On stage 6.29.05
Rock the cradle The latest in Shipping Dock Theatre’s historical tear is Canadian playwright Jason Sherman’s It’s All True. This time we get a close-up on American history: the legendary first performance of The Cradle Will Rock. In 1937 socialist writer Marc Blitzstein (Billy DeMetsenaere) had in his hot little hands a satirical opera about…
Wood type rising
Beneath the computer-dominated world of contemporary graphic design lies an underground subculture dedicated to an ancient, organic method of printing. This cult is composed of an unusual gang of typophiles, paper snobs, luddites, wood carvers, and poets. Presses like Yee-Haw, Boxcar, Brightwork, and Silver Buckle are breathing new life into the letterpress arts — a…
Inbox – 6.29.05
Remarkable correspondence from the unremarkable world of email
Why won’t those zombies stay dead?
In the original Night of the Living Dead, his first feature film, George Romero explored some previously uncharted territory in the vast wilderness of horror, reinventing the zombie movie and suggesting a new relevance in its central concept of the reanimated dead. His essentially ridiculous notion of a disease that reawakens corpses who then stagger…
Dear Elizabeth Montgomery:
How’s the afterlife treating you? I am fine. Today I went swimming and ate chicken on a stick. But enough about my summertime frolicking — I thought someone should let you know that the powers-that-be have gotten around to retooling Bewitched for the big screen. You’re not going to like what they’ve done, and neither…
Blood on your hands
June 26 was an important date, the 18th anniversary of the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. But in this country, it was a day like any other. Our president was still paying little attention to international laws governing how we treat people captured in his War on…
The XX Files
Bush is the nation’s BMOC, swaggering around as if the world were his campus, despite record high disapproval ratings. The Republican-led Congress, also tanking in the polls, is a bunch of power-drunk frat boys who can’t keep their wandering hands off the Constitution. But the judiciary? The third branch of government? That’s the branch for…
Reader feedback 6.29.05
Missing on PBS, a priest as sparkplug
Our Hispanic ‘ambassadors’
Juan Contreras has global ambitions. But the 51-year-old Chilean isn’t aiming to take over the world; he’s looking to capture it in his series of Spanish Cultural Festivals, pulling in a variety of cultures from Rochester’s rich tapestry. | “I took a little of my inspiration from the movie Field of Dreams,” Contreras says. “You…
Cost of War 6.29.05
The totals: 1,728 American soldiers, 188 Coalition soldiers, and approximately 22,507 to 25,499 Iraqicivilians have been killed in Iraq from the beginning of the war and occupation to June 21. American soldiers killed from June 18-21: Private First Class Christopher R. Kilpatrick, 18; Columbus, Texas | Specialist Christopher L. Hoskins, 21; Danielson, Connecticut | Specialist…
Divide or conquer? The Dems’ dilemma
These days, Steve Minarik’s life can’t be easy. Despite clinging (barely) to a majority in the state Senate and to the governor’s mansion, the Grand Old Party is in unstable condition statewide. And things are likely to get worse; polls of almost every conceivable match-up show Republicans ceding the governor’s position and failing to steal…
Say what?
Invasion of privacy has become rampant. Surveillance cameras are inching us closer to a Big Brother society that we once rigorously opposed. Some states have discussed having license plates identify drivers who have DUI histories. The insurance industry wants “black boxes” in cars to record drivers’ weight and personal conversations leading up to a…
Family valued – 6.29.05
The yin and yang of June | This week for families | Bowling for the future
Fiz – 6.29.05
Secret worlds
