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Feeding 2,000 Ithacans a week No
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revamping the downtown abatement process
legislature bans products with little spheres
22 years and counting of voices together
black & white and red all over
blurring the line between art and craft
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w s l i n e On the matter of finances, though, McDaniel, Kusznir, Nels Bohn of IURA, and Herman Sieverding of Integrated Acquisition & Development were adamant there’s no wild-ass guessing going on with the numbers. In response to a question from Murtagh why downtown construction is so expensive, Sieverding cited both the specialized expenses of putting up tall buildings—like cranes—and the revenues a developer can expect. “It has everything to do with the income generation of the property,” Sieverding said. “You can put in four or five bedrooms on Dryden Road and get $1,350 a bed. The student market doesn’t seem to abate. You can’t get those sort of numbers downtown.”
City of Ithaca
County Stays Under Abatements Not The State Tax Cap Based on Guesses
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he Tompkins County Legislature passed the 2016 county budget with a tax levy increase of 1.01 percent at their Nov. 17 meeting. After months of deliberation, the legislature passed the budget in a vote of 13-1 with Legislator Dooley Kiefer (D-Cayuga Heights) voting against it. The increase means a $12.39 increase on the tax bill of a $170,00 (median-value) home in Tompkins County, but the levy still falls under the state tax cap and comes in under the 1.3 percent increase included in the administrator’s proposed budget. “We’ve made it under the cap three times in the last five years, and we have not cut services,” said Legislator James Dennis (D-Ulysses), chair of the Budget, Capital, and Personnel Committee. “We’ve maintained services to a fairly high level in the county, and I think we’ve done a really fine job.” Before passing the budget the board voted to move a $50,000 line item designated to Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) bus service from target funding to one-time funding. This means that while the board is still contributing $50,000 in 2016, the funds will not already be included in the 2017 budget and would have to be added back in. Dennis said that making it a onetime item would make the county more consistent with the City of Ithaca and Cornell, who are also putting in $50,000. “What I’ve learned is that the City of Ithaca put in one-time money, Cornell has one-time money in, and it makes sense to me that we turn it to one-time money and facilitate a larger discussion in the summertime, when we all have to get together and decide. It should be a discussion outside of the budget,” Dennis said. Legislators Carol Chock (D-Ithaca), Will Burbank (D-Ithaca), and Kiefer argued that the legislature was not obligated to contribute the same type of funding as the city and Cornell, only the same dollar amount, and they said that including the additional funding as ongoing in the budget would send the message that TCAT is important to the county. Eight board members voted in favor of the amendment to the budget and six members, Legislators Kiefer, Chock, Burbank, Leslyn McBean-Clairborne (D-Ithaca), Anna Kelles (D-Ithaca), and continued on page 4
VOL.X X XVIII / NO. 13 / November 25, 2015
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hen a city program that grants millions in tax breaks is putting in new qualifications for developers to get those benefits, it’s probably best that those numbers not be based on a “wild-ass guess.” The wild-ass guess in this case, or WAG, for short, is about how much local labor is getting used on city building projects that receive tax abatements. Alderman Seph Murtagh (D-2nd) said that WAG was the term thrown around during a series of meetings held on new abatement requirements, the results of which were presented to the Planning & Economic Development committee on Nov. 19. Alderman George McGonigal (D-1st) asked Heather McDaniel Alderperson Ellen McCollister (Photo: Josh Brokaw) of Tompkins County Area Development (TCAD) why there aren’t McDaniel responded to an earlier numbers available for which workers comment by John Bentkowski, a local real come from where. She responded, in estate assessor, that developers have to short, that a reporting requirement hasn’t enter a project with guaranteed loans, and existed before, and asking post facto for a general contractor on a $25 million project thus abatements only line their pockets. “It’s true that they get a loan at 80 to track down residences from 20 to 30 percent of value, but banks also look at subcontractors wasn’t feasible. income, ” McDaniel said. “My experience City planner Jennifer Kusznir said is [developers] have had significant cash that because of the uncertainty on local flow issues. Their income is less than their labor numbers, making a new, more solid requirement later after a few projects have continued on page 12 provided data could be a possibility.
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▶ News for Cayuga Power Plant, The Sierra Club reports that Senators, Assemblymembers, and City Council Members came together on Monday at a New York City Hall press conference to urge Governor Cuomo to commit to transitioning New York off of coal-fired power by 2020 in advance of the international climate talks in Paris, slated to begin Nov. 30. The event was hosted by State Senator Liz Krueger and the Sierra Club and featured seven elected officials including State Senator Brad Hoylman and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh, along with around 100
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community members. The press conference comes after a speech given early last month at Columbia University where Governor Cuomo stood alongside former Vice President Al Gore and reaffirmed New York’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions 40 percent by 2030. The Governor signaled that New York was ready to phase out coal-fired power in the state. Today, New York’s coal-fired power plants make up 13 percent of the carbon emissions in the state, and a commitment to phase out those plants is an essential next step toward meeting his climate pollution reduction goal.
