shipping Dock Theatre openedlast weekend in its new location at Visual Studies Workshop with an anti-Christmas Carol. Make that an Aunty Christmas Carol. It’s called (take a breath!) The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production of A Christmas Carol,and, in deference to Dickens, it requires every one…
Not at liberty Big Brother turns PATRIOT
When Americans talk about “the usual suspects,” the reference comes with a built-in nudge and wink. It’s like what has happened to the once-threatening accusation “politically incorrect” — a phrase now so transparently ironic, even Sgt. Joe Friday would crack a smile. When the going gets rough, though, America can be humorless, even merciless.…
Cutting heads
Tuck was troubled by this thought: The Devil doesn’t visit us all. And the next: What if I don’t recognize him when he does? But he would. He knew it. There was a real shifty looking dude at Aces Down last week. Haunted the table by the bar all night long, but come set break…
Love among the ruins
Just two years ago, Innocence, an Australian film directed by Paul Cox, dramatized the unusual possibility (unusual for cinema anyway) of a sexual relationship between two elderly people, who renew the love of their vanished youth with a genuine and touching passion. In contrast to that quiet, bittersweet romance, conducted within the context of…
One ring to end it all
It’s over. Finally. And I think I’m glad, too. Waiting a year between installments is bad enough, but enduring the three-hour roller-coaster rides that make up the Lord of the Rings series is almost too much to bear. They’re too good. They’re too emotional. They’re also too long. The Return of the King (opens…
Fair for the most foul
What a “two-fer” — starkly asymmetrical stories that raise the same moral question about ends and means. Number one is Dick Cheney’s participation in a “canned hunt” in Pennsylvania that bagged hundreds of game birds. Cheney shot 70 pheasants all by himself. How sporting. But some bloggers wonder if donating the birds to soup…
