Calm grace and the Sandwich Credo
“That chicken chili is really good,” my father-in-law said. Not a man who gets excited about food, he was nearly gushing. We were at a party catered by Jaquelyn Powers of Orange Glory, and comments like that were flying. “Have you tried that braised beef?” It was a beef stew with a puff pastry crust…
Big rock for a little room
The Riviera Playboys have gone through quite a few lineup changes over the year. Each was cool and varied slightly with whoever was bringing whatever in with them, but never strayed from leader Dave Anderson’s mod vision. My favorite had always been the classic Williams-Frank-Anderson trio, but at the band’s show last Thursday night (warming…
Band on the run
When it rains in New York City the water has nowhere to go. And neither do the residents (those who want to stay dry anyway). Folks stay indoors and bands find themselves entertaining the walls of half-filled nightclubs. But hey, that’s the life they chose and them’s the breaks. At a recent rain-soaked Kenny’s Castaways…
A squid, a whale, and a white dog
Coming-of-age movies are easy to relate to because we’ve all done it. Most people have never embezzled $2 million from the mob or been chased through the woods by a homicidal maniac, but at one time or another every one of us has had to grow up (or you were supposed to, anyway). The backgrounds…
There may be hope for the art of cinema
Despite the general assumptions of so many cultural commentators about the dumbing down of American audiences and the consequent deterioration of the art of cinema (along with the decline of the West and the end of Civilization As We Know It), the critical and popular reception of some recent movies suggests some cause for hope.…
The XX Files 11.30.05
Although there has been tension between science and religion since well before Darwin, passions are running higher than ever. The lines are drawn: you’re either with God or you’re against him. That is, you support teaching intelligent design or you “believe in” evolution, as if it’s some half-cocked theory like, well, ID. You’re either a…
Reader Feedback – 11.30.05
Writing the lead law, stopping the violence, finding the ‘best’
Cost of war 11.30.05
The totals: 2107 US soldiers, 201 Coalition soldiers, and approximately 27,115 to 30,559 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq from the beginning of the war and occupation to November 26. American soldiers killed between November 16 and 22: Sergeant Jeremy E. Murray, 27; Atwater, Ohio | Lance Corporal Roger W. Deeds, 24; Biloxi, Mississippi…
GOP deficit disorder
Ah, the hot topic of budgets. Unless you work in your company’s finance department, odds are the word makes your eyes glaze over. But for the parallel universe contained inside the Beltway, and for the watchdog groups monitoring it, budgets are a different story. For those people, things are just getting interesting. Two weeks ago,…
The good of golden hamsters
City: So what are you reading right now? Random 9-year-old: Freddy in Peril, which I am near finishing. City: What is that book about? 9-year-old: It is about a golden hamster that knows how to read and write. City: So it’s a true story? 9-year-old: No. City: No? 9-year-old: No, a golden hamster learns to…
Let’s shed some light on the matter
The current exhibition at SUNY Brockport’s Tower Fine Arts Gallery, Illuminating Developments: Images, Objects, and the Use of Light, features the work of seven artists who rely on light as a physical part of the existence of their art. Light, of course — its presence or absence — has played a significant role in both…
Thoroughbreds of the performing arts
Outside it was a cold, snowy Rochester night. But inside a quiet Chestnut Street building, the Garth Fagan Dance studio was warm and bustling. A week before the start of its Rochester season, the award-winning company was in the midst of an intense rehearsal schedule. As the dancers trickled in and out of the studio,…
Frontier woman: the Genesee Valley’s ‘white Seneca’
She is known as “The White Woman of the Genesee,” a frontier-family’s daughter who was captured by Native Americans and lived the rest of her life as one of them. Although not well known nationally — not like Martha Washington or Sakagawea — for some Upstate New Yorkers, hers is a cherished, captivating story. And…