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Zero Food Waste ......................... 8 The Friendship Donations Network: it works
In Harmony . ................................ 15 Community beat still strong after 22 years
NE W S & OPINION
Newsline . ......................... 3-7, 10, 12, 13 Sports ................................................... 14
ART S & E NTE RTAINME NT
Film . ...................................................... 18 Art . ....................................................... 19 Art . ....................................................... 20 Books .................................................... 21 Books .................................................... 23 TimesTable .................................... 26-29 HeadsUp . ............................................. 29 Classifieds.......................................30-31 Back Page . ........................................... 32 Cover Photo: Sara Pines (Photo: Rye Bennett) Cover Design: Marshall Hopkins
ON THE W E B Visit our website at www.ithaca.com for more news, arts, sports and photos. B i l l C h a i s s o n , M a n a g i n g E d i t o r , 6 07-277-70 0 0 x 224 E d i t o r @ I t h a c a T i me s . c o m J a i m e C o n e , W e b E d i t o r , x 217 A r t s @I t h a c a T i me s . c o m J o s h B r o k a w, S t a f f R e p o r t e r , x 225 R e p o r t e r @I t h a c a T i me s . c o m C h r i s H a r r i n g t o n , E d i t o r i a l a s s i s t a n t , x 217 A r t s @I t h a c a T i me s . c o m Steve Lawrence, Sports Editor, Ste vespo rt sd u d e@gmai l .co m M i c h a e l N o c e l l a , F i n g e r L a k e s S p o r t s E d i t o r , x 236 Sp o rt s@Flcn .o rg M a r s h a l l H o p k i n s , P r o d u c t i o n D i r e c t o r / D e s i g n e r , x 226 P r o d u c t i o n @I t h a c a T i me s . c o m G e o r g i a C o l i c c h i o, A c c o u n t R e p r e s e n t a t i v e , x 220 G e o r g i a @ I t h a c a T i me s . c o m J i m K i e r n a n , A c c o u n t R e p r e s e n t a t i v e , x 219 J k i e r n a n @ I t h a c a T i me s . c o m S h a r o n D a v i s , Cy n d i B r o n g , x 211 A d m i n i s t r a t i o n Rick Blaisdell, Chris Eaton, Les Jink s Distribution J i m B i l i n s k i , P u b l i s h e r , x 210 j b i l i n s k i @ I t h a c a T i me s . c o m C o n t r i b u t o r s : Barbara Adams,Steve Burke, Deirdre Cunningham, Jane Dieckmann, Amber Donofrio, Karen Gadiel, Charley Githler, Warren Greenwood, Ross Haarstad, Peggy Haine, Cassandra Palmyra, Arthur Whitman, and Bryan VanCampen.
T he ent i re c o ntents o f the Ithaca T i mes are c o p y r i ght © 2 0 1 5 , b y newsk i i nc . All rights reserved. Events are listed free of charge in TimesTable. All copy must be received by Friday at noon. SUBSCRIPTIONS: $69 one year. Include check or money order and mail to the Ithaca Times, PO Box 27, Ithaca, NY 14851. ADVERTISING: Deadlines are Monday 5 p.m. for display, Tuesday at noon for classified. Advertisers should check their ad on publication. The Ithaca Times will not be liable for failure to publish an ad, for typographical error, or errors in publication except to the extent of the cost of the space in which the actual error appeared in the first insertion. The publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising for any reason and to alter advertising copy or graphics deemed unacceptable for publication. The Ithaca Times is published weekly Wednesday mornings. Offices are located at 109 N. Cayuga Street, Ithaca, NY 607-277-7000, FAX 607277-1012, MAILING ADDRESS is PO Box 27, Ithaca, NY 14851. The Ithaca Times was preceded by the Ithaca New Times (1972-1978) and The Good Times Gazette (1973-1978), combined in 1978. F o u n d e r G o o d T i me s G a z e t t e : Tom Newton
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PHOTOGRAPHER By Josh Brok aw
What is the scariest Part of Thanksgiving?
