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Fall Guide

Fruit of the Vine

by Marla Crouse

A Classical Fall

by Jan Jezioro

Literary Globalism Is in the Air

Rock Harvest

by Donny Kutzbach

A Weekend Beyond...

Beyond: Beyond/In Western New York

Good Eats for Cold Weather

by Bridget Kelly

Buffalo Film Seminars

by Geoff Kelly

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

■ Ric Hoogestraat is married to Sue and works at a call center in the Phoenix area but spends 30-plus hours a week inside the online Second Life video game, pretending that he is the digitally drawn Dutch Hoorenbeek, a 6-foot-9, muscular babe magnet who lives on his own island. That unnerves Sue, according to an August Wall Street Journal profile, especially since Dutch recently “married” a digital woman and set up housekeeping with their two digital dogs. (The real-life creator of the new Mrs. Hoorenbeek has never met Ric and says she never will.) Dutch and his wife spend hours shopping and motorcycling together, leaving Ric little time for Sue. “Is this man cheating on his wife (meaning Sue)?” the Journal asked. Lamented Sue: “You try to talk to (Ric) or bring (him) a drink, and (he)’ll be having sex with a cartoon.”

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “There have never in history been so many opportunities to do so many things that aren’t worth doing,” wrote novelist William Gaddis. That’s important for you to keep in mind during the coming weeks. You’ll receive a flood of invitations, but only some of them will be intimately related to the unique work you’re here on Earth to do. Those few may be so amazingly useful, though, that they could dramatically change your life for the better. Please say no to all the others so you can attend to the good stuff with your heart on fire and your mind as fluid as a mountain stream.

Letters to Artvoice

A footnote to Bruce Jackson’s excellent article on Byron Brown’s campaign to replace the Delaware District’s Mike LoCurto with Jessica Maglietto (“Targeting Delaware,” Artvoice v6n34): Why is the Brown administration targeting Mike LoCurto? In addition to his resilience against pressure to rubber-stamp the Fulton Street property deal and his history of working with Sam Hoyt, Councilmember LoCurto has held fast in the evenhanded application of Buffalo’s living wage ordinance. LoCurto fights for economic justice and is unswayed by relationships with specific employers or deals made in back rooms.

Getting a Grip

Reaganomics: A Decade Later

by Michael I. Niman

I remember the “Reagan Revolution.” Though it certainly didn’t seem like any sort of revolution at the time. It was more like some sick joke—or a bad dream that wouldn’t end. I remember the wars that also wouldn’t end. And corruption on an unprecedented mass scale as various industries and their representatives were put in charge of policing and regulating themselves. I remember the tax cuts for the rich and the cuts in education and health funding for the rest of us. I remember “trickle down” economics—with the rich pissing on the poor while the middle class was satiated with credit cards.

News

Choosing an Identity

by Bruce Fisher

On August 18, 1851, at the terminus of the Erie Canal in Buffalo, a cook on a Lake Erie steamboat docked there was attacked by a group of men wielding the power of a new federal law.

Book Reviews

Leads by Rochelle Ratner

by Patrick Dunagan

Almost a Miracle by John Ferling

by Gerry Rising

Play Ball!

Time to Pass Out the Hardware

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

For the fourth year in a row here at Artvoice, we are pleased to present and announce our infamous Pat Listach Award and Jimmy Hamilton Award, handed each year to the two players who turned in clunker performances during the season.

Film Clips

Halloween

by M. Faust

Having called Rob Zombie’s last film, The Devil’s Rejects, “A movie only a moron could love,” I admittedly was not looking forward to his latest. Of course, I probably wouldn’t have looked forward to any remake of John Carpenter’s 1978 horror film, whose simple premise (teenagers stalked by a relentless, unstoppable killer) has long since been worked to death in seven sequels and so many imitators that they became a new sub-genre, the “slasher film.”

See You There

Hurricane Katrina Campus Media Project

by Geoff Kelly

Terry Sullivan

by Donny Kutzbach

6th Annual National Buffalo Wing Festival

by Caitlin DeRose

Thursday at the Square with the Romantics, Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers

by K. O'Day

Calendar Spotlight

déjà blü

Teeth So Sharp

Through the Eyes of the Dead

Deke Dickerson

Eye Contact

Ask Anyone

My partner and I received an invitation to the wedding of his cousin. This cousin’s parents are fighting a long-standing feud with various other factions in my partner’s large and chaotic family, so we were not surprised that the invitation came with a note explaining that several aunts and uncles and one set of grandparents were not going to be invited to the wedding. “We know this is awkward,” the note concluded, “so we would understand if you didn’t want to come.” How do we respond to an invitation like that? Do we owe them a present? —Unwanted Guest