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Summer Guide

100 Things You Must Do This Summer

by Artvoice Staff

If the season begins the day you pick up this paper, and if the good weather holds into September—as it often does in these parts—then we figure summer lasts about 100 days. Bracketed by changeable spring weather and bleak winter, those days are luxuries to be well and carefully spent.

Summer Guide

Summer Events Guide

Artvoice's Summer Guide calendar of events includes a complete directory of Fairs & Festivals, Family Fun events, and Summer Music Series listings.

News

Seniors Stranded in Cul-De-Sacs

by Bruce Fisher

When the storm hit in October 2006, a whole lot of people got stuck at home. Among them were tens of thousands of elderly people who are very fortunate that the storm came in October rather than in February, because there was no life-threatening cold.

News

A Private Conversation

by Grady Hawkins

Just as you thought Big Brother might be fading into the background, something comes along to jolt you back into realizing he’s still out there. In this case, it’s an organization affiliated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The organization is called InfraGard, and there is indeed a Buffalo chapter.

News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

In what would be a new modern record for the lapse of time between a death and its notice, neighbors found the mummified body of a Croatian woman in her Zagreb apartment in May, and police said no one remembered seeing her alive after 1973.

Summer Guide

Day Tripping

by Patricia Watson

Living about half a mile from one of the Great Lakes is great: From the window of my downtown office, I can see Lake Erie sparkling. But on a hot summer day when I am covered with dirt from the garden, sometimes I just want to be able to run to the beach, take a quick dip, relax for a while, and come home.

Summer Guide

Natural Formations

by Lucy Yau

Griffis Sculpture Park in Cattaraugus County is one of the nation’s largest sculpture parks. Inspired by a family trip to Hadrian’s Village in Italy, Larry Griffis Jr. returned to Western New York and established a sculpture park in 1966 so that other families could commune with art and nature.

Theater

Artie Award Winners

Monday night’s pageant was another glamorous, star-studded affair. Congratulations to all our winners! Check out our photo gallery from the event as well.

Vine by Line

A Sparkler Named Desire

by Paula Paradise

The conspicuous consumption of high-end alcohol, however alluring, will never fulfill our dreams; after years of indulgence, the body plainly reveals the banal results of debauchery. Perhaps doctors will request a change of diet. Should I someday be medically encouraged to scrutinize my comestibles—coerced into abstention, forced into a salt-free zone, dulled by decaffeination—then I should hope to have a memory store of champagne tasting notes.

Artvoice Video

Boy Major's "Change"

by Artvoice & Knuckle City Films

Senator Barack Obama has the Democratic nomination in the bag, and AV joins Knuckle City Films in sending him into the general election campaign with the release of this new joint project: Check out this video for Boy Major's "Change." If you like the video, check out the behind-the-scenes footage too.

Summer Guide

A Playlist For Sunny Weather

by Donny Kutzbach

Ah, 2008! One of the wonders of living in this year of the iPod age is music’s ubiquity. You can have just about any song you could ever want to hear at your fingertips all the time. With that in mind, here are some suitable picks for various purposes and destinations under the bright skies and in the warm breezes.

Music Feature

Six String Shoot-out at Kleinhans

by Jan Jezioro

JoAnn Falletta International Guitar Concerto Competition presents its third biennial competition, June 9-13 at Buffalo’s Kleinhans Music Hall.

Left of the Dial

Centro-Matic/South San Gabriel: Dual Hawks

by Donny Kutzbach

As if it weren’t enough that a sprawling and masterful split double album from Denton, Texas’ indie savants Centro-matic and that band’s dark-spun, psych-country alter-ego South San Gabriel entered the world last week.

Summer Guide

Roll The Summer Movie Previews

by M. Faust

Practically everything rolling out of Hollywood this summer comes so pre-sold that for 90 percent of these films all you need to hear is the title to know what it’s about and whether or not you want to see it. Still, just for the record, here’s what will be lurking in wait to you should you let someone lead you to the multiplex blindfolded and kick you into a random auditorium.

Film Feature

Pandamonium: Jack Black on Kung Fu Panda

by M. Faust

Casting Jack Black as a cartoon character is almost redundant. After nearly a decade of regular but undistinguished work as a character actor in the 1990s, he hit his stride by cranking up both the volume and the attitude, with his semi-parody, two-man heavy metal band Tenacious D and as the ultimate opinionated record store clerk in High Fidelity.

Film Reviews

Flight of the Red Balloon

by George Sax

You Don't Mess With The Zohan

by M. Faust

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Movie Times (June 6-June 12)

Film Now Playing

See You There

AV Pick: Hellenic Festival 2008 (June 6-June 8)

Lizz Wright (June 6)

The Stripteasers "Anything Goes" (...No, Not The Musical) (June 6)

The Cotton Jones Basket Ride (June 11)

Calendar Spotlight

Essex Arts Center’s AMP Party (June 7)

Peanut Brittle Satellite CD Release (June 7)

Centro-Matic (June 10)

VooDoo Glow Skulls (June 10)

Giraffes? Giraffes! (June 11)

Looking Ahead . . .

Gaywatch

Gay Pride: Just an excuse for a party nowadays?

by Bryan Whitley-Grassi

As lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities turn our attentions towards Pride month this year, you may, like many, find yourself asking: “Why do we need Gay Pride anyway?”

You Auto Know

The "SW" Word

by Jim Corbran

Last column’s look at convertibles got me thinking about different body styles which have come and gone in and out of favor over the years. One of the most maligned over the past couple of decades has been the station wagon.

In The Margins

Local poet Liz Mariani celebrates her first book at Rust Belt

Literary Buffalo, Events Listings

Advice

Ask Anyone

In the summertime, I often work from home, usually sitting on my front porch in nice weather. I find I get lots done in that laid-back environment, often finishing in half a day what might take all day at the office, where I’m distracted by questions and phone calls, etc. Am I justified in taking off the rest of the day once I’ve done a day’s worth of work? Can I close the laptop and open a bottle of wine?

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I happen to like The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull, a CD by sludge rockers Earth. But I’m not urging you to get a copy of it so much as I’m suggesting that you carry out a metaphorical equivalent of what the album’s title describes. This is a perfect time for you to create something sweet in a situation that once scared the sleep out of you.

Letters to Artvoice

Crystal Barton Stays Silent

by Harry DeLano

The Job's A Monster, Not The Man

by Donald A. Van Every

Three-Arch Bridges, And More...

by Kevin F. Yost