Food Truck Regs In the Works
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thaca’s food truck operators may soon have more stringent fire-safety regulations to meet if they want to keep slinging snacks on the street. Ithaca Fire Department chief Tom Parsons and assistant chief/fire marshal Gillian Haines-Sharp visited the Nov. 18 City Administration Committee meeting to ask for permission to study new fire safety regulations for trucks. The new rules they’re suggesting are based on a program Rochester started in 2013, which has phased in new training requirements and in-truck fire suppression systems over three years. The increasing popularity of food trucks—and a couple of incidents, local and national—have the fire officers looking to increase their regulatory control over the vendors. Parsons said there was a “very close call” at the Apple Festival in September. “There was a leak we detected but was undetected by the operator,” Parsons told the committee. “It was free-flowing propane and if it found an ignition source it would have been a very serious accident.” The fire officers referenced a particularly scary incident, the La Parrillada Chapina truck, which exploded in Philadelphia on July 1, 2014. “I don’t know if you’ve seen video of that, but if you have 30 seconds watch it, and you’ll see why we need some regulations,” Haines-Sharp said. “Honestly since I’ve watched that, every time I’ve walked by a food truck the back of my hair stands up.” Right now, the fire department issues
“If people don’t want to eat around the fire with me.” —Barbara Ann Jordan
“Talking to my family about Obama.” —Chris Dey
“I worry about running out of turkey. You have to have leftovers.” —Lauree Myler
countybudget contin u ed from page 3
Dan Klein (D-Caroline), voted against. Before the budget was put to a vote, Kiefer asked the board to add more money to the Weights and Measures department. She said that Donald F. Ellis, Jr., the sole member of the department, will have an increased work load because he is responsible for enforcing the county ban on products containing microbeads, legislation that was passed earlier in the meeting. Kiefer proposed that the board include in the budget $32,000 for salary and other yearly expenses for a second employee, as well as $22,000 in one-time funds for a vehicle and a computer, for a total increase of $54,000 to the 2016 budget. “I agree that in the future we need to be looking at weights and measures,” said Dennis. “I do not think we need to do it because of the microbeads because that is
“Not being able to eat as much as I want. I always want to eat five times as much.” —Sheila Brown
“Being a vegetarian.” —Sierra Murray
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put in gas detectors. The detectors cost about $60, Haines-Sharp said. Ventilation systems and hood systems would be an expectation in year two. Fire-suppression systems would be expected by year three. Paul Sperling, owner of Road Kitchens U.S.A., a custom foodtruck builder in Utica, said that only California state law requires fire-suppression systems. Hoods cost $210 per foot, including the exhaust mushroom on top, and most run from five to eight feet on the trucks his outfit builds. “A suppression system is going to run you $1,300 to $1,800,” Sperling said, “and if you integrate it into the hood, which is the cheaper way to go, a six-foot hood would cost you $3,200 or $3,300.” Sperling said he always talks to the local fire and health departments before he starts a build; right now, his company is busy retrofitting New York City food trucks so they can carry 100 gallons of fresh water on board, Inside Dos Amigos food truck (Photo: Josh Brokaw) up from a previous 42-gallon requirement. propane permits to the food trucks, which “That’s ridiculous. No one, cost $200 for the year and less for shorter however busy they are, goes through 100 stints like festival weekends, Hainesgallons of water a day. The two things Sharp said. In some recent years, trucks DeBlasio is zoned in on are horse and didn’t even need those permits—the fire buggies in Central Park and mobile food department was under the impression that vendors,” Sperling said. “We’re putting in the state Department of Transportation a lot of rooftop tanks. That’s the only place regulated “anything with wheels,” the fire you can put it.” marshal said. Ronnie McClive, co-proprietor of “Maybe within the last two years the Le Petit Poutine truck in Rochester we became aware we needed to do and a founder of the Rochester Food something,” Haines-Sharp said. “We didn’t Truck Alliance, says that working on fire see these trucks getting inspection stickers regulations was one of the lower stress from DOT and nobody was regulating hurdles their vendors had to cross to get propane if we didn’t do it.” legal. The IFD proposed starting the “We couldn’t vend anywhere,” regulatory study by having vendors take free classes, install no smoking signs, and continued on page 13 essentially a one-shot deal, to go around town and tell everybody, ‘We’re going to warn you, and if don’t have it off shelf and then we’ll fine you.’ I don’t’ think we need that new person this year; I think it should be part of the 2017 budget discussions to take place next year.” Legislator Martha Robertson (D-Dryden) agreed that it was a not a priority in the 2016 budget. “We’ve turned down people who asked us and argued for things like TCAT,” she said. “Don’s not even asking us for this. As was pointed out, it’s only temporary additional work for microbeads, and we have volunteers who said they’re going to help with the [microbead] education.” Kiefer’s proposed amendment failed by a 4-10 vote (Kiefer, Burbank, McBeanClairborne, and Kelles voting in favor). An alternate proposal from Chock to reduce the position to half-time also failed by a vote of 4-10 (Chock, Kiefer, Burbank, and McBean-Clairborne voting in favor).
