Two finds and a superplay, please
The Shaw Festival has achieved international fame with its superb revivals of relatively unknown plays of significant worth. The latest two are fascinating period pieces. Githa Sowerby’sRutherford and Son played in London and on Broadway in 1912, then virtually disappeared. In the last decade it was revived because of renewed interest in plays about…
7.24.64
Walter Cooper, Ph.D, was a scientist at the Eastman Kodak Research Laboratories until his retirement in 1986. Among his many national, state, and local activities, Cooper was Chairman of the Education Committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1959 to 1965, a Founding Member of the Rochester Urban League…
Dash and swoop
Not 10 minutes after I stepped onto the pedestrian bridge at High Falls, a Peregrine Falcon swooped up from the falls side of the bridge and made a breathtaking flyover. “It’s Hafoc,” said one of the regular falcon watchers, not even raising his binoculars. The bird was barely eight feet above us — close enough…
Baking an NFL player
If you’re going to Bills training camp at St. John Fisher you might as well get something out of it. So, starting this week, I’m issuing scouting guides to help keep your mind occupied through all the stretching and hydrating. Now your trip will be more useful than a tube of toothpaste. This information is…
The spirit in the machine
The credits of I, Robot delicately state that the movie was “suggested” by the work of Isaac Asimov, one of the most famous and successful writers of science fiction back in the Golden Age of the 1950s. The picture, however, differs drastically from the original collection of short stories, especially in transforming some of Asimov’s…
Also playing…
Anne Reid’s gutsy, masterful performance in the title role of The Mother throws down the gauntlet in this year’s Oscar race. She plays a newly widowed woman who gets entangled with a married man… almost half her age… who also happens to be her daughter’s boyfriend. May (Reid) is understandably shaken by her husband’s…
Out standing in their field
The Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance began 14 years ago in the Puryear kitchen. Jordan and Jeb Puryear had been friends with two other musicians, Richie Stearns and Shane Lamphier, since they were all kids playing together in the Bubba George String Band. A friend recently had been diagnosed with AIDS,…
‘Canary in a Coalmine’
Nobody — and I mean nobody — sounds lonelier than John Hammond when his voice cracks. It’s heartbreaking. Hammond played the lonesome blues a few weeks back at the High Falls Festival Site as the clouds and sun both fought for a seat along with roughly 500 souls. At one point the stripped-down sound…
Come on out!
Well, here we go. The Democratic Convention is less than a week away. And by the end of it, we should have a pretty clear sense of how strong the Kerry-Edwards ticket will be. The big question: whether party leaders are so afraid of offending anybody that the campaign will be little more than centrist…
Issuing a call
Concerned about the low achievement and high drop-out rate of Rochester’s African-American students, a Rochester church is planning a series of community forums on the topic “Crisis in Our Schools.” The goal: to urge the public, particularly African-American men and pastors, to act. The programs, which will begin in mid-September, will be sponsored by…
Reader feedback 7.21.04
WXXI and ‘Democracy,’ the schools crisis, moving billboards, the Ginna sale
Body count 4.21.04
To honor the war dead and fill an information gap in US mass media, City Newspaper will run weekly lists of American soldiers killed during the occupation of Iraq. The totals: 895 American soldiers and 120 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq from the beginning of the war and occupation to July 19. More…
Shock amidst the onions
A van carrying 13 Anglos and a Mexican translator bounced down some country roads outside of Brockport on a recent summer evening. We passed dozens of farms and untold acres of potatoes, young corn, and, as we approached the migrant camp that was our final destination, the onions and black dirt for which this area…
Family valued
Go south, young van, Thisweek for families:, The sleepover as dry run
