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Gift Guide

Give the GIft of Good Reads

by Talking Leaves Staff

Who better to know what worthwhile things have been recently published than the good folks who run and work at Buffalo’s most stalwart independent bookstore? Here, the staff of Talking Leaves...Books hips us to works we may have missed, in a wide variety of genres.

Gift Guide

Gimme Gimme Some Music

by Jamie Moses

A million years ago I worked at Record Theatre for $2 an hour putting stickers on vinyl 45 singles. While the money barely paid for my Budweiser addiction, it was one of the best jobs I ever had because I was able to explore more music than I could ever afford to buy.

Gift Guide

More Radical Reads

by Buck Quigley

Our friends Leslie James Pickering and Theresa Baker-Pickering at Burning Books (420 Connecticut St./burningbooksbuffalo.com) have offered us a list of titles sure to appeal to those progressive friends on your shopping list—those that can’t see an ad for holiday diamonds without clenching their teeth in disgust at how those diamonds were likely obtained. Without further ado, here are some gift ideas for designed to shine a bright light throughout the holiday season...

Gift Guide

Buy Local Authors

Buffalo Noir, ed. Brigid Hughes and Ed Park (Akashic Books)--our fair city finally lands its volume in the acclaimed City Noir series from Brookyn’s Akashic Books, and it’s a dandy--twelve stories from writers born or otherwise attached here, with a stunning cover taken from a photo by area writer and chef Joe George.

Upon Further Review

The Brady Botch

by Dave Staba

The Buffalo Bills beat the crap out of Tom Brady on Monday night.

News Feature

The Bronfman/Raniere Cult Demands Investigation

by Frank Parlato

This is another installment of a series where I am a journalist covering my own federal indictment on 19 criminal counts.

Analysis

Frank Parlato's Strength as Journalist Will Help His Defense

by Tony Farina

Long-time businessman Frank Parlato, 60, joined the Fourth Estate later in life but he has definitely made his mark in his relatively brief time as a newspaper publisher, editor, and reporter.

Tap This

New York Beer Project

by Scott Russel

Poised aside Tonawanda Creek on Transit Road just north of the county line is a colossal two story brick new build that seemingly leapt from the pages of a gothic comic. The 17,000 square foot gastropub, taproom and brewery is home to New York Beer Project, western New York’s latest entrant to the ever growing local craft brewing scene.

What's Brewing

Jopenkerk Brouwerij Hoppenbier & Thanksgiving Beer Tips

by Willard Brooks and Chris Groves

It’s well-known that “IPA”—or India Pale Ale—is a beer style invented by 19th century British brewers with high hop levels in order to prevent spoilage in beers needing to survive the long warm journey from London to India. What is less known is that Dutch brewers were shipping hoppy high-alcohol beers to the Dutch East Indies (now known as Indonesia) long before this supposedly British invention.

Film Feature

Respected Filmmaker talks about his works on the Indonesian Genocide

by Jordan Canahai

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Joshua Oppenheimer is one of the most important filmmakers in the world right now. The director’s Oscar-nominated The Act of Killing addressed the Indonesian Genocide of the 1960s from the point of view of the perpetrators, giving audiences one of the most acclaimed documentary films of the 21st century while starting a long-overdue dialogue in Indonesia about those awful events and their impact on the country’s present.

Art Scene

Filmmaker Steve Powell talks about his plans for films about artists

by Jack Foran

Steve Powell, a filmmaker who doesn’t think of himself as particularly knowledgeable about art—“I like what I like,” he says—is making a film—series of short films, really—about local art and artists.

Classical Music Notes

Beethoven, Period

by Jan Jezioro

Buffalo lovers of classical chamber music are getting their first and probably their best Christmas present a little early this year, just after Thanksgiving. Over the course of three days, the convention-breaking cellist Matt Haimovitz, and pianist Christopher O’Riley, who has arguably done more than any other individual to encourage young, classical musicians in America, are coming to town to present what will be a unique concert-going experience, when they perform all the works composed by Ludwig van Beethoven for piano and cello during the course of two evenings, the first at the Mary Seaton Room in Kleinhans Music Hall on Tuesday December 1 at 8pm and the second on Thursday December 3 at 7:30pm in Slee Hall on the UB Amherst Campus.

Theatrically Speaking

Late With Lance

by Anthony Chase

Actor/writer Peter Michael Marino has a talent to invent and then reinvent himself. When his musical stage version of Desperately Seeking Susan flopped on London’s West End, he picked himself up and recounted the whole sad saga in a one man show, Desperately Seeking the Exit, which toured the world for over two years.

Get Lit

When Paris Comes Alive

by Heather Cook

I recently read an article by Olivia Snaije, stating that Paris would prefer the hashtag #ParisIsAboutLife over #PrayForParis. The article also included a cartoon drawing that read, “Our faith goes to music! Kisses! Life! Champagne and Joy!”

Featured Events

AV Hit List: Top Event Picks for This Week

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Film Now Playing

Movie Listings (Friday, November 27 - Thursday, December 4)

Graphic Traffic

The Sandman: Overture Deluxe Edition & The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage: Queen of Pulp Pin-Up Art

by Joe Tell

The Sandman: Overture is the long-awaited prequel to the original Sandman series that Neil Gaiman spearheaded back in the late 1980s. The story sets the scene for the first volume of Sandman and sheds new light on the Endless family of characters.

You Auto Know

From Gothenberg (via Hangzhou) with Love

by Jim Corbran

If you hear the name Volvo and think “squarish-shaped über safe car driven by non-tenured college professors wearing elbow-patched sport coats that reek of, ahem, herbal stimulants,” well then, I guess we grew up in the same era.

Offbeat News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

Professional patients now help train would-be doctors, especially in the most delicate and dreaded of exams (gynecological and prostate), where a becalming technique improves outcomes. One “teaching associate” of Eastern Virginia Medical School told The Washington Post in September that the helpers act as “enthusiastic surgical dummies” to 65 medical colleges, guiding rookie fingers through the trainer’s own private parts.

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Chuck Shepherd

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): From the dawn of civilization until 1995, humans cataloged about 900 comets in our solar system. But since then, we have expanded that tally by over 3,000. Most of the recent discoveries have been made not by professional astronomers, but by laypersons, including two 13-year-olds.