Cover Story
Interpreters kick out the signs
At many local concerts, sign language interpreters put music into motion as they communicate rhythm, tone, and even innuendo to deaf and hard of hearing audience members
Groups oppose federal proposal on tips
Local labor leaders, progressive groups, and restaurant workers are pushing back on proposed federal regulations that could drastically alter how tipped workers, such as restaurant servers, actually collect their tips, or whether they even receive them. The regulations basically change who owns a worker’s tips, says Mohini Sharma, an organizer for Metro Justice, one of…
Alabama and us: the nation divided
More than 650,000 Alabama voters wanted Moore, not Jones. Sixty-eight percent of white voters – and most white women – went for Moore
Canal Corp. delays tree removal
The New York State Canal Corporation will hold off on removing trees from select Erie Canal banks in Brighton, Pittsford, and Perinton, in order to hold two public meetings on the plans. The hiatus follows a meeting last week between Canal Corporation representatives and Pittsford, Perinton, and Brighton town leaders. The town supervisors announced the…
Classical review: RPO performs Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra on Thursday performed a rare, Baroque-heavy program with holiday overtones, and the results were close to perfection. Guest conductor Michael Christie — Minnesota Opera Music Director since 2012 — has crafted a smart, cohesive, and accessible playlist of mostly Italian masters, and in the process, has presented the RPO in a…
Vigil to be held Tuesday for farm worker facing deportation
[ UPDATED] The court date for Dolores Bustamante, an undocumented worker facing deportation, has been postponed to May 8. Advocates had originally planned for a day-long vigil for Tuesday, December 19, at the Buffalo Federal Detention Center in Batavia, during her immigration trial. Bustamante and her then-3-year-old daughter fled Mexico in 2004, and she ultimately settled…
Finger Lakes region gets state funding for projects
The state is providing the Finger Lakes region with $63.9 million through the annual Regional Economic Development Council program. State economic development officials announced the funding today. The awards were based on an annual strategic plan that the state’s 10 Regional Economic Development Councils prepared. The Finger Lakes money will be split between 110 different…
Legislature approves 2018 county budget
County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo’s 2018 budget is a done deal. The spending plan easily cleared the County Legislature last night, with only three of the 29 members voting against it; all of the no votes were Democrats. The $1.2 billion plan includes a major staffing boost in the county’s Child Protective Services and a $1.6…
THEATER | ‘Scrooge Macbeth’
Exactly what you’re thinking from the title, “Scrooge Macbeth” is a delightfully absurd mashup. In David MacGregor’s stage comedy, four actors must save the show when everyone in the cast gets food poisoning on the opening night of their production of “The Winter’s Tale.” To make matters worse, they also discover their theater group’s finances…
Feedback 12/13
We welcome your comments. Send them to themail@rochester-citynews.com or post them with articles on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com. Those of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published; we edit selections for publication in print, and we don’t publish comments sent to other media. The district and School 41 On the Rochester school…
HIP-HOP | Whole Clique
DJ Tim Tones and emcee MdotCoop created the Whole Clique showcase as a sister act to their Let’s Be Friends party — a weekly (sometimes monthly) throwdown that is described as “pushing the boundaries of culture through music and collectivism.” The Whole Clique series is back at it, featuring diverse, independent hip-hop artists in the…
‘NARTCAN’ addresses the pain and oblivion of addiction
Sorrow and angry grief smacked my brain when I saw the work in the addiction-themed group show currently up at AXOM Gallery. This past summer, when I was moving the last of my belongings into the house I currently live in, I paused setting things up to gather around a backyard fire with my new…
JAZZ | Luke Norris Quartet
While a student at the Eastman School of Music, saxophonist Luke Norris was already turning heads. He won second place in Keilwerth’s Saxophone Idol Competition and third prize in the North American Saxophone Alliance Jazz Saxophone Competition. In the jazz world, he’s worked with Dave Liebman, Charles Pillow, and Tim Hagans, but he’s also lent…
Canal tree plan meets growing resistance
The New York State Canal Corporation has agreed to have a representative meet with elected officials from Pittsford, Perinton, and Fairport to discuss its plan to strip trees from several sections of the Erie Canal banks in those communities. Pittsford Supervisor Bill Smith says the Canal Corp. agreed to the meeting late last week –…
JAZZ | Victor Wooten Trio
His electric bass only has four strings, but Victor Wooten squeezes more out of those strings than any other bassist I’ve ever seen. As he picks, pops, strums, and slaps, the bass seems to become an extension of his body. Wooten may be best known for his long history with Béla Fleck and the Flecktones,…
UR DREAMers plea for help
Raul Ramirez is an undergraduate student at the University of Rochester, where he’s majoring in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies. He hopes to go on to nursing school and eventually pursue a career in family medicine for the LGBTQ community, he says. But his plans may get derailed. Ramirez applied for Deferred Action for Childhood…
CLASSICAL | Juniper Winds
The Eastman School of Music students who comprise the quintet Juniper Winds will head off-campus this Sunday to perform at the George Eastman Museum as part of the “Musicale: Performance Plus Series.” Maurice Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin” is the program’s main draw, but audience members will likely recognize the other composers on the bill.…
Beer’s best friend, part three
In this occasional series, CITY has probed the intersection of beer and food at brewpubs in Rochester and its suburbs. This time, we extend the reach to Honeoye Falls and Canandaigua. As with previous visits, because few brewpubs have established or formalized food-beer pairings, we relied on our own instincts, along with occasional helpful advice…
