May Day May Day

by Geoff Kelly & Buck Quigley

It’s a grim fact that voter turnout for school board elections hovers at about five percent in the city of Buffalo. Going into a year in which the board will be deciding how to slice up a $768 million-dollar budget, it is mind-boggling to think that with only days to go before the election, that sliver of voters who care enough to go to the polls are only now beginning to see a final list of the candidates that will appear in the voting booth on Tuesday, May 1.

by Chuck Shepherd

■ Afghan nationals who work at NATO’s Kandahar Airfield must use their own “separate but equal” toilet facilities, according to a March dispatch in Toronto’s Globe & Mail. The American officer in charge of administrative contracts said the policy was based on hygiene, in that some locals customarily stand on toilet seats and then squat down, which he said creates unusual messes, but also on some Muslims’ carelessness in cleaning themselves in preparation for prayer, when their water bottles sometimes fall in and have to be fished out.

One question often posed is how much does it cost to be green—to be environmentally sensible? What will it cost to live in a way that does not trash the climate-control system of the planet with ridiculous quantities of former fossils, now fossil fuels, that get turned into carbon dioxide when these get burned? In many cases, there is the implication that it will be too costly to switch to a better way, or that there is not a viable alternative to our present energy gluttonous lifestyle.

A Weekend Trifecta

by Jennifer Golonka

It is 10 minutes before the curtain opens. The dancers, donning their costumes, makeup and organized hairdos, are on stage finishing up their ritualistic pre-show routines. Every dancer has one. Some are Zen-like, focusing inward, finding the passion, strength and courage to bare their souls. Others practice the choreography to come, while some continue to stretch their overworked bodies.

Wrestling with Gravy: A Life, With Food by Jonathan Reynolds

by Jill Froebel

Wrestling With Gravy: A Life, With Food is a combination memoir and recipe book, an idea that, though not completely new, is innovative enough. The volume, by former New York Times food columnist Jonathan Reynolds, is written in chapters, with each section focusing on a time in the writer’s life, complete with detailed reminiscing and a recipe or two. Reynolds’s résumé is as impressive as any I’ve ever seen: He is a screenwriter, a playwright, a food critic, an actor and now an author. He is also, in my humble opinion, a pompous blowhard and a serial ingrate, repeatedly repelling potential fans and readers by verbally dumping on his overworked parents and his accomplished colleagues and by offering backhanded complaints about some of our country’s greatest cultural icons. In a particularly grating section of text, he questions Francis Ford Coppola’s directorial choices whilst filming Apocalypse Now, insinuating that he would’ve done a much better job had he been allowed to complete the task.

Should We Be Scared?

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

While the Buffalo Sabres stumbled and sleepwalked their way through a tough opening round win against the New York Islanders, the New York Rangers were putting on a clinic playing the woeful Atlanta Thrashers, dispatching them in four straight games, topped by a 7-0 beatdown in game three at Madison Square Garden.

In the Local Fashion

by Bridget Kelly

Mode Urban Bistro. It sounded a little classy for me, like maybe it might be too posh for my unglamorous self in my grubby raincoat on this dirty night. I approached it with a bit of trepidation—it’s a beautiful building, with giant plate-glass windows looking out on the intersection of Elmwood and Utica. Looking in the windows, I saw serene rows of impeccably arranged tables, white tablecloths gleaming, symmetrically arranged water goblets and silverware glimmering in the light of tiny white oil lanterns. A few late-night diners were half-visible in the shadows, clad in dark, trendy garments, picking over the remnants of exquisite-looking delicacies and swirling some dark, divine vintage in the bottoms of wine glasses.

by Thomas Dooney

by Javier

The super fabulous Kitty Carlisle Hart (pictured above), aptly referred to as a doyenne of New York culture, theater and society, died on April 17 at the age of 96. A passionate champion of the arts, Miss Carlisle visited Buffalo on several occasions, during and after her 20-year tenure on the New York State Council of the Arts, which began in 1976. In the early 1930s she performed at Shea’s in the touring production of the revue Rio Rita. A couple of years ago, when I saw her perform in Florida Follies, she ended her part by inviting the audience to join her in singing Irving Berlin’s “Always.” Kitty, we’ll be loving you, always.

by Anthony Chase

Blithe Spirit, as performed by the Irish Classical Theatre Company, is the story of a rural physician’s wife named Mrs. Bradman, who has a fascination with the occult. When she is invited to a séance at the home of local novelist Charles Condomine, she is thrilled. Mrs. Bradman yearns for greater contact with “the other side” and has uncanny premonitions. She is, for instance, the first to notice the peculiar coincidence of two people in the household being mysteriously injured on the same day. Something more must be afoot!

by Amy Alkon

Because I value trusting one’s instincts, I’m prompted to write about your advice to “Uneasy,” the woman whose boyfriend would go into another room to talk on the phone to his stepdaughters from a previous relationship. I feel the woman was expressing suspicion that he still had some interest in their mom out of an unwillingness to believe that he may be behaving inappropriately toward his stepdaughters. One in four women reports having been raped or molested in childhood, and stepfathers play a prominent role in those statistics. He may not be a “molester,” but maybe he’s asking the girls about their bodies in ways that make them uncomfortable. You should have encouraged “Uneasy” to call a truce with her boyfriend: He takes calls openly, and she drops the nagging if there isn’t anything unseemly going on.