Reader feedback 9.11.02
Our ‘cheap shot’, Fast ferry to doom?, A social contract?, Resisting the war, Looking for leaders, Jazz at Verve…
Music, theater, and art: a season of celebration
It seems entirely appropriate that the publication date of City’s Fall Guide this year is September 11. In this annual issue, our writers preview the season in music, theater, art, performances, exhibitions, and literature. This year, in lieu of standard previews, we’ve invited the directors of local companies to tell us in their own words…
Officer down, citizen dead
Even after years of Fox TV’s Cops, an amateur video shot during an incident at a Wegmans supermarket can make an impression. The video records less than two minutes of an arrest at the market August 31. It shows Rochester Police Department officers pinning Lawrence Rogers, a northeast Rochester resident who was clad only…
The twin sphinges of UR
The tunnel system under the University of Rochester’s quad has certain tomb-like qualities: low ceilings, wheezing steam pipes, bad air, strange sayings scrawled on the walls. Get lost in this dismal maze and you can easily imagine you’re in some second-rate Egyptian burial complex. What better to stand guard over one of the main…
One-note samba
Caption: Profound statements, profound moves: Gray Mayfield comes of age. Gray Mayfield will never forget the day Wynton Marsalis showed up at his dorm room. “A friend of mine used to study with Wynton. He was always saying, ‘I’m going to contact Wynton and have him come and hear you.’ So, one day, when…
Recordings
Chris Arduser Hostage Drummers have a mostly deserved reputation for being knuckleheads. On the other hand, folks come along every now and then who step out from behind the kit to display broad musical gifts made all the more wonderful by the perspective of a percussionist. Levon Helm, Phil Collins, and even Karen Carpenter come…
Peace’s progress: one year later
Example for the nations by Jack Bradigan Spula; The long, hard road to healing by Chris Busby
Homecoming season for a Bills fan
The last four falls, I’ve been a Bills fan in exile on the peninsula of Portland, Maine. That’s deep in Patriots country, enemy territory. Surrounded by Patsies, I’d take refuge in sports bars to watch Buffalo play via satellite. I had to arrive well before kickoff to stake out a stool near the one…
Headline: Movies: Great expectations, after summer’s best
p> Credit: Text: Records tumbled, glowing reviews were dispensed like so much sunscreen, and we still had room for mindless junk like Eight Legged Freaks and XXX. Thanks to pictures like Road To Perdition, Signs and Minority Report, the summer of 2002 was certainly the best in recent memory. But what about the fall?…
An upstate autumn: eating what you kill
Credit: Kurt Brownell Text: At a recent lunch, the subject of venison came up, with one friend saying how awful he always finds it. Another friend and I defended it, saying we’d had delicious venison many times. It got me wondering about how best to deal with deer meat, and so I asked a couple…
Television: Reality is dead; cops, docs, and lawyers live on
With 32 new shows set to kick off in the next couple of months, City thought you might require some sort of guide to help you separate the wheat from the chaff. Otherwise, how would you be able to tell the difference between Do Over (WB, 8:30 p.m. Thursday) and That Was Then (ABC,…
Meet the strip-mall saucier
Right or wrong, area foodies consider the west side something of a culinary wasteland. For haute cuisine, the East End has the Rio, Tonic, Max, and 2 Vine; the eastern suburbs have Joey B’s, the Erie Grill, and the Victor Grilling Company. Out west, you’ve got Bernard’s Grove and, well, Bernard’s Grove. A year…
Movies: A harvest of remakes, sequels, and series
As all students of the contemporary cinema know, and most reviewers tediously reiterate, the change of seasons from summer to fall should also signal a transformation in the variety of entertainment flickering in the multiple tense darknesses of the megaplexes. Accepted wisdom preaches that with the kids back in school and the weather turning…
A Greek tragedy of a cop flick
As the new Robert De Niro film demonstrates, even so ostensibly simple and relatively ancient a form (at least for the cinema) as the cop flick, even in the blockbuster blossom time, possesses the potential to be more than mysteries, manhunts, and shootouts. Based on a true story, City by the Sea examines not only…
