Gray Anatomy

by Catherine Young

Deviant Bodies 2.0, the current show at CEPA Gallery, is a groundbreaking exhibit of photography, sculpture, video and installation pieces about and by transgendered individuals. International in its scope, Deviant Bodies 2.0 is a followup to the very successful Deviant Bodies exhibition CEPA did in 2004, but CEPA director Lawrence Brose is careful to note it is not simply “a sequel.” CEPA aimed to explore the margins of gender by way of transgender, gender variant and genderqueer experiences. According to co-curator JR Martin-Alexander, they discovered “the margins were filled and the status quo was nearly empty.”

A Draft in the Air

by Michael I. Niman

I remember the military draft. As a small child it hung over my head like a dark cloud that would one day send a lightning bolt to strike me down. When I was 12 years old, my parents loaded my brother and me into our car and drove north to Montreal. Ostensibly it was a quick vacation to an exotic foreign land. But all I remember was watching the American draft dodgers hanging around in parks and panhandling. My parents didn’t really comment—we just went to look.

by Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom,” wrote Norwegian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. That’s vividly true for you right now, Aries. According to my reading of the astrological omens, you’ll thrive on the whirling gaga that overwhelms you as you play in vast, open spaces. Your best decisions will arise as your mind is boggled and wobbled by liberating dramas. So let’s celebrate the disorientation you’re feeling, and do everything we can to make sure that more is on its way.

by Chuck Shepherd

■ Celebrity Trademark News: The gruff, former Chicago Bears player and coach Mike Ditka recently teamed with a California winery to sell a signature line of wines, including a premium taste retailing for $50 a bottle. And actor Andy Griffith filed a lawsuit in November demanding that the former William Fenrick change his legal name back from “Andy Griffith,” which he admitted he acquired only to help himself get elected sheriff of Grant County, Wis. (he lost). And a man in China’s Fujian province applied to the government in November to sell female sanitary pads under the trademark “Yao Ming” (China’s superstar pro basketball player), catching Yao’s agents dumbfounded at the man’s audacity.

The director and the voting board of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (A-K) have, by their secretive process in deaccessioning parts of the collection, exposed their arrogance and their belief that the A-K is a private club and that they are the only ones who can decide what is best for Buffalo’s great cultural treasure. Actually, the director and the board have a responsibility to make the best decisions possible and to help plan for the future. However, they are merely entrusted with the collection. They have no ownership.

Israel and Us

by Bruce Jackson

This conversation with Phyllis Bennis, a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and a widely respected expert on the politics of the Middle East, took place during her October 10-11 Buffalo visit. Bennis was in town to give a lecture at UB, “Palestine, Israel and the US after the Lebanon War,” and to meet for discussions with students and peace activists. Her visit was sponsored by the Western New York Peace Center’s Task Force for the Peaceful Resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, the UB Progressive Alliance and the Center for Comparative and Global Studies in Education.

Fantasy in Realism

by Albert Chao

Like Wonka’s revolutionary wallpaper, oil paintings of luscious grapes dangling from intertwining vines in Mia Brownell’s exhibition Complexities of the Garden at Big Orbit Gallery tempt both touch and taste. With beautiful technique, her images visually pop off the canvas. The seemingly tangible fruit, however, becomes too real and thus resonates a hyper-real quality. With brilliant finesse and skill, Brownell subtly exposes the modern food factory as the complex duality between the artificial and the natural.

by Caitlin Derose

Looking for original holiday gifts to give this year? Tired of tromping around the malls?

I've Got an Idea: Let's Put On a Show!

by Anthony Chase

In recent years I’ve become saturated with a certain kind of musical revue, wherein a theater slaps some songs on stage in unarguably cheesy fashion, ostensibly stringing them together around a theme—a personality, a composer, a style—and then tries to call that theater. Maybe it’s “theatrical,” but it’s not theater to me. It’s a cheap way to lure in undiscriminating audiences and fleece them.

by Javier

After its sold-out run at the Atlantic Theater off-Broadway this past summer, Spring Awakening is now in previews at Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre, where it will officially open on December 10. The show stars two wonderful Buffalonians, Christine Estabrook and Brian Charles Johnson (both pictured above). Johnson, who attended Kenmore East and was a member of Tom Doyle’s Company of Songs, is making his Broadway debut. He was attending NYU Tisch when he landed the role of Otto in the off-Broadway production of Spring Awakening. Theater veteran Estabrook portrayed Martha Huber in the first season of TV’s Desperate Housewives. She originated the role of Pfeni in the 1993 Broadway production of Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig. Spring Awakening has all the makings of a hit. If visiting New York, the show has a $25 Student Rush ticket sold on the day of the performance. There are also a limited number of on-stage seats which go for $31.25.

Florida Road Trip

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

Tomorrow (Friday) night the Sabres face off at home against the New York Rangers before embarking on their longest road trip of the season—five games in 11 nights that will include a swing through the State of Florida and games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Florida Panthers.

Empire Statement

by Donny Kutzbach

Who would figure a loose-knit art rock collective that took root at University at Buffalo’s Media Studies Department would go on to be one of music’s most revered, groundbreaking acts?