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Cover Story

Paved With Good Intentions

by Geoff Kelly and Louis Ricciuti

David Pfeiffer, known almost universally as Bear, is giving a visitor a tour of what was once Fentier Village, a Wild West amusement park perched on a hill overlooking the city of Salamanca that opened in 1966 and closed a few years later. Once there were fake gunfights between fake cowboys, fake Indians, a cable incline and a miniature railroad, a town hall and a saloon, a chapel and a schoolhouse. Lassie once made a guest appearance.

Week in Review

The Real Medicaid Fraud

by Edward A. Benoit

More Frackademics in the News

by Buck Quigley

Getting a Grip

Romney in Jerusalem

by Michael I. Niman

Mitt Romney didn’t exactly emerge from a major league field of contenders when he clinched the Republican nomination for president—he was, essentially, the least worst in a comical field of dingbats. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that his used-car-salesman persona wasn’t ready for prime time as he set out to break his statesman cherry on the world stage.

News Analysis

The Missing Conversation

by Bruce Fisher

Regional government consolidation? Progressives won’t touch it. California municipalities careening toward bankruptcy don’t mention it. Leaders of the national movement for land banks talk about inside-the-boundaries development schemes, and sometimes about regional land-use planning, but they throw up their hands at it.

Guest Essay

America's Constrained Choice

by Mohamed A. El-Erian

The conventional wisdom about the November presidential election in the United States is only partly correct. Yes, economic issues will play a large role in determining the outcome. But the next step in the argument—that the winner of an increasingly ugly contest will have the luxury of pursuing significantly different policies from his opponent—is much more uncertain.

Art Scene

Members exhibit and magazine launch at 464 Gallery

by Jill Greenberg

Infringement Diary #1: Mandala, mandala

by J. Tim Raymond

Infringement Diary #2: Comics relief

by Jack Foran

Vine Byline

Great Legs

by Paula Paradise

Does all the hoopla about “slow legs” really merit our attention as wine drinkers? To check out the legs on your wine: Swirl a stemmed glass filled with two or three ounces of wine (any more than that and your neighbor will be wearing a wine hat) so that it rises up in the glass towards the rim, and then stop.

Theater Week

Mommie Queerest

by Anthony Chase

This week, BUA once again forges into the territory of Hollywood icons with Jimmy Janowski channeling a great star of the Golden Age. This time, he’s taking on Joan Crawford in Mommie Queerest.

Film Reviews

Trishna

by M. Faust

Total Recall

by M. Faust

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Movie Times (Friday, August 3 - Thursday, August 9)

Film Now Playing

Featured Events

See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of featured events, including our editor's picks for the week: the continuation of the Infringement Festival, with many more events planned through Sunday the 5th.

Book Review

Stay Until You're Sent Away

by Woody Brown

A Hologram for the King, the sixth book from Dave Eggers, bills itself on its back cover as “far from weary, recession-scarred America.” We should be so lucky. The entire novel is loudly weary and recession-scarred in that particularly grating way that seems to say, “I’m making a point here!”

5 Questions With...

Al Felix: Poet

by Leigh Giangreco

Al Felix is a former English teacher at Orchard Park High School and now resident poet at Caffé Aroma on Elmwood Avenue. His wife, Jackie Felix, passed away in 2009 and was a prominent artist in a Buffalo and the subject of a recent retrospective an exhibit at the Burchfield Penney Art Center.

Offbeat News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

New York City’s tap water is already widely regarded as world-class, in safety and taste (and subjected to a half-million tests a year by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection). However, two entrepreneurs recently opened the Molecule water bar in the city’s East Village, selling 16-ounce bottles of the same water for $2.50, extra-filtered through their $25,000 machine that applies UV rays, ozone treatment and “reverse osmosis” in a seven-stage process to create what they call “pure h3O.”

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): You’ve been making pretty good progress in the School of Life. By my estimates, you’re now the equivalent of a sophomore. You’ve mastered enough lessons so that you can no longer be considered a freshman, and yet you’ve got a lot more to learn.

Advice

Ask Anyone

My boyfriend wrote to you guys a year ago to ask what he should do about my bad table manners. First of all, I don’t think my table manners are bad. Second of all, we never eat at the table anyway. We eat in front of the TV. What kind of table manners does he expect?