Festivals
Agricultural Society Fair, Genesee Country Nature Center, 1410 Flint Hill Rd, Mumford (538-6822, www.geneseecountryvillage.org): A country fair, 19th-century style, with food, livestock and crafts. Oct. 5-6. Apple Umpkin Festival, Gaslight Village, Rte, 19 LeRoy (493-3320): Sept 28-29. AutumnFest: “A Celebration of the Earth”: Genesee Country Nature Center, 1410 Flint Hill Rd, Mumford (538-6822, www.geneseecountryvillage.org): nature…
Dispatches from Toronto
The 27thToronto International Film Festival, which continues to unspool even as you read this, is many things to many people. For some, it’s an early indicator of which upcoming films might be Oscar contenders (five of the last six winners of the People’s Choice Award for the audience’s favorite film have gone on to nab…
Art
Local 1570 Gallery, Valley Manor, 1570 East Avenue (442-8470): “Art for the Soul,” with work by Eve Bothelho, Coral Dalton, M. Wendy Gwirtzman, Raphaella McCormack; opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Sept. 20; through Oct. 31. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mon-Fri. American Association of University Women (AAUW) Art Forum, 494 East Ave (244-8890): “Retrospective,” woodcuts by Jeanne…
Dispatches from Toronto
The 27thToronto International Film Festival, which continues to unspool even as you read this, is many things to many people. For some, it’s an early indicator of which upcoming films might be Oscar contenders (five of the last six winners of the People’s Choice Award for the audience’s favorite film have gone on to nab…
Literature and lectures
30th Annual Rochester Book Fair, benefits the University of Rochester Libraries: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sept. 21, the Student Life Center, St. John Fisher College, 3690 East Avenue. (From 10 a.m.-12 p.m., have up to 3 books professionally assessed for $2 apiece.) Info: 275-4461. Barnes & Noble-Pittsford, 3349 Monroe Ave (586-6020): Miriam Grace Monfredo signs Children…
This great wound
The headline is a phrase I’ve borrowed from journalist Pete Hamill. On a recent Lehrer NewsHour, Hamill used it in referring to last September’s attack on New York City. And it’s the most apt description I’ve seen. I have sought, over the past few weeks, some insight into the subject of emotional pain: not…
Theater
Blackfriars Theatre, 28 Lawn St (454-1260; www.blackfriars.org): Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Oct. 5-26. Dirty Blonde, Dec. 7-29, with performances Dec. 31. Fully Committed, March 1-22. Rags: A Musical, May 3-24, 2003. Tickets: $20-$22; $35 on New Year’s Eve. Bristol Valley Theatre, 151 S. Main St, Naples (374-6318; www.bvtnaples.org): Horseplay!, 8 p.m. Sept. 20-21. In My…
Super-mayor?
If you aren’t one already, imagine being the parent of a child attending one of Rochester’s troubled inner-city schools. You’ve just sent your kid off to class in a school district rocked by financial crises, dismal test scores, an astonishingly high drop-out rate, the controversial departure of its superintendent, and a political maelstrom that’s developed…
Classical music
Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra Text: Philharmonic Series(454-2100): All concerts at 8 p.m. in Eastman Theatre; pre-concert chats at 7 p.m. Christopher Seaman, conductor, Olga Kern, piano, Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet overture-fantasy, Francesca da Rimini, Piano Concerto No. 1; Oct. 3 and 5. | Voav Talmi, conductor, and Anne Akiko Meyers, violin; Haydn: Symphony No. 96 “The…
News briefs 9.11.02
I get a kick out of you So you’ve punched out your anger management instructor and you can no longer see you feet. You look like a pansy on an exercise bike and slugging walls just leaves you cold. It’s time to don some gloves and come out swingin’ at the MetroCenter YMCA’s kickboxing…
Families and museums
Text: Center at High Falls, 60 Browns Race (325-2030): Historic district, touring and learning center with orientation to Rochester for groups. Attractions: Original Mill Raceway, Archaeology Site & Giant Waterwheel,”Laser, Light & Fireworks Spectacular!” offered weekends through mid-October, holidays. West viewing deck overlooking High Falls, plus Pont de Rennes Foot Bridge, Granite Mills Park, gift…
