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Chris Beard plays the blues as if his pants were on fire. His fleet fretwork is deadly, often reducing his guitar to five, four, and sometimes three strings before the song is through. His blues have plenty of soul and sweat and show no signs of letting up. Beard is equally relentless. But this past summer
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For most people, there's just so much family you can take before you explode. So 'twas a packed Xmas night at the Bug Jar for the debut of The Isotopes'A Very Special Isotopes Christmas Special: How The Isotopes Saved Christmas. This was a low-budget, low-fidelity nugget of nerd-centric hilarity. Similar in acting quality and tone
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Among all the usual blockbusters depending for their success on the latest in technology, monsters, and publicity, the movie generating the loudest buzz this season, surprisingly, is a relatively small and decidedly unspectacular story of an extended love affair between two cowboys. Most of the commentary surrounding Brokeback Mountain predictably focuses on the fact of
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Is there any filmmaker making movies today who is as consistently inconsistent as Neil Jordan? The man who proved that it's actually possible to make an abysmal flick despite the participation of Sean Penn, Robert DeNiro, and David Mamet (1989's We're No Angels) also helped usher in the commercial viability of independent cinema when
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For millions of people suffering with debilitating injuries and serious diseases like diabetes and Parkinson's, stem cell research offers hope. But as promising as the research is, it is also polarizing. And the Bush administration has taken a non-scientific view of stem cell research and turned it into public policy. At the University of Rochester,
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Artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installations are anomalies --- art that makes news. But drama grabs headlines: The pair opened 3100 umbrellas in Ibaraki and California, wrapped Paris's Pont Neuf in fabric, and in February of 2005 installed 7500 16-foot-tall, saffron-colored fabric panels --- The Gates --- in Central Park. Photographer Ahron R. Foster, who lives in New
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The following email reminds me of an essay I once wrote for second-year French class. The essay was returned to me with a rash of red markings and a single frowny face in the upper right corner. This email comes in on the opposite side of translation, from France to the United States. Pay particular
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Little red houses This fireworks factory sat up the road from my high school about a mile. A series of red wood shingled buildings scattered across the property. Upper classmen reveled in describing how the buildings housed small crews who assembled the various products. The layout was in case something went wrong --- then only
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Wayne Luong, owner of Golden Port and the House of Sushi, left work at 11:15 p.m. on November 26, as he would on any other Saturday. Around 2 a.m., the motor in a laundry machine in his employee bathroom started a fire that destroyed the bathroom and damaged or ruined practically everything in both
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Kids love Chinese food. They're amused by the zodiac. Strengthen their appreciation for Chinese culture by visiting The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art at Buffalo's Albright-Knox Gallery and the University at Buffalo's two ArtGalleries. Before we visited the Albright-Knox, Pink Floyd's was the only wall with which my kids were familiar. After standing in a gallery dominated
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During his campaign for mayor, Bob Duffy indulged in a good bit of happy talk. "Some choose to focus on our failures," he said when he announced his candidacy. "I choose to focus on our successes and build upon them for the future." There was a bit of that during his inaugural address on Sunday,
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IT'S DUFFY'S TURN We were surprised and confused by Mayor Johnson's comments about the incoming mayor and his transition team ("Troubling Transition at City Hall?" December 14). He probably is struggling with the emotions that confront all of us as we cope with life's passages. Certainly, Mayor Johnson has given much of his life to
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The totals: 2178 US soldiers, 201 Coalition soldiers, and approximately 27,707 to 31,232 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq from the beginning of the war and occupation to January 1. 15,955 American soldiers have been wounded in action between March 2003 and December 2005. www.icasualties.org estimates that 2590 Iraqi police and military were killed in 2005. American soldiers killed
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If you've been to a mall recently, you'll be glad to know that the Department of Homeland Security has got your back. Or to be more precise, they've thrown a few bones to the Monroe County Sheriff's Department to do the job. As the holiday shopping season was reaching its peak in mid-December, the CountyLegislature approved accepting
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Most of Rochester's schools --- like MonroeHigh School, above --- are more than 50 years old. (The school district has not released the list of school improvements it wants.) The number of children attending Rochester schools is dropping, a trend that appears likely to continue through the decade. Given that fact, the district will need
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They've got game Walk into a roomful of tournament chess players and one thing is clear: these guys are serious. | Players hunch over chess boards while nearby several other players watch games and talk in whispers. A few players fidget, but it's hard to tell if it's because they're winning or losing. Their opponents,
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Greg Townson is worn out. He just got back from a whirlwind weekend with his band, The Hi-Risers, playing shows in New York City and New Haven. Come Monday morning and he's back at his straight gig, hawking records at The Bop Shop. The Hi-Risers have been on the road, and in the air,
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Loudon Wainright III plays his songs live accompanied by guitar and not much else. That leaves a lot of room for the most important stuff: the lyrics. Over the course of 20 albums, he has written songs in just about every imaginable flavor. Mostly, he dwells on stories of dysfunctional families (namely his), personal insecurities,
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Going downhill fast Let's face it. Anytime I'm compelled to get off the couch, I'm outside my comfort zone. In the past, when my kids whined about wanting to ski, I dodged the bullet due to the expense involved. They can shame me for being lazy, but they can't argue with the checkbook. Then I heard
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Remarkable correspondence from the consistently unremarkable world of email Last reminder: the deadline for the best subject line contest ends next Friday, January 13. If you're just tuning in, this contest is looking for the most unusual, funny, sad, and interesting subject lines. And that's all, just send the subject line, no need to send any
