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Cover Story

Last Minute Gift Guide

by Geoff Kelly

The holidays are here. If you haven’t started shopping yet, you may detect that creeping doom that annually overtakes your neglected ambition to please everyone—that paralyzing certainty that it’s too late, that you’ll never find gifts for all the people you’d like to honor, that there’s no sense even in trying.

Arts

Layered Decades of Art

by Gerald Mead

The holidays bring scores of opportunities for buying art, and Allentown continues to be a suitable locus for that purpose.

Books

We Are What We Read

by Jonathan Welch

Stumped for holiday gifts? Head to your local independent bookseller and look for these titles by local authors.

DVDs

Lost in the Supermarket

by M. Faust

When time runs short and you need gifts, you've got a friend in supermarket DVDs - if you know what to look for.

Recipes

Fruit Cake: In With The Old

by Katherine O'Day

There’s only one fruitcake in the entire world, right? The original re-gift, this proverbial fruitcake keeps getting passed along year after year because nobody wants it.

You Auto Know

'Tis The Season To Give Car Stuff

by Jim Corbran

You auto know by now that if I’m involved with the gift guide, there’ll be some wheels in there somewhere. And this time around, some of them are real, some are not.

The News, Briefly

The People's Agenda

by Geoff Kelly

Courting Disaster

by Buck Quigley

Week in Review

Seven Days: The Straight Dope From the Week That Was

by Geoff Kelly

Scorecard: The Week's Winners & Losers

by Zachary Burns

Getting a Grip

The Doomsday Lobby

by Michael I. Niman

Much of the world focused this week on Copenhagen, where global leaders met to discuss plans to contend with catastrophic global warming. Americans, however, were more focused on golf star Tiger Woods’s marital infidelity. We have our priorities.

News Analysis

The Teapot, Boiling

by Bruce Fisher

The Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority, or ECFSA, otherwise known as the Control Board, will soon be revealed as either a complete political fraud or as the stern, sane fiscal watchdog that will keep at least some local politicians honest. If the ECFSA goes “hard” again, chances are that Chris Collins’s candidacy for governor is dead.

Food and Drink

The Sweet Life

by Jennifer Mogensen

David Simpson, owner of Dolci Bakery and Gelateria, has packed more into his 35 years than most of us will even try to accomplish in a lifetime. His boyish charm, coy smile, and black apron covered in cake flour belie his intense drive and passion.

Framed

The Rediscovery of Kathleen McEnery

by Dean Brownrout

In the early 1910s, artist Kathleen McEnery was a rising presence in the New York City art community. She exhibited alongside contemporaries George Bellows, Stuart Davis, and Edward Hopper. By the time of her death in 1971, in Rochester, New York, she was almost completely forgotten as an artist outside of the region.

B.O.O.M!

Boom Round 3 Week 3: Notic vs. The Gavin Petrie Band

CONGRATULATIONS to Leon and the Forklifts for collecting the most online votes this past week. With that, they secure a spot in our next B.O.O.M. live showdown, scheduled for Friday, January 15, 2010 at Nietzsche’s.

Film Feature

End of The Road

by M. Faust

The director and star of The Road discuss the bright side of the apocalypse.

Film Feature

Cage Match

by M. Faust

The dream team of Nicolas Cage and Werner Herzog talk about Bad Lietenant: Port of Call—New Orleans

Film Reviews

The Messenger

by George Sax

Did You Hear About the Morgans?

by M. Faust

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Movie Times (Fri. December 18 through Thurs. December 24)

Film Now Playing

Events

See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of events to watch out for the week, including our editor's pick: Miles Davis' On The Corner, performed by a collective of Buffalo musicians this Friday at the Town Ballroom.

5 Questions WIth...

Jewish Cultural Awareness Club

Joey Stern, David Zakalik, and Josh Finkelstein (pictured, left to right) comprise the Jewish Cultural Awareness Club, or JCAC, at the Nichols School. Each week, by means of educational skits, they teach their fellow upper school students a couple phrases in Yiddish and a little bit about Jewish culture.

Offbeat News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

In September, engaging in a 300-year tradition of the Dussera holiday in India’s Tamil Nadu state, Hindu priests ritually whipped 2,000 young women and girls over a five-hour period as penance for a range of sins, from insufficient studying to moral impurity.

Letters to Artvoice

Chris Collins: Lay Off PUSH

by Carl Mrozek

Last week ABC announced that the Extreme Makeover Home Edition episode shot in Buffalo in November will air on January 24 as a rare two-hour special featuring the massive grassroots mobilization which began the transformation of a drug-riddled, low-income West Side neighborhood, starting with the home of PUSH activist Dolores Powell.

Literary Buffalo

Flash Fiction and Poetry

Lit City Literary Events

Gaywatch

Listings & Resources

Buffalo has a large and diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community. For further information about its numerous organizations and activities, visit Gaywatch at Artvoice.com, call the Western New York Pride Center (852-7743), or email WinterDanny@AOL.com.

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I hope you will get more sleep in 2010. And eat better food, too. And embark on some regimen like meditation that will reduce your stress levels. In general, Sagittarius, I hope you will learn a lot more about what makes your body function at optimum levels, and I hope you will diligently apply what you learn.

Advice

Ask Anyone

I am so broke this Christmas, I am entertaining a plan to ensure I get through the day.