Act Small, Think Big: The Micropark Revolution

by Geoff Kelly & Matthew Quinn

On a clear hot summer day in Buffalo, you swim where you can. For many, that means the city’s pools and splash rings, most of which are open this year and crowded, thanks to the scorching weather that settled over the region in July and early August.

Fire Geoff Kelly and get rid of Bruce Jackson—now.

Bucky Hunting

by Nikki Gawel

Police say he has lost 40 pounds and is adept at disguising himself. They fear some may be helping him elude capture. Some have said he is a shape-shifter, taking the form of animals and traveling at night, bewitching those who track him. Whatever the truth, as the search for fugitive Ralph “Bucky” Phillips hits its fifth month, it appears that the cash reward offered by New York State for assisting in his capture—$50,000 at press time—is insufficient. So 103.3 The Edge morning show hosts Shredd and Ragan have enlisted local merchants to sweeten the pot, adding such perqs as a free auto tint, a 10-by-15-foot concrete patio installed in your yard, a case of s’mores and a three-day, two-night vacation package. (For a complete list of premiums and participating businesses, visit www.findbucky.com.) We asked a few locals, safe inside city limits, to muse on the hunt for Bucky, which in the last week has moved from the Southern Tier to Niagara County.

by Rob Brezsny

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Raising kids is like making pancakes,” muses Brian Copeland in his show Not a Genuine Black Man. “You always mess up the first one.” A similar idea might apply to a certain multi-pronged project you’ve been working on, Leo. I’m not saying you should abandon or throw away your initial effort. On the contrary, like rookie parents whose inexperience has slightly tweaked their first-born, you should be thorough in trying to undo your mistakes. But I also suggest that you immediately get started on the next creation in the series, being sure you’ve learned all you can from the consequences of your earlier ignorance.

by Chuck Shepherd

■ Not only has professional fishing grown so spectacularly that last year’s leading money winner earned $547,000, but popular “fantasy fishing” leagues, resembling fantasy baseball and football, employ elaborate statistical breakdowns of fishing tournaments to help players pick winners, according to a July Wall Street Journal report. “Average weight per fish (caught) over careers,” “margin of victory (in pounds),” and other data points are plotted by players, along with weather reports, depth and temperature of tournament lakes, and intangibles such as “home-lake curse.” The organization FLW Outdoors estimates 40,000 fantasy players, many of whom have never actually fished.

Paladino Writes: Epistle to Bruce Jackson

by Bruce Jackson

The only Buffalo businessman regularly quoted in the Buffalo News as supporting the proposed Seneca Creek casino is Carl Paladino, a developer. Paladino partially underwrote the campaign to reorganize the Buffalo Common Council, which resulted in replacing as council president the independent James Pitts with David Franczyk, who is generally regarded as Paladino’s cat’s paw. Paladino largely underwrote the lawsuit that kept the casino from being located in Cheektowaga after negotiations to locate it in the Buffalo Convention Center fell through. Paladino then sold the Senecas the largest portion of the nine acres they currently hold in downtown Buffalo.

Close to Home

by Eric Jackson-Forsberg

Ever since the Renaissance, at least, artists have been turning to the mirror and using what they find there as a readily available and deceptively simple subject. And with the advent of modernism, artists’ self-portraits assumed a bewildering variety of forms, from Frida Kahlo’s autobiographical dream sequences to Marc Quinn’s bust made of his own frozen blood. But no artist of the 20th century has adopted self-portraiture as a modus operandi as much as Chuck Close. His nearly 40-year odyssey of systematic self-representation is brilliantly displayed in Chuck Close: Self-Portraits 1967-2005, now on view at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

by Anthony Chase

Poets Robert Giannetti and Eva Tihanyi

by Peter Koch

Outwardly, Eva Tihanyi and Robert Giannetti might not seem to have much in common. There are two strong connections that they share, though: a deep love of poetic expression and a strong connection to the Niagara Frontier.

Wascally Wabbit Weturns

by Jim Corbran

I imagine there’s a sign hanging in VW’s corporate boardroom which reads: “History repeats itself.” At least, they probably hope so.

Enfinitar

by David P. Kleinschmidt

Steve Shaver wants you to rock out, hardcore. Just do it quietly.