Arts
- Details
- Parent Category: News
Driving Through Buffalo
A Parody of Sailing to Byzantium
By Glenn Young
THAT is a country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, anyone who can, flees
- Those dying generations – in homes outgrown
The Niagara-falls, the once-ship crowded seas,
Bills, Sabers, Bison catastrophe all season long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Stays caught in the senseless city of neglect
A monument to almost no intellect.
An aged city is but a paltry thing
With tattered streets with holes, useless
Few use their mind to think, to deeply think
For most only chatter about their mortal mess,
Nor are there ringing schools for studying
Monuments of their own incompetence;
And somehow I have sailed many seas and come
To this moldy city of Buffalo.
O churches standing in Buffalo’s sky
As if a gold reminder of the past bold,
rose from its initial fires, now stuck in the lie,
And the politicians desire to keep control.
Which consumes the city’s heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying industrial base
It knows not what its future is; and leads itself
Into the being stuck to a failure of economic destiny.
The people’s nature I can never take
They seem stuck in thought of just hateful things,
But such forms endless industrial smiths make
Of hammered iron and steel enamelling
That once keep a drowsy population at work;
Now set upon the workers brow to sting
and keeps the men and ladies of Buffalo from talking
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
- Details
- Parent Category: News
Pete Galanis Guitar
Rocco Calipari Guitar
Howard McCullum Bass, Vocals
Jim Christopulos - Drums
Publicity: Doug Deutsch @ (213) 924-4901 Mighty Tiger Records: (800) 724-2730
Read more: CHICAGO'S HOWARD &THE WHITE BOYS@LAFAYETTE TAP ROOM SAT., DEC. 17
- Details
- Parent Category: News
The curators are specifically interested in images that communicate past, present and future visions concerning the greater Buffalo region (pertaining, but not limited to: social, architectural and geological subjects). Since the windowpanes will double as frames and lighting devices, GHR will function as a two-dimensional menagerie. The curators therefore prefer isolated image-statements (ie. floating objects/ environments) to carefully resolved compositions. All imagery must be appropriate for the entire viewing public.
GHR is scheduled to run from May 13 to May 27, 2005, with an opening reception to be held on Friday, May 13, from 5:30 to 7:30 PM.
Submission Info:
Preliminary versions of artwork should be emailed in JPEG form (72 ppi--no larger than 450 X 300 points) by April 18, 4 PM. Include the title and original medium of the work, along with the intended scale for the final print (using a preferred minimum print resolution of 140 dpi) and send to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please include a phone number where you may be reached. Call for work info as well as images of the conservatory are viewable at www.glasshousewny.blogspot.com
The selected artists will then be notified and asked to send 1) the full sized digital files (on CD), and 2) a check or money order in the amount of the calculated print and processing cost for their artwork. The cost for printing will reflect the size of the printed imagery. Minimum printing cost (for an image with a short side of up to 11 inches) will be $15, which will cover materials and processing costs.
*Glass House Refractions is curated by four co-directors of the Formula art collective.
**Images and historic background about the conservatory can be accessed at www.buffalogardens.com.
- Details
- Parent Category: News
Richs poignant and heartfelt story of love, love lost, all-consuming grief and pain, visitations from Lisa after her death, and his triumphant recovery is told in his new book, Life Without Lisa: A Widowed Fathers Compelling Journey Through the Rough Seas of Grief.
Thanks to the authors professional status as a freelance writer, Richs instincts were to record his feelings and day-to-day existence on paper in the aftermath of his monumental loss. His journal later served as the basis for the book.
Life Without Lisa gives the reader a rare and intimate view of how a man faces loss that defies words and comes out the other side whole, happy and enjoying life again despite his certitude that he would never smile again.
Few men, if any, have publicly revealed their innermost thoughts, feelings and fears in the compelling way Rich Ballo has. Most men, instead, present a stoic face to the outside world and reject expression of their personal grief and experience. But Rich Ballo simultaneously shows his courageous and vulnerable side in his book that offers hope and understanding to all who suffer a cataclysmic loss. And since death touches all, chances are exceedingly high that all who read Life Without Lisa will benefit from the reassurances the book offers.
The book opens on the day of Lisas death, with the author saying he thinks the only thing that will save him are his two little boys. Chapter one ends with a memorable scene in which Rich puts little Nick and Victor to bed, and the three of them hug, clinging together, not wanting to let go. Rich writes that they are like ...three weary swimmers adrift in a sea of shock and grief.
Life Without Lisa enables readers to walk a mile in Richs shoes for five years following Lisas death. Readers are allowed glimpses of Richs utter despair and aching loneliness as he puts his new life together day by day following his monumental loss. The pages of Life Without Lisa reveal Richs painstaking recovery. Readers sob when he sobs and cheers him on when hope glimmers on the horizon. But most of all, readers see him or herself in his journey because ultimately love and loss unite us all.
