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Best of Buffalo 2008

Arts & Letters

The Places You Eat

The Music You Hear

The People You Know

Those Places You Go

Where You Buy Things

The Place We Live

News

Bad, Bad Money: Buying Your Vote in 2008

by Bruce Fisher

In Bad Money, Phillips shows how the George W. Bush formula of governing with huge deficits, tax relief for the highest-income and wealthiest Americans and an anti-regulatory environment—all features of Reaganism—have probably doomed the United States to becoming a second-class power.

The News, Briefly

Fresh and Local

by Lauren N. Maynard

Things Fall Apart

by Peter Koch

News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepard

China’s societal self-improvement in preparation for the 2008 Olympics continues. The Beijing Tourism Bureau ordered hotels to re-translate English signs, hoping to avoid such notorious past gaffes as “Racist Park,” which is now “Park of Ethnic Minorities,” and a cafe’s attempt to salute Western visitors with “Welcome, big nose friends.”

VineByLine

Pinko: A Lighter Shade of Red

by Paula Paradise

This spring I am going to crusade for the faint of color. That’s right, I’m going pink. As the monotonous drumbeats of winter—gray sky, damp wind, and unrelenting cold recede, I long to fill my brain with sunshine and my glass with rosé.

Artshort

A Change of Tune

by Lucy Yau

Diedie Weng's Mosuo Song Journey @ Squeaky Wheel

Theater

Stagefright

by Javier

Movie star Steve Guttenberg was not so lucky in the popular TV show Dancing with the Stars, where he was eliminated in the second round. Guttenberg made his Broadway debut as a replacement cast in the original 1990 production of Prelude to a Kiss. His first film as director/producer/co-screenwriter/star was the adaptation of James Kirkwood’s play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. Theater fans should now probably root for Marissa Jaret Winokur, who remains a contestant in the popular TV show.

Music

American Music Club Comes to Buffalo

by Joe Sweeney

Jazz Pianist Marilyn Crispell Plays Asbury Hall

by Mike Shanley

Winston Choi: Enter the Canadian

by Jan Jezioro

Left of the Dial

Van Morrison - Keep It Simple

The Found - Self Titled

You Auto Know

Way Off Broadway: The 2008 New York Auto Show

by Jim Corbran

Although I always enjoy the annual Buffalo auto show, once you’ve been to a real auto show (Detroit, New York, Frankfort…), the local show pales in comparison. Heck, it pales even if you’ve never been to another show.

Film Reviews

Droll Dysfunction

by George Sax

In a couple of scenes in Noam Murro’s Smart People, Dennis Quaid’s face becomes a malleable mask of sickly, embarrassed insincerity and passive-resistant condescension. It’s a lot to convey in one brief take, but Quaid manages it.

Film Clips

Under the Same Moon

Snow Angels

Street Kings

Listings

Movie Times (April 11-17)

Film Now Playing

On The Boards

Calendar Spotlight

Steam Donkeys (April 11)

Dodos (April 11)

Jesse Malin (April 15)

Islands (April 16)

Looking Ahead...

See You There

AV Pick: Best Of Buffalo Party (April 14)

Haale & Friends (April 11)

by Edward Batchelder

Ben Jelen w/Standard of Living & Alura (April 12)

by Donny Kutzbach

The Weakerthans (April 13)

by Peter Koch

Theaterweek

Funding Theater

by Anthony Chase

For the record, artistic director Kathleen Gaffney ran a very tight ship at Studio Arena Theatre this year. This was the first and only season that she selected and oversaw entirely herself, and at the time they closed the doors, she was running a season surplus of over $100,000.

In The Margins

Open Source Fiction

by Readers Like You

Poetry

by Carly Christiansen

Review: Bear Stories by J'Lyn Chapman

by Forrest Roth

Literary Buffalo Listings

by Just Buffalo

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Normally you’re inclined to massage problems until they relax, not bash problems until they break. Your preference is to paint fuzzy, impressionistic pictures rather than creating crisp snapshots. Nevertheless, the astrological omens indicate that in the next two weeks, you should take an approach recommended by Winston Churchill: “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time—a tremendous whack.”

Advice

Ask Anyone

My partner and I have moved back to Buffalo after years living in bigger, faster cities like DC and New York. I came back for a job—a really good one that I love. My partner moved back to be with me, and she’s not so happy about it. She doesn’t complain, but I know she’d rather be elsewhere.