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Cover Story

Bernie Tolbert Wants to be Buffalo's Next Mayor

by Geoff Kelly

If Bernie Tolbert succeeds this November in being elected Buffalo’s next mayor, one of the first things he says he’ll do is purely symbolic: He’ll get rid of the police officer stationed at the desk in front of the mayor’s second-floor office in City Hall.

Week in Review

Fraud Claim Against M&T Bank Revived

by Buck Quigley

Small Talk

by Geoff Kelly

May is National Bike Month

by Buck Quigley

News Analysis

It's Already Built

by Bruce Fisher

The dream of the climate-conscious pro-Buffalo person today goes something like this: We needn’t fret that demographers at Cornell, Penn, the US Census, and elsewhere all concur that the Buffalo-area population will shrink by another 100,000 in the next ten years.

Guest Essay

America's Enemy Within

by Ian Buruma, Project Syndicate

Barring any unexpected new revelations, there is not much to be learned from the Tsarnaev brothers, better known as “the Boston bombers.” We can dig into their family histories in strife-torn Dagestan, or examine, once again, the lethal appeal of Islamist radicalism. But I doubt that this would be enlightening.

Guest Commentary

Where Are the New Ideas in Erie County Government?

by Paul Wolf, ReinventingGov.org

Newsweek magazine recently ran an article listing the five most innovative mayors in the US. It might not surprise you that none of the mayors from Western New York made the list.

Art Scene

Xu Bing and Song Dong at the Burchfield Penney Art Center

by Jack Foran

Monica Angle's Painitngs at Meibohm Gallery

by J. Tim Raymond

Theater Week

The Original Jersey Boy

by Anthony Chase

“Surreal!” is the word Bob Gaudio uses to describe the experience of seeing himself depicted in Jersey Boys, the biographical musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons that has returned to Shea’s this week for a 10-day stay. “Of course, I’ve seen dozens of different actors play ‘Bob’ in the show, and I always enjoy it when the actor is especially good looking!”

Music Feature

Peter Murphy: Burning From the Inside

by Bill Nehill

Few movements of the rock-and-roll era have proved as vital or influential as the British post-punk scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Artvoice B.O.O.M!

Round 4, Week 3: Swill vs. The Screaming Jeans

Congratulations to MayDay! for collecting the most online votes this past week. That wins them a spot in the upcoming BOOM live showdown at the end of this month.

Classical Music Notes

Ballets Russes Mecaniques

by Jan Jezioro

On a fine evening late last spring, Bob Berkman welcomed a small group of guests to his West Side home for an impromptu performance of Lithuanian folk music on a pianola, or player piano. The occasion for this recital, held in a private home, as were almost all pianola performances in the instrument’s heyday, was the visit to Buffalo of Professor Darius Kucinskas, a musicologist at the University of Kaunas in Lithuania.

Film Reviews

To the Wonder

by Ed Grant

The Connection

by M. Faust

Arthur Newman

by M. Faust

Renoir

by George Sax

The Great Gatsby

by M. Faust

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Movie Times (Friday, May 10 - Thursday, May 16)

Film Now Playing

Featured Events

See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of featured events, including our editor's pick for the week: the Best of Buffalo 2013 Awards Ceremony, this Monday, May 13th at the Town Ballroom.

You Auto Know

Van, Damn

by Jim Corbran

The year was 1975. The US had its first non-elected president (Ford) and vice-president (Rockefeller) in history. The Cincinnati Reds defeated the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. And Ford introduced its third-generation Econoline van.

Offbeat News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

Caribou Baby, a Brooklyn, N.Y., “eco-friendly maternity, baby and lifestyle store,” has recently been hosting gatherings at which parents exchange tips on “elimination communication”—the weaning of infants without benefit of diapers (as reported in April by the New York Times). Parents watch for cues, such as a certain “cry or grimace” that supposedly signals that the tot urgently needs to be hoisted onto a potty.

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): A character in Herman Hesse’s novel Demian says the following: “I live in my dreams. Other people live in dreams, but not in their own.” Whose dreams do you live in, Virgo?

The Back Page

Nate Peracciny: Sustainable by Design at Hallwalls, May 14

Buffalo-based storyteller Nathan Peracciny’s newest film project, Volcom Pipe Pro 2013: Sustainable By Design, documents the efforts by organizers of a major surfing competition to run an environmentally sustainable event, from the locally sourced food and the bio-diesel generators to the bokashi system for composting food waste.