The publishing game
“It takes a lot to find 10 pictures of velocipedes,” says Michael Neault, manager of the Dryden Theatre and the man behind Snore and Guzzle Publishing. “Do you know what a velocipede is? It’s those bikes with the big front tire and the small back tire. If you break it down to the Latin it…
Readers feedback 12.22.04
Gutless Dems, blundering Annan
Body count 12.22.04
To honor the war dead and fill an information gap in US mass media, City Newspaper will run weekly lists of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed during the occupation of Iraq. The totals: 1,299 American soldiers, 150 Coalition soldiers, and approximately 14,876 to 17,072 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq (a recent survey…
Taking downtown to task
By now, headlines screaming about Rochester’s struggling downtown or the region’s failure to retain young people have gotten a little old. Sometimes you’ve got to experience the news firsthand for it to have an impact. And for City Councilmember Bill Pritchard, that moment came the night before Thanksgiving. “That night used to be one of…
Questioning casinos
A December 16 panel discussion about what a casino in downtown Rochester might be like showed at least one thing: The issue is still in the forefront of many people’s minds. A crowd of well over 100 gathered at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center for the session, which was convened by Rochester Mayor Bill Johnson.…
Family valued 12.22.04
Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol Well, all the old Christmas chestnuts are airing constantly these days. The good news is that you can rent or borrowing them and avoid commercials. Among my parent posse, the two that get the most props are Chuck Jones’s rollicking 1966 adaptation of Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the…
Welcome to Tuna, Texas. Population: crazy.
Everything’s bigger in Texas, even including the personalities in Tuna, where the claim to fame is being the third smallest town in the state. Country holiday music fills the air and sparkling Christmas lights dangle over the audience, setting a celebratory mood in the Downstairs Cabaret Theatre, home to this production of A Tuna Christmas.…
Winning in one dimension
The Bills are 8-6 and might make the playoffs. That’s incredible because after the Patriots crushed them 29-6 on November 14, they were 3-6 and alive like a cemetery. Somehow they’ve won five straight. The secret, according to coach Mike Mularkey, was to play one game at a time. You see, earlier in the season,…
To the end of time
In his immortal play Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie bequeathed to the ages one of the strangest and most enduring visions of childhood in all of literature. His was an ambiguous fantasy of freedom from time, from parents, even from gravity itself. In his world, a large dog worked as a family’s nanny, a flying…
The newest Andersonian
By choosing to make movies, Wes Anderson may have missed out on a lucrative career as a high-wire artist. He has constantly walked the tightrope throughout his three previous films — Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums — between quirky and contrived, clever and clumsy, moving and maudlin. But he has always made the…
The big divide
In 2001 and 2002, the dramatic deaths of five African-Americans during or following a police action made Rochester headlines. In one incident, an officer shot and killed a 14-year-old boy who was fleeing a police chase. In another, an officer tripped during a drug raid and fatally shot a man. <p?It was a tense time.…
Last minute tune-up
Diane Schnier Before Cowboys Basemental Cowboys effectively unseats Ben Folds as the heir to Elton John’s legacy of gorgeous lyrical piano in a pop setting. Unsullied by even a hint of hipster irony, Schnier’s tenderhearted, almost precocious vulnerability is a marvel. Ditto on the sophisticated arrangements. She’s underground, but not for long. Catch her when…
Lighten up, hippies
The Chesterfield Kings have obviously learned at the feet of the rock ‘n’ roll masters, as they proved once again to about 500 fans at Water Street Music Hall two Saturdays ago. The show was loud and loose as always, with Paul Morabito laying down some fantastic guitar. They’re finally letting the boy shine. And…
