“Locavores,” those who try to eat only locally grown foods—the term“organic” having long ago been corporately co-opted—can face challenges in colder climates such as ours. The locavorian trend began in California’s Bay Area (see www.locavores.com for more on this), where the climate lends itself much better to year-round crop production than it does here in Buffalo. Upstate New York crops tend to ripen later in the season, and some crops are at their best more than a month after the prime season occurs in the rest of the country—and up to two months later than in warm, coastal areas like California. This late harvest season doesn’t necessarily mean a shorter one though, and while hot weather denizens may be able to enjoy traditional spring vegetables as early as April, around here we can celebrate some harvest crops right up until the first frost.

It’s called busking, and the people who do it are called buskers. Definition: “To play music or perform entertainment in a public place, usually while soliciting money.” Earlier, “to be an itinerant performer, probably from busk, to go about seeking, cruise as a pirate, perhaps from obsolete French busquer, to prowl, from Italian buscare, to prowl, or Spanish buscar, to seek, from Old Spanish boscar.”

The performance of Woody Allen’s New Orleans Jazz Band on the opening night of the Rochester International Jazz Festival highlights the lengths that the event’s organizers have gone to create an intriguing and varied lineup. It also may seem like a bit of a publicity grab in a festival that boasts such revered jazz figures as McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter and Toots Thielmans.

If you’re searching for a fun, affordable, family activity, the small-time, parking-lot carnival is undeniably a summer-time favorite for young and old alike. As much a staple to the warm weather as lemonade, sprinklers and the coconut scent of suntan lotion, the carnival is a great way to bring everyone together.

The Native American powwow is a festival with roots in early American Indian culture and continues today with gatherings that can last as long as a week. The gatherings in the Buffalo area reach an average crowd of 7,000 people per day, according to Alan Jamison of Native American Community Services. Filled with traditional drum chants and fancydancing, powwows immerse those who attend in the culture of the host nation. Dancers wear traditional regalia, much of which is handmade and passed down from generation to generation, and participants compete for large cash prizes. The fair-like atmosphere also includes Native American food, like corn soup and fry bread, as well as arts and crafts.

One of the best parts of summer is the simple, casual cuisine that somehow becomes more enjoyable after Memorial Day. We’re talking ice cream sundaes and hot dogs. Perhaps one of the reasons everyone enjoys these foods more once the weather breaks is because of the cool summer hangouts that serve them.

Formal Exchange: The Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Latin America is featuring Latin American abstraction from the 1960s and 1970s through June 25. The exhibit includes wall text that tells the story of Seymour H. Knox Jr. and the gallery’s commitment to acquiring contemporary art from all over the world, and his trips to Latin America to play polo. One hundred nine works in the Albright-Knox were loaned to the Museo Nacional de Bellas Arts in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1969. The works in Formal Exchange exhibit show experimentation in abstraction, op art and minimalism, with beautiful attention to color and spatial concerns. Artists in the exhibit include: Martha Boto, Sergio de Camargo, Eduardo Mac Entyre, Julio Le Parc, Cesar Paternosto, Jesus Raphael Soto, Josefina Robirosa and Luis Tomasello.

Anyone who knows the artist’s work has wondered when Rita Argen Auerbach of Buffalo would have a major exhibit showcasing her paintings of Chautauqua Institution. The time has come, with the renovation of the Logan Art Gallery on Bestor Plaza in Chautauqua Institution. The new galleries will open with Rita Argen Auerbach: Celebrating 25 Years of Painting Chautauqua. Auerbach is assembling works from over 50 private collections for this once-in-a-lifetime event. In typical Chautauqua fashion, this show will rush by, opening Wednesday, June 28 with a reception at 4-6pm and closing on July 7. The artist will speak about her work on Friday, June 30, at 7pm. The gallery is open daily, 11am-5pm.

The Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum in North Tonawanda will host Andy Warhol carousel horses this summer. Little did anyone know that in addition to producing soup cans, the modern master made icons of summer fun. In addition Warhol’s nephew, James Warhola, will exhibit illustrations at the museum, which include remembrances of his creative uncle. The show is titled Andy Warhol Remembered: Uncle Andy’s Carousel Horses and opens with a reception on Friday, June 16, 6-8pm. The exhibit continues through December.

The summer months are when Hollywood releases its biggest blockbusters, but it’s hard to justify sitting in a stuffy movie theater when it’s warm out and the sun doesn’t set until 9:30. Drive-in movie theaters are a time-honored solution to this problem. Though they’re mostly tucked away on old highways and you don’t often see them, Western New York is wealthy with places to park and watch.

Just because you don’t have a car or don’t want to see this week’s Hollywood monster doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy cinema al fresco. In July, the popular Cinema Sotto del Stelle series returns. Every Friday night in July a different Italian film will be screened in the Elmwood Village lot at 695 Elmwood Avenue, near West Ferry. And it’s free, though you’ll have to bring your own chair. Films to be screened include the classic Divorce Italian Style, July 7, Moonstruck, July 14, Roberto Rossellini’s influential neorealist drama Rome, Open City, July 21, and Danny Aiello as the owner of an Italian restaurant in Dinner Rush, July 28. Visit www.elmwoodfilmfestival.com for more information.

“…when I decided that I too must pass through the experience of a parachute jump, life rose to a higher level, to a sort of exhilarated calmness…I would have to pay money for hurling my body into space. There would be no crowd to watch and applaud my landing…nor any scientific objective to be gained. No, there was deeper reason for wanting to jump, it was a love of the air and sky and flying, the lure of adventure, the appreciation of beauty—where immortality is touched through danger, where life meets death on equal plane; where man is more than man, and existence both supreme and valueless at the same instant.”

Rodeo comes from the Spanish word rodear, which means “to go around” or “roundup.” Born on the ranches of the West, rodeos were informal skills contests between cowboys as they rounded up and sorted free-range cattle in the hardscrabble days before barbed wire. Calf roping, breaking broncos into saddle horses and riding hard were a part of daily life. And while it’s true that the soft, bucolic hills of the Southern Tier haven’t seen too many cattle recently, they still play host to the oldest running rodeo east of the Mississippi.