Zekes, Dekes, freaks, and geeks
I love The Grinders. I mean I love me some mailman Todd. But I’m not sure I dig ’em in a big venue like Water Street Music Hall, where they warmed the boards for The Chesterfield Kings two weeks ago. They still sounded great, and sure, they’ve earned the right to rock a huge crowd…
Gotcha!
Imagine you’ve spent four years fulfilling what you thought were the requirements of your major, minor, or certificate, only to receive a thick envelope from the office of the university registrar less than two months before graduation. You open it and find that you’ve been “audited” by someone who doesn’t believe you’re really finished. …
Body count
To honor the war dead and fill an information gap in US mass media, City Newspaper will run weekly lists of American/”Coalition” soldiers and Iraqi citizens killed during the ongoing occupation of Iraq. The totals: 753 American soldiers, 106 “Coalition” soldiers, and approximately 9,000 Iraqi soldiers and 10,750 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq…
East meets Wegs
If Wegmans proceeds with its plans to double the size of its East Avenue store, only one thing seems to be certain: That section of East Avenue near Winton Road — generally considered the gateway to the East Avenue Preservation District — may change. Drastically. If some neighbors’ worst fears materialize, the north side…
The Empire (Zone) strikes back
Some rules are meant to be broken. The state recently made an exception to one of its own policies and allowed the Brighton Town Board to expand the county’s Empire Zone boundaries several months before schedule. The measure, which was approved during last week’s town board meeting, redrew the zone’s borders to include an…
Readers feedback #1 – 5.5.04
Worrying about Nader; voting smart; missing Spula
Readers feedback #2 – 5.5.04
The state of Main Street
OP-ED
The Brockport police budget
Family valued
Crossing cultures Several years ago, my husband and I had the opportunity to live for an extended time with the Saami (Lapp), the indigenous people of northern Scandinavia. One of the most provocative questions asked of us while we were there was, “Are we exotic enough for you?” It was a powerful query, because…
Two play to a T
Center Stage at Jewish Community Center has mounted a first-class revival of Israel Horovitz’s popular, appealing play, Park Your Car In Harvard Yard. An elegantly composed interplay for two actors, it is both heartwarming and funny. Horovitz is one of our most prolific playwrights, a fact that dissuades me from trying to sound like…
Church vs. state
Read the US Constitution. No matter how long you search, you will never find the phrase “eminent domain.” It is a legal procedure that authorizes the government to take private property for a price it deems appropriate, whether or not the owner has any intention to sell. The practice and its application are grounded…
‘Baseball guys are weird’
Red Wing Jason Bartlett is playing his first AAA season in the International League and his fourth season in the minor leagues. San Diego drafted the Lodi, California, native from University of Oklahoma in June 2001 and traded him to Minnesota in July 2002. “Publication Baseball America” named the 24-year-old shortstop Minnesota’s sixth-best prospect in…
Contemporary and traditional horror
In addition to its obvious relevance to some important and up-to-date scientific issues, Godsend owes as much to Mary Shelley’s grand Gothic novel Frankenstein — and a century of its proliferating cinematic progeny — as to today’s headlines. While the new movie deals with a controversial contemporary subject, human cloning, it also depends upon…
Short tales told on shoestrings
We all know April showers bring May flowers, but do you know what May flowers bring? No, not Pilgrims. In these parts, Shakespeare’s darling buds of May herald the unspooling of the Rochester International Film Festival, better known as Movies on a Shoestring. I always assumed the “shoestring” referred to the budgets of the…
Also playing…
In Envy, Jack Black and Ben Stiller play coworkers. Black invents something that makes dog waste disappear. Stiller fails to invest in the cockamamie scheme and loses out on the resultant windfall. Black builds a life of absurd, cartoon opulence across the street from his friend. Stiller becomes envious and reckless. Everything about this…
From Nancy, with love
As rock ‘n’ roll’s swagger staggers under the weight of its disproportionate masculinity (you know, too many dudes), women with the appropriate stance and guts are keeping it somehow viable, visceral, and real. It’s still a man’s world, but women like The Breeder’s Kim Deal, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, Deborah Harry, or yes, even Madonna…
