The queen won’t quit
A former editor said that we need to recognize that an arts community is made up of individuals. Shipping Dock’s performances are making it hard not to. Their current work is a beauty; but I’ll remember it as a harrowing example of an artist’s overdoing the idea that the show must go on. All this…
Scooters, frico, and Moxie on South Avenue
Jared Valentine and Drew Sterman aren’t typical restaurateurs. They met at RIT, where Valentine studied industrial design and Sterman sculpture. Neither had worked in restaurants before they decided to create Open Face, and “create” is the right word. Both are artists, and the sense of style and design in their South Avenue shop is impeccable,…
Twins could teach us
I covered the Bills for nearly five years and never had a one-on-one interview with General Manager Tom Donahoe or former GM John Butler. I recall just one time when Donahoe approached me. During training camp, he walked over to tell me to move so Rob Johnson could see the play clock. The other day…
The political thriller reflects our troubled age
Displaying his familiar competence and intelligence, Sydney Pollack’s new movie, The Interpreter, also demonstrates an appropriate connection to contemporary history. Like his Three Days of the Condor of 1975, the picture addresses, through its slick, exciting surface action, a most plausible and disquieting international reality, touching on some of the peculiar tensions of our time.…
Survival of the fittest
“You’re not bad — you’re innocent. Innocent people are just… uh… dangerous.” These words are spoken about 16-year-old Rose Slavin (a lovely Camilla Belle), but they could also apply to her father Jack (mmmmm… Daniel Day-Lewis). The year is 1986 when The Ballad of Jack and Rose opens, and our title characters are the sole…
Deep in the heart of Texas
Dave D’Angelico loves those Texas blues. The grumbling lowdown shuffles and stinging bare-fingered leads that fly out of his amp are all big sky and open spaces. His Tele’s tone is mean. But the music’s aggression counters his casual delivery and deadpan demeanor, and he traverses the neck with graceful purpose and ease. He’s bombed…
Sun City girl
Half the fun of following a band like Sun City Girls is wrapping your head around the notion that they could actually exist. Self-described “aristocrats of impertinence,” the Sun City Girls have been performing and recording their defiant music since 1981. And there’s really no sense in classifying that music, which was initially (and fittingly)…
Next: absolute power
If I read the results right, last year’s presidential election was a close one. That means the country’s divided — or unclear — about what it wants. But the Bush administration acts as if the American people have embraced right-wing governance. And that’s exactly what we’re getting. Republicans are trying to grab total control…
Can you say adobe?
When you think of local suburban housing, and you think of Penfield, you probably imagine row upon row of subdivisions, one house not much different from the next, with a couple of barns tossed in here and there the farther out you drive. Just ask me, I live there. Post-1960s suburban housing design lacked a…
Preservation
Old homes tucked into city neighborhoods; big, stoic dairy barns reminding us of an earlier time; massive cathedrals on modern urban streets — the buildings left us by earlier generations contribute character and elegance to the Greater Rochester’s landscape. But these places offer more than just quaint history; they are resources that can be used…
Reader feedback 4.27.05
Transgender questions, Xerox execs’ pay, Renaissance Square reforms
Barn raising
As iconic as the barn is — it can represent in the American imagination the whole farming lifestyle and economy — it isn’t often recognized for its value as a historic building. Not an office building or a home, where the value is more obvious, or even a school or a factory, where new uses…
Body count 4.27.05
The totals: 1,569 American soldiers, 177 Coalition soldiers, and approximately 21,239 to 24,106 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq from the beginning of the war and occupation to April 23. American soldiers killed from April 18-23: Private First Class Sam W. Huff, 18; Tucson, Arizona | Major Steven W. Thornton, 46; Eugene, Oregon |…
Good as old again
“It’s almost like the guy who likes to restore cars,” says Henry Swiatek. “You know people who do it because they love doing it, they rebuild an old car. Well, this is me, this is what I like to do.” Swiatek is standing in St. Margaret Mary Church in Irondequoit, his work clothes covered in…
Freed parking? Better add up the costs
They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But we can always count on a free parking space next time we go to the mall, the movies, or Wegmans, right? Not so fast, says Donald Shoup. The urban-planning professor at the University of California at Los Angeles wants to dispel the…
Endangered places
Much of our region’s character can be found in its architecture: The homes, industrial buildings, schools, office buildings, and churches that were built when Rochester’s star was rising. Now many of these buildings are abandoned or are facing vacancy or bankruptcy, while new developments and building projects crop up all around. If these older structures…
Truth to power in the church: Callan on Ratzinger
It’s strange to think the Baha Men had any relevance to the selection last week of a new pope. But with the reputation of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — who’s been variously labeled “The Enforcer,” “Cardinal No,” and “God’s Rottweiler” — “Who Let the Dogs Out” has, yet again, taken on odd meanings. Ratzinger, now Pope…
Something old, something new: old-house fix-ups
One of the Rochester area’s biggest treasures is often overlooked, and, worse, underappreciated: its extraordinary number of old, ordinary, early 20th-centuryhouses. When we think of “preservation,” we think of the mansions on East Avenue, the Victorian groupings in villages like Pittsford and Spencerport, the Frank Lloyd Wright house on East Boulevard. These are important. But…
Family valued 4.27.05
Mi Casa? Picasa! Like many moms and dads, I’d hit the brick wall of digital photography. There were too many generically named image files on my computer. My camera’s naming scheme made things worse. It’s impossible to tell what the files contain without opening them, and Microsoft’s support for photos is somewhat quixotic. If I…
Old but not forgotten
Old homes tucked into city neighborhoods; big, stoic dairy barns reminding us of an earlier time; massive cathedrals on modern urban streets — the buildings left us by earlier generations contribute character and elegance to the Greater Rochester’s landscape. But these places offer more than just quaint history; they are resources that can be used…
Missing a few pieces
Don’t attend The Puzzle Locker, at the University of Rochester’s Todd Theatre, seeking answers, it won’t provide any. Don’t attend expecting a linear plotline involving the traditional exposition, climax, and resolution. This is avant-garde theatre. So, seek questions, because you will leave with many. Seek an original experience: It will be delivered. An unnatural campground…
