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Summer Guide

Events, Fairs, and Festivals

Kid's Stuff

Museums

Summer Concerts

Summer Theater

Dance

Sports and Recreation

Tours

La Vida Loca

by Katherine O'Day

A Busker's Notes

by Buck Quigley

Deconstructing Woody

by Mark Norris

Fair Weather Friends

by Kat Brady

Indian Summer

by Rob Metzler

Get It While It's Hot

by Tess Nowadly

Cultural Diplomacy

by Cynnie Gaasch

A Long Time Coming

by Cynnie Gaasch

Round and Round

by Cynnie Gaasch

Drive-In To Summer

by Rob Metzler

Cinema Under the Stars

by M. Faust

Summer CD Releases

by Katherine O'Day

The View From Here

by Jamie Moses

Rodeo Roundup

by Peter Koch

Letters to Artvoice

My interest in alternative energy goes way back…because it makes more sense to use the clean, abundant sources that cannot be exhausted unless we destroy our planet on the way to getting there.

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In her book Strange New Species: Astonishing Discoveries of Life on Planet Earth, Elin Kelsey writes that though scientists have named 1.7 million species, at least 3.3 million others are still out there, as yet unidentified. In a similar way, Gemini, there are many invigorating adventures and intoxicating truths that you have not yet discovered—countless life experiences that remain unknown to you. It so happens that this is a perfect time to jumpstart your pioneering urges and go out exploring those frontiers. In the coming days, I urge you to find at least one new variety of each of the following: allies, sanctuaries, resources, inspirations and pleasures.

Streetvoice

The Golden Arch: Behr's Folly?

by Tess Nowadly

Last week the Buffalo News reported that attorney Laurence D. Behr had hired a Connecticut-based fundraising firm that specializes in Catholic causes to help him realize his five-year-old fantasy: to build a 700-foot golden arch on Buffalo’s waterfront, called the Arch of Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and International Shrine of the Holy Innocents. The pro-life shrine, according to Behr, should come in at no more than $100 million and would attract visitors from around the world. Sure it would. When he first proposed the idea in 2001, the socially conservative Buffalo News seemed supportive—for about three days, after which saner heads realized that Behr is nuts. Or is he? We asked some Buffalonians what they thought about it.

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

■ The National Health Service office in Dundee, Scotland, has recommended toilet techniques for the estimated one-third of the population that suffers from bowel and bladder dysfunction, according to an April report in The Times of London. The pamphlet, “Good Defecation Dynamics,” lists preferred breathing habits and describes the proper, upright, seated posture for effective elimination (“Keep your mouth open as you bulge and widen”), and encourages support for the feet, perhaps “a small footstool.”

Getting a Grip

Faking the Alternative

by Michael I. Niman

The 1989 Hollywood release When Harry Met Sally would never have been a blip on the cultural landscape except for Meg Ryan’s famous scene where she audibly fakes an orgasm in a crowded restaurant. It goes down like this: Ryan tells her would-be Casanova, Billy Crystal, that women fake orgasm all the time. Crystal counters that no woman ever faked an orgasm with him—he’d have known. Ryan then, right there at their restaurant table, begins to squeal in ecstasy and the rest is pop-culture history. Shitty movie. Convincing faked orgasm.

The News, Briefly

Documenting a Scam

by Peter Koch

The Peace Palace

by Geoff Kelly

The Casino Chronicles

The Nine Biggest Lies About the Proposed Buffalo Creek Casino

by Bruce Jackson

Carl Paladino, the Buffalo developer who underwrote the lawsuit that prevented the Seneca Gaming Corporation (SGC) from putting a casino in Cheektowaga, and who subsequently sold SGC much of the property it hopes to use for the startup section of its proposed Buffalo casino, had a letter to the editor in the Buffalo News last week. He first called those questioning the wisdom of a tax-exempt casino in a residential neighborhood in downtown Buffalo “control freaks.” Then he proceeded to tell one lie after another. Paladino is the only important Buffalo businessman who has come out in favor of a casino, so he gets a lot of coverage in the Buffalo News.

