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Cover Story

About Face

by Eric Jackson-Forsberg

The genre of portraiture is a perennial favorite for artists and collectors alike, as demonstrated by About Face: Portraits from the Gerald Mead Collection, at the Fanette Goldman/Carolyn Greenfield Gallery, Daemen College, now through September 28. This latest installment of thematic exhibitions culled from Mead’s personal collection includes a wide range of artists’ portraits and self-portraits, organized through the lens of Western New York associations.

Letters to Artvoice

I recently participated in a meeting at the Good Neighbors Planning Alliance about the potential siting of a Level III Sex Offenders Housing Facility at the Fedco building on Tonawanda Street. It is inappropriate to place this facility at this location because it is adjacent to the Scajaquada Creek Bike Path, around the corner from a pornography shop, close to the Squaw Island Park and very close to two daycare centers.

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

■ The periodic Christian Nudist Convocation took place in July at the Cherokee Lodge nudist camp in Tennessee, and according to a dispatch in Nashville Scene, the group evokes skepticism not only from most Christians (who dislike the flaunting of naked bodies, even if innocently done) but from most Cherokee Lodge members, who see them as too intense for naturism’s laid-back attitude. One CNC attendee acknowledged that many Christians would not approve of Cherokee Lodge, but to him “(I)t’s Jerusalem.” Another compared his work at nudist camps to missionary work: “(S)ome people get sent to Africa, some people get sent to South America and the Lord was like, ‘I want you to go to nudist resorts.’ And I’m like, ‘Wow, what an assignment.’”

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): If you use email, you have a spam filter. You block out the sales pitches, fake information, and random noise that constantly flow toward your inbox. In the coming week, I urge you to expand your concept of what constitutes spam by shielding yourself against all the other junk food for thought that besieges you. Be ruthlessly discerning about the toxins that spew from the radio, TV, Web, newspapers, and magazines. Minimize your contact with narcissists who think “conversation” consists of you soaking up their compulsive self-revelations. You might even erect a psychic spam filter to repel the fearful images that sometimes bubble up from your subconscious mind.

The News, Briefly

Primary Numbers

Common Council Report

It Works There

Gimme a Fix

by Peter Koch

Buffalo has a lot of houses that need fixing up. Whether they’ve been beaten down by scores of harsh winters or simply left empty to languish by a lagging housing market, there’s a lot of work to do. These homes are often found in borderline, hard-luck neighborhoods, where proud but cash-strapped citizens are reluctant to pick up the phone and hire a contractor. They don’t have the tools to get the job done themselves, or the money to rent them. Imagine the service that such people could get from a tool lending library?

Puck Stop

"This Is Going to Be Big!"

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

The first and only time that the National Hockey League ever staged an outdoor hockey game was on November 22, 2003. On that night, 57,167 fans filled Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium to see their Oilers play the Montreal Canadiens. By the end of the game wind chills dipped to 22 below zero.

Theaterweek

by Anthony Chase

Tom Dudzick’s new play, Don’t Talk to the Actors, was highly anticipated for many reasons. Since he wrote Over the Tavern, his comic yet touching celebration of life growing up in an apartment above the family business on Buffalo’s Polish east side, Dudzick has become the Polish Neil Simon. He made an icon of tyrannical yet loving Sister Clarissa, the mythical (and fictional) nun who instructed generations of Buffalonians in penmanship and Catholic morality. He confirmed Chef’s restaurant as a tourist Mecca—equal, in the hearts of the locals, with Niagara Falls. He understands our city’s affection for its ethnic working-class histories, and people of many backgrounds have seen themselves and their own families in his work.

Literary

A Reader's Guide to Brock Clarke

by Peter Koch

A Result of Chaos & Luck

by Matt Chambers

In the Margins

High Anxiety

by Kevin Thurston

Barbara Cole’s poem “Foxy Moron” is anxious: anxious over being read autobiographically, as a female poet (whom she often feels are read autobiographically), and over Modernism to name but a few things. While these concerns could be enough to make some artists head towards erudition, Cole’s ability to cut into these worries with her sense of humor and wit make her self-awareness a pleasure to read on the page.

Film

The Rough Stuff

by M. Faust

Try to imagine what the result might look like if David Cronenberg had directed Borat, and you’ll have some idea of Eastern Promises.

Film Reviews

Waging War on the Home Front: In the Valley of Elah

by George Sax

Just after the preview screening of In the Valley of Elah was over, I sat in my car outside the theater listening to a radio broadcast of the last half of President Bush’s latest restatement of his illusory strategy for triumph in his Iraq adventure. It was a sharp reminder of the political circumstances that contribute to events like those Paul Haggis’ film depicts. The president purported to address the state of the war’s prosecution. Haggis has focused on some of its human costs back in this country.

Film Clips

Hunting Party

Vitus

Music

Pieces of Eight

by Jan Jezioro

The UB Music Department is presenting a Faculty Showcase Gala concert in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall on the Amherst Campus on Wednesday, September 26 at 8pm.

See You There

Metric with Crystal Castles

by Katherine O'Day

Sarah Schulman

by Geoff Kelly

Andrew Bird

by Brad Deck

Southern Culture on the Skids

by Donny Kutzbach

Calendar Spotlight

Paul James Jazz Band

The Fury

Ronnie Baker Brooks

Benefit for Corrine Pelowski

Living With the Past

Aiden

by Brad Deck

Ask Anyone

My father remarried last month, and the wedding was in St. Louis, where his new wife is from. At the reception I hit it off with the bride’s niece; during the cake-cutting we were having sex in the women’s room at the country club, which was great until one of her aunts broke in on us. She was furious. Turns out the niece is married (I didn’t know), the aunt told everyone at the reception what she’d seen, my dad was hugely embarrassed and won’t talk to me. To make matters worse, in her hurry to get off of me when her aunt appeared, the niece landed on the sink and ripped it from the wall, causing a huge flood.