Playing a game, putting on a play
Always an important and popular character in American literature (and no doubt drawn from observed reality), the confidence man, that occasionally lovable rogue, fleeces his victims by exploiting not only their gullibility, but also their greed. Most con men don’t simply steal the money from their marks. Just like the average legitimate Wall Street hustler,…
Kiarostami’s crazy Russian doll
Last week, we discussed the first film in Abbas Kiarostami’s “Earthquake Trilogy,” Where Is the Friend’sHome? With the second picture, And Life Goes On… (screens Thursday, May 8, at the Dryden), it becomes clear early on that when Kiarostami conceived Home?, it wasn’t with a trilogy in mind. Set prior to the 1990 earthquake…
The Bop Shop bop
Recently, a woman strolled into the Bop Shop in search of some jumpblues. Owner Tom Kohn and his staff were on the case with the speed and enthusiasm of a NASCAR pit crew. “We were like, ‘Jump blues? You need Tiny Bradshaw, Louis Jordan. You need Gene Phillips, Todd Rhodes,'” Kohn recalls. The individual…
Can we think big?
If Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse worked together as a region, could we get the growth — new companies, new jobs, new people — that’s eluding us? Maybe. We’d certainly have a better chance than if we keep working separately. But boy, do we have a long way to go. Working together as a…
The XX files
It’s fitting that Mother’s Day occurs in the spring, but not because life is bursting out all over. It’s fitting because spring is when daycare centers and kindergartens need to know your plans for next fall. Will you stay at home with your kids (if you’re lucky enough to have choices)? Start working or increase…
News briefs 5.7.03
Location, location Monroe Community College’s Advanced Technology Center is revered by public officials and development types alike as a project with the potential to revitalize downtown. But the project is in limbo after the state Legislature declined to allocate the necessary $33 million to get the project started. The Technology Center — a downtown…
Reader Feedback 5.7.03
Freed from tyranny I was appalled by Jack Bradigan Spula’s comments in response to the letter from Stephanie Aldersley in the April 16 issue. To characterize the brave service men and women putting their lives at risk in Iraq as “gung ho” and deserving of criticism for carrying out orders marginalizes Jack and City Newspaper…
Consolidating logic
The next exec: The second in an occasional series of articles addressing issues related to the 2003 Monroe County Executive race. Call it political Fear Factor. A year ago, County Executive Jack Doyle convened three public forums to discuss the concept of consolidating local governments and school districts. The forums were inspired by remarks…
The 2003 LilacFestival
Once again, the blooming has begun among the 22 acres of lilac bushes in Highland Park. Enter the Lilac Festival, Rochester’s oldest and largest festival, held this year from Friday, May 9, through Sunday, May 18, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. A half-million people will descend on the park, and there’ll be enough…
Hooked on organics
Genesee County’s northern tier, a zone of rich soils well-positioned between the Lake Ontario plains and the hill country to the south, has that touch of bigness. Open fields stretch hundreds or thousands of yards back from the road. A Montana-style “Big Sky” draws the eyes to infinity. “Big” weather rolls in day and night,…
Mellow Bellows
In 1969, thousands of peace-loving music devotees gathered near a small town in the Catskills for what was to become a landmark in American cultural history. The Woodstock that George Bellows knew and loved, half a century earlier, was an altogether smaller affair. But for many of the artists who came to work there, it…
I snub you
I purposely avoided MacGregor’s city location (the one on Gregory Street in the South Wedge) for about a month this spring, suspecting the staff there’d been stricken with SARS: Server Apathetic Response Syndrome. This strain of SARS was first identified in China, in a Beijing bar called MacMao’s, where a group of American businessmen…
