News Briefs 12.11.02
Buried Treasures Collaborators Richard Reisem and Frank Gillespie felt sympathy whenever they saw people trying to use their oversized picture book, Mount Hope: America’s First Municipal Victorian Cemetery, as a walking guide. To help visitors enjoy and understand the cemetery better, the author and photographer have teamed up again to produce Buried Treasures, a brand-new…
Jail in a recession: the all-you-can-eat diet
It’s like the Ice Storm all over again — this time in public services. Yes, the county legislature restored some social-service funding to next year’s spending plan. The restorations are connected to a hard-won but slight increase in the county property tax rate. The modest tax hike won’t make up, though, for a decade…
To discriminate or not to discriminate
On December 17, the New York State Senate will reconvene and vote on the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA). If the act passes — which is still far from certain — it will cap a legislative effort to protect gay rights that’s been three-decades in the making. Under the state’s Human Rights Law, it…
Reader Feedback 12.11.02
Fairport efforts The article “War, Peace at Fairport High School” (Metro Ink, November 20) was misleading. While there was initial controversy about the issue, the administrators, and especially Dave Paddock, have been working with us; Dave Paddock said he had no problem with our plans as long as we didn’t hurt anybody. The article…
Why we ran that cover
We set off a bit of controversy with our November 27 cover, a collage that included a woman’s bare breasts. Some readers called or wrote to complain. Some newsstands refused to distribute that issue of our newspaper. And here at City,we had a rousing staff debate about the cover. One reader called the cover…
The Look of Rock
A pious cleric casts a demon’s shadow. A skeletal Santa no longer shakes like a bowl full of jelly. An evil clown glowers while smoking five coffin nails at once. The unassuming, yet menacing, grill of a classic Merc sits… waiting. Frankenstein’s green face is all twisted up in frustration. Skulls and skulls and skulls…
Still amazing after all these years
Dance lovers owe a lot to Nazareth Arts Center, which brought us two of the world’s greatest dance companies just weeks apart: the Paul Taylor Dance Company on November 9 and Rochester’s Garth Fagan Dance December 4-8. Regular readers may be tired of my referring to the Fagan dancers’ beauty, virtuosity, precision, energy, and commitment.…
Fuddy talk, crazy play
David Lindsay-Abaire’s Fuddy Meers slowly unearths haunting mysteries. I’ll tell you all the plot revelations now. You’re unlikely to remember the details when you go see Shipping Dock Theatre’s production of this goofy, disturbing drama, anyway. And if you do, they’ll probably turn out to be untrue. What happens, you see, is that Claire…
A concise handbook of astrology
Is it appropriate for our nation’s leaders to consult astrologers on critical decisions? Should you check your horoscope when buying a car? In this column, I will show why astrology is 99.9 percent bunk. Astrology is confused in some people’s minds with astronomy. The latter is a meticulously accurate body of knowledge that describes…
The gangster and the psychiatrist
Analyze That, the sequel to the funny and successful Analyze This (1999) — the titles certainly display a nice logic — demonstrates a complicated and comical series of internal connections to both the fictions and the reality of that popular Hollywood subject, the Mafia. While most obviously referring back to its predecessor, the movie also…
Bad actress plays bad actress — details at 11
I’m going to be honest with you, dear readers. I haven’t budgeted my time properly and now, faced with the problem of having to both watch and critique a two-and-a-half hour movie in approximately two-and-a-half hours, I’ve decided to try something new and exciting (and timesaving) — the simultaneous viewing and reviewing of a film.…
The regular guy look
We all knew Dave Edmunds could play guitar, we just had no idea how well. The legendary rocker blew the Montage Grille audience away last Monday with a sweet amalgamation of Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, and Mozart. Opener Marshall Crenshaw, though a terrific songwriter, seemed to rest entirely on the strength of his music. He…
