Reader feedback 2.18.04
Remembering the Democrats I have a different memory of the Democrats than Nicholas Hogan has (“Bring Back the Democrats,” The Mail, February 4). He is correct in noting that the Democrats presided over a massive economic boom and brought a budget surplus that has disappeared into massive deficits. However, my memory of that boom is…
Sad monsters in a cage
Shipping Dock Theatre is back in strong form with a disturbing, haunting drama about prison life: Bruce Graham’s Coyote on a Fence. In a straightforward, potent performance, a small cast holds the audience spellbound with material that is neither pleasant nor ennobling but is certainly thought-provoking and very hard to forget. Playwright Graham doesn’t…
Need to feed
Andrew Stankevich is as big as his job. Nonchalantly chain-smoking Newports and guzzling coffee, he cheerfully confronts non-stop adversity head on. And there’s plenty to go around when you’re responsible for feeding the poor. A nervous chuckle escapes as Stankevich’s 24-foot delivery truck dies a slow death, steadily bleeding coolant out of a crack…
Give it your best niggle
My boss lives in San Francisco, and fancies that he Knows Food. He takes me to Bay-area restaurants to prove that my tastes are provincial. I try to show him that we can generally get equivalent quality here, at much lower prices. The way the game goes, we both praise the cheap ethnic joints, and…
‘An American in Paris,’ 1968
Although it confronts some of the his most important and persistent subjects and themes, Bernardo Bertolucci’s new film, The Dreamers, hints at a certain exhaustion of the imagination. It is as if the director were not merely revisiting but repeating his past. The film flaunts the rare and dreaded NC-17 rating and is set…
Also playing…
“Catch That Kid.” I remember my mother taking my brother and me to see Escape From Witch Mountain nearly 30 years ago. That film had extra-talented young teens who outsmarted the adults, and it didn’t make a lick of sense. But I loved it so much that I rushed the screen. A recent showing…
The best and only
Of all the guitar slingers in the world, living, dead, or otherwise, Sonny Landreth stands alone. Landreth’s playing style is as unique as it is stunningly hypnotic. With merely the 10 fingers God gave him, Landreth blends deft finger-style picking with slippery slide in a sea of reverb and bluesy redemption. Landreth was born…
Sending listeners to the cosmos
Perhaps a mysterious gravitational force pulls Krzysztof Penderecki and the Eastman School together. Seventy-year-old Polish composer Penderecki (PEN-der-ETS-kee) received an honorary degree from the Eastman School in 1972. In the late 1980s, while in Rochester conducting the RPO, Penderecki returned to the Eastman School to give a composition symposium on his Grammy Award-winning Cello…
For the birds
Members of UR Veg, the University of Rochester’s Vegetarian Education Group, know that activism is a tough job with little instant gratification. That’s why public relations manager and UR sophomore Ryan Merkley isn’t crushed that more crows were killed this year in Auburn’s crow shoot than ever before. “When I heard that 1,000 crows…
Mutiny on the good ship Mendon
The eyes of Monroe County are on Mendon these days, and the town is unaccustomed to the glare. “People in this nice little town are not accustomed to having government get this much attention,” says Councilwoman Pat Freeman. “It’s been a real smooth-sailing ship for a long time.” Piloting the good ship Mendon…
Out with the new, in with the old?
Call it an endless melody or the same old song. By any name, it’s a recurrent dilemma that dogs the concert world. Here’s the A theme: Symphony orchestras are alienating us with “difficult,” dissonant program choices. Hold your ears and complain loudly. Or the B theme: Orchestras must strive to please. It’s the…
Alternative to what?
The cover of this newspaper each week defines us as “Greater Rochester’s alternative newsweekly.” The phrase has an important meaning, identifying City as a publication that practices a specific type of journalism: “alternative.” It’s not simply that we are one of many reading alternatives to the Democrat and Chronicle. Alternative newspapers, which have their…