2015
In other business, the legislature awarded $35,000 in New Tourism Initiative grants and more than $7,200 in the fall 2015 round of Community Celebrations grants, as recommended by the county’s Strategic Tourism Planning Board and funded through Tompkins County room-tax revenue. The legislature also authorized acceptance of four grants by the Tompkins County Sheriff ’s Office—a $20,000 grant from New York State to replace the Livescan inkless electronic fingerprinting machine, nearly $29,000 in federal Homeland Security funding for program supplies, a $5,000 New York State Crime Prevention grant for law enforcement equipment, and a $5,000 State Passenger Safety grant to reimburse the cost of new car seats for the child passenger seat program. • – Jaime Cone southreporter@flcn.org
N Criminal Justice
Justices Defend Local Court System
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hree justices addressed the Tompkins County task force on municipal court consolidation on Wednesday, Nov. 18, expressing their strong belief that the town and village court system should be preserved. The task force is looking into the question of whether consolidating the many local town and village courts into a district court would improve the justice system in Tompkins County. Previous task force meetings have produced a sense that such a consolidation may or may not save money; testimony from local lawyers has brought to light a number of problems with the village courts, including scheduling problems, lack of accessibility for defendants, and non-lawyer justices’ lack of legal knowledge. Judge Harold Bauman of Liberty, Sullivan County, said he had spent 45 years practicing law and 15 years on the bench. “I have a lot of experience on the bench, and on the other side,” said Bauman. “I don’t know how much you know about district courts, but they’re not a panacea.” Bauman said that Nassau County has district courts to handle misdemeanor cases, but they’ve found they can’t get by without the town and village courts as well. “Suffolk County has a similar system. They’ve found they can’t do it with district courts alone.” “They still have justice courts in England,” said Bauman. “We’ve had this system for a long time ... When things were found to be remiss, they improved them, they didn’t throw [the courts] out … The town and village courts are the courts closest to the people, the courts people are most satisfied with.” He cited numbers of complaints against judges, sorted by the type of court, noting that proportionally more complaints are lodged against higher court judges. Sherry Davenport, a non-lawyer justice from Cayuga County, had worked 20 years in the Cortland County district attorney’s office. “Creating a larger bureaucracy does not save money,” said Davenport. She said there were a number of practical changes that could make the courts more efficient, such as coordinating the schedules of the courts and the DA’s office. In Cayuga County, judges are allowed to travel so they have jurisdiction during the arraignment. Better use of technology and simple things like having the sheriff ’s deputies call the courts ahead of time, before transporting a prisoner for an appearance, can save a lot of money, said Davenport. “As elected judges, we’re all responsible for justice in our communities,
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making that public. What is the position and we take that responsibility seriously,” of the D.A. by having the town attorney said Davenport. “Don’t take away that adjudicate this?” local accountability we have, of electing Bauman said that in Liberty the local judges.” Judge David Brockway of Horseheads, village court was dissolved and turned over to the town; the D.A. abdicated the added, “I’ve never seen anything go from [early parts of the] legal process to the local control and become cheaper and town attorney. more accountable.” Brockway sees the Davenport said that in Cayuga push to consolidate courts as part of a County, “We have one ADA who larger trend of centralizing control, and handles all the DWIs throughout the that resisting centralized control was the county, and two who do all the domestic reason the 13 colonies fought a war of violence cases: It provides for consistent revolution against the king of England. dispositions.” Davenport named a few “We’re undoing everything our ancestors things Cayuga County had done to did,” said Brockway. “I think there are streamline its courts: Assigned counsel other efficiencies you can get. I can’t attorneys work with certain areas of the express strongly enough my belief in local county, which addresses the accessibility control.” problem for litigants in justice courts; Use Dryden town supervisor-elect Jason of electronic technology, such as emailing Leifer asked for specifics on how the town boards can make the courts more efficient. pre-sentencing reports from probation, can cut time. “There should be no question “Who pays for the district courts in Nassau and Suffolk?” “The state,” Bauman answered. “What I’m looking at is an $80,000 hole in my budget every year,” said Leifer. Even with the money from fines, court security and the judges’ and court clerks’ salaries add up: “We’re still in the red.” State surcharges on court fees mean that “the state gets the lion’s share” of the fines, said Davenport, adding, “I don’t think Ray Schlather (Photo: Glynis Hart) it’s fair.” “It’s another way the state is coercing localities into getting these things can be done.” rid of their own governments,” said Ulysses town supervisor Liz Thomas Brockway. asked several pointed questions of the “If you wrote down a [plan for] judges. “I keep hearing local courts are legislation for sharing fees to the state, I will take it to the legislature,” said Bauman important because they’re close to the people. But, most of the people [in the to Leifer. courts] are from out of our town … and, Bauman said that