Road Trip

Lake Effect

by Buck Quigley

Gowanda and Points South

by Peter Koch

Crystal City

by Katherine O'Day

20 Questions and Along the Shores of Lake Ontario

by Geoff Kelly

Poetry

Onondaga

by Ivan Smason

Cathartic

by Charles Forness

Book Reviews

Eduardo & I: Prose poems by Peter Johnson

by Peter Connors

Award-winner, paradigm-shifting editor, prose poetry master and stand-up comedian of letters—not bad for a local boy. Like prose poet Jack Kerouac, Buffalo’s own Peter Johnson likes to travel with friends who he can view the world through. In his last collection, Miracles & Mortifications (White Pine Press, 2001), which won the prestigious James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, Johnson’s travel partner was Gigi. This time around Johnson creates Eduardo—a character bizarre and humanly flawed enough to allow his imagination free reign. And Peter Johnson’s imagination is a brilliant, constantly surprising place, perfectly matched to the flexible, surrealistic, and, yes, poetic, possibilities afforded by the prose poetry form. Former editor of the seminal The Prose Poem: An International Journal, and author of three previous prose poem collections—including his first White Pine Press title, Pretty Happy!—Peter Johnson has not only carved his own niche in the constantly unfolding universe of American prose poetics, but he’s helped establish the form’s foothold in this country. Plus, he’s damn funny. Throughout this book, Eduardo tries to start a “real ass-kicking, girl-licking” rock band; pretends to be tough-guy poet Charles Bukowski, but with a bagel and tomato juice instead of whiskey and whores; and hangs “outside from the top of the Biltmore at 4 a.m. with no possibility of applause.” At the end of the day, Eduardo & I is as humorous a book of poetry as you’re likely to read. The book’s second section is still funny, but also turns more personal as Johnson leaves Eduardo behind, turning his gaze upon his own life and family. Here we see the poet meandering through a suburban landscape of grave yards, living rooms and turnpikes with a head full of partially-formed poems—half smiling, half crying. As always, Peter Johnson’s landscapes may be unsettling, but they are always authentic.

Artist of the Week

Ethan Paquin

by Tess Nowadly

Why you should know who he is: Poet Ethan Paquin is Assistant Professor of Humanities at Medaille College and the author of three books of poems: The Makeshift (Stride Publications 2002), Accumulus (Salt Publishing 2003) and The Violence (Ahsahta Press 2005). His work has been anthologized in several collections and has appeared in numeorus journals, including The Boston Review, Verse, Canadian Review of Books and Contemporary Poetry Review, for which he is contributing editor. He is founder and editor of the journal Slope (www.slope.org). This spring the New Hampshire native was named a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s prestigious William Carlos William Award.

Stagefright

by Javier

Movie star Tab Hunter (pictured above) was at Rochester’s George Eastman House a couple of weeks ago to talk about his life and Hollywood career. One of his favorite movies, the 1958 western Gunman’s Walk, was also screened. Hunter is promoting his best selling autobiography Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star which came out last October. He will turn 75 next July.

Puck Stop

Commandment #11

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

Raleigh, North Carolina—Are there such a thing as “Hockey Gods”? Some unseen forces of virtue who lord over the sport, who make sure that, whatever the circumstances of the time are, the outcome will be fair and just?

Film Reviews

Six Feet (Down) Under: Look Both Ways

by M. Faust

Very early on while I was watching the new Australian film Look Both Ways, I started noting comparisons to the HBO series Six Feet Under. The main character, Nick (William McInnes), is tall, lanky, a bit lantern-jawed, like SFU’s Nate. Both are runners; both have lived somewhat adventurous lives without learning much about themselves. Both came home for what was supposed to be a temporary visit due to the deaths of their fathers, but both stayed on. Most importantly, both the film and the series have the same central theme: death, grief and how we learn to deal with them.

Gewgaws and Gimcracks

Sally Hansen Crème Hair Remover for Face

by guest columnist "Red in the Face"

This being the season for bare skin and, according to Hollywood, for tanned, lifted, microdermabrased, hairless skin, I thought it clever of me to save some bucks and skip the salon to get buff in the comfort of my own bathroom.

Music

Southern Culture on the Skids

by Buck Quigley

Southern Culture on the Skids—SCOTS for short—are a North Carolina-based, swamp rock, trashabilly trio who’ve been knocking ’em dead in clubs for two decades. And like another campy outfit—the Cramps—Southern Culture just keeps getting better with time. The band is currently touring in support of a new live record on Yep Roc Records. Artvoice had a chance to speak by phone with frontman and surf guitar guru Rick Miller, bassist Mary Huff and drummer Dave Hartman as they traveled toward a show in Madison, Wisconsin last week.

See You There

The Coup "Not-Your-Soldier" Tour

by K. O'Day

Buffalo Beatfest

by Tess Nowadly

Microradio Sound Walk

by Peter Koch

Sweet Jesus, It's Greg Sterlace

by M. Faust

Calendar Spotlight

Wharton Tiers is not exactly a household name, even among dedicated alt.music afficianadoes; but fans of hard-edged New York City art-rock likely own several classic albums bearing his moniker. As the engineer behind the majority of Sonic Youth’s recorded output, not to mention releases by the likes of Swans, Pussy Galore, Dinosaur Jr and Helmet, Tiers has earned legendary status as a producer. Along with Glenn Branca’s notorious no-wave group The Theoretical Girls, Tiers has for years led his own guitar-based mini-orchestra, exploring the limits of rock riffage in a way that eschews Branca’s often heavy symphonic pretentions. The Wharton Tiers Ensemble recalls instrumental surf or garage rock but with an avant-garde twist. Catch the group, along with Toronto’s Creeping Nobodies and Buffalo’s own Bare Flames, at Soundlab tonight (Thursday, June 1) at 9pm.

Left of the Dial

Gnarls Barkley: St. Elsewhere

Zero: A Martin Hannett Story 1997-1991

Bandwidth

Lazlo Hollyfeld

Best show the band ever played…The next show will be the best show.