Moments of humor punctuate the true story and bring us to the other side where the impossible has happened: Rich is once again happy and fulfilled! This up-close-and-personal story offers hope and healing for every reader who finds him or herself lost in a sea of grief and affirms the eternal nature of the soul.
Life Without Lisa confirms that life goes on both on the earth plane for the one left behind as well as in the spirit realm for the one who has gone on.
Published by Quality of Life Publishing Co. (1-877-513-0099) ISBN: 0-9675532-4-5 Distributed to North American bookstores by Biblio Distribution
- Details
- Parent Category: News
If one were to ask former Bills Coach Marv Levys motivational question, Where would you rather be than right here, right now? The overwhelming collective response from the people of Erie County might be Anywhere but here.
This begs the question: why is all of this chaos happening right here and right now? Nothing can be done about Joel Giambras squandering of the tobacco settlement money, except to stop him from blowing the eighty million dollars that remain. Something, can be, and eventually will have to done to reverse deep property tax cuts made by Giambra at the start of his first term. Legal mandates will force the issue and at the end of the day this tax revolt, as it is called by The Buffalo News, will probably be over without a single musket shot ever being fired.
Before its all said and done, we might also find ourselves raising the sales tax, as well. In the meantime the cuts that have been made, thus far, seem to be fair some would say almost democratic, because they are across the board. The tax revolt is far from over and its far from democratic, because even before a single nickel has been restored to a single budget, its abundantly clear that the big losers in all of this will be, if not Democrats, then at least, non-Republicans.
Most of the 2500 people being laid off are unionized workers. Unions dont traditionally support the GOP and by the way, this is the biggest layoff to hit the community since the closing of Trico. Like Trico, this is not so much about the negative perception of unions (although thats a big component) as it is about a basic sea change in philosophy. Theres no way we could have been competitive with the wages made by Tricos new work force in Mexico, and theres no way that Western New York holds any real value for the Republican Party. What we had to offer the Board of Trico is what we now have to offer Republicans absolutely nothing.
But surely after new taxes are imposed the budget cuts to all of these not-for-profits will be restored, wont they? Dont hold your breath.
We are witnessing a new Hooverism in place of government services and government support for programs that merely effect the quality of life, we will hence forward rely on charity. In case you havent noticed, our great local philanthropic institutions tend to be controlled by folks who are, shall we say, right of center?
For example, as we went to press it was announced that Womens and Childrens Hospital will dole out money for the Charter School revolution, and of course, the Oshei Foundation will continue to be part and parcel of the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority (The Control Board) which is on a long march against the fire, police, and teachers unions.
Does anybody believe for a second that a Republican not-for-profit (one of George Is thousand points of light) will step in to shore up the new County funding gaps in the budget of arts organizations such as Hallwalls or Squeaky Wheel?
Although these organizations are not part of the Democratic Party and would, indeed, consider themselves to be non-partisan, lets look at it another way: What have these organizations done for the Republican Party, lately? Well, if we are to be honest, absolutely nothing. How does reading Michael Nimans Artvoice columns attacking George Bush and the neocons help expand the GOP power base, locally? It doesnt.
The arts community has, rightly or wrongly, been identified with forces hostile to the Republican Party. So while they might think that they are not being impacted differently than anybody else, at the end of the day, they are. Rather than the Were All In This Together party line being pushed by The Buffalo News, it might be instructive to think back to the NEA battle during the Reagan years and ask the simple question about the current situation: Are we under attack?
How about if we put the shoe on the other foot and ask these people to prove to us that they are not under attack. While they may represent mere targets of convenience, they need to understand whats going on here, not just in Washington. The culture war is now on their doorstep and they ignore it at their peril.
Directors of the effected organizations need to keep in mind that the services they cut, the people they layoff, the patrons they will turn away, and the artists they can no longer support who will simply throw their hands up and leave Buffalo, all of these things have, at their root, a political prima causa.
Welcome to The Revolution.
What the arts community, in particular, must come to accept is that they are what is meant by the term bloated government, and that running it like a business means continued support for charitable organizations such as Womens and Childrens Hospital (read: Kaleida, Inc./Chimilgen is the 501c3) that, while enjoying broad support in the liberal and progressive communities, is now, nonetheless, contributing to the right wing agenda to bankrupt the public school system through the back door of charter schools. Conspiracy theory? Its important to remember that the former Chief of Kaleida was none other than Tony Gioia, a principal fundraiser for W. who was made Ambassador to Malta for his efforts on behalf of the Party. Remember that you read about that here, in the pages of Alt, not in Artvoice.
Do you think that a similar reward awaits the director of Hallwalls? Lets see, wheres she from, again? Germany? Thats in old Europe, isnt it? Yeah, I dont see their funding being restored any time soon. Sorry.
If Artvoice is to be the representative voice of the Arts community, they must make their readers aware of the depth and complexity of the battle that has now been enjoined right here in our backyard. The occasional essay on local preservation efforts or bicycle rallies wont cut it. If it helps, maybe they could look at it as their own privatized personal faith-based initiative!
As the old expression goes, youre not paranoid if they really are out to get you.