CLASSICAL | Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’
The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra this week will provide a great balance of holiday fare and perennial classics. Concertmaster Juliana Athayde headlines the concert as soloist for Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi’s timeless “Four Seasons,” a selection that pairs well with Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 — also known as “Jupiter.” Additional Baroque excerpts from Handel’s beloved oratorio…
BURLESQUE | Sirens & Stilettos Cabaret: ‘A Little Christmas’
Come see the gorgeous gals, the bodacious broads, the squealers and peelers in Sirens & Stilettos Cabaret as they celebrate Santa’s birthday in their new strip tease-o-rama “A Little Christmas,” when they won’t be donning their gay apparel but rather taking it off. And they’re classing it up a bit by putting this show on…
ROCK | The Plague
Sure, The Plague is a reminder of frontman David Adam Monroe’s former band, the Warped Tour road dogs Third Estate, but it’s still got some muscle of its own under the hood. Monroe has moved into production a bit, citing a list of big names he’s twiddled knobs for and with, like Pink, Lady Gaga,…
ART | ‘Take the Long Way Home’
ImageOut and Gallery Q are co-presenting “Take the Long Way Home,” an exhibit of recent work by artists and married couple Nancy Topolski and Allen C. Topolski. This is their first time exhibiting together, and their work pairs well together — both reconfigure found materials and are explorations of personal and cultural themes. Nancy’s new…
DOOMGAZE | Planning for Burial
I love it when a band is picturesque in its meaning or agenda. That is until some guy starts screaming bloody murder in the mic. The chordal intro to some of this Wilkes Barre one-man-outfit, Planning for Burial, are ugly and mean, and they seek to be tamed not played. With the vocal abuse serving…
FILM | ‘Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets’
Shûji Terayama’s 1971 debut feature “Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets” — an experimental film adaptation of his novel and play of the same name — centers on one dysfunctional family’s deterioration as a metaphor for modern Japanese society’s descent into pitiless materialism. The political-psychedelic frolic follows the disillusioned teenaged son of the…
HOLIDAY | ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’
Produced by Jenn Cristy and her company, One Pulse Entertainment — which staged the Springsteen tribute, “Born to Run in the USA,” at Downstairs Cabaret earlier this year — “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” has its own spin on the season’s music. A live band, led by Cristy, puts its own style to Christmas classics,…
Theater review: ‘Titus Andronicus’ at MuCCC
Shakespeare is challenging for most professional theater troupes to pull off; even more so for amateur performers. This holiday season, however, Screen Plays has ambitiously partnered with DVC (Dream Visualize Create) to bring one of the Bard’s bloodiest tales to life onstage — and they’re doing it with a cast that features both high school…
Me and Bobby T
The Bug Jar’s Bob “Bobby T” Teresa was casually shaving his mug one day back in April when he discovered a lump on the side of his throat. “I said to myself, ‘That doesn’t look too good,”‘ Teresa says. His doctor said the same thing. They ran some tests and did a biopsy. It came…
Album review: ‘Bluer Than You Think’
Cowboys and Frenchmen “Bluer Than You Think” Outside In Music cowboysandfrenchmen.com After reviewing hundreds of jazz albums, I’m always looking for something refreshing and new. An album by a band incongruously named Cowboys and Frenchmen seemed promising, and “Bluer Than You Think” did not disappoint. The group’s name was inspired by a short film by…
Album review: ‘Experiments With Truth’
Richard X Bennett “Experiments With Truth” Ropeadope richardxbennett.com If you recognize the title of Richard X Bennett’s CD, “Experiments With Truth,” as part of the title of Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, you’re on your way to understanding the record’s unusual propulsive music. Bennett is a jazz pianist who spent many years in Mumbai, immersed in Indian…
HOLIDAY | Holiday Botanical Show
A 106-year-old Rochester tradition, the Lamberton Conservatory’s Holiday Botanical Show celebrates the flora associated with the season. The conservatory in Highland Park has again decked its halls in festive trees, wreaths, lights, and more than 1,000 poinsettias — for ’tis the season to be jolly. Look for the 8-foot-tall poinsettia pyramid in the conservatory, and…
HOLIDAY | Makers Market
If you didn’t take our warning last week that there isn’t much time left in getting together gifts for the holiday season, here it is again: Hanukkah started yesterday; Solstice is December 21; Christmas is in less than two weeks; and Kwanzaa begins the next day. If you’re still looking for that last gift for…
Is real reform coming for police oversight?
There seems to be a good chance that this time, Rochester will do more than tweak things as it assesses police oversight.
Film review: ‘Mudbound’
The deeply moving “Mudbound” is a sprawling epic set in the rural South that follows the intertwining fates of two families — one black and the other white — before, during, and immediately following World War II.
Film review: ‘Jane’
Recounting the life of renowned field researcher and primatologist Jane Goodall, the absorbing new documentary, “Jane,” is built from more than 100 hours of recently rediscovered 16-millimeter footage shot in the 1960’s by National Geographic photographer (and Jane’s eventual husband) Hugo van Lawick. Despite having no training or scientific degree, Goodall headed off to Gombe…
Film review: ‘Darkest Hour’
No less than the third film this year to focus on the World War II evacuation of Dunkirk, “Darkest Hour” is the straightforward historical drama counterpoint to Christopher Nolan’s action-oriented “Dunkirk” and the crowd-pleasing melodrama of Lone Scherfig’s “Their Finest.” “Darkest Hour” comes from director Joe Wright (who previously dramatized the evacuation in a show-stopping,…
Film review: ‘My Friend Dahmer’
The recently released Netflix series “Mindhunter” follows a team of FBI agents in the 1970’s as they embark on the early stages of criminal profiling, traveling the country to interview serial killers about their past history in an attempt to see what makes them tick. “My Friend Dahmer” goes a step further, dramatizing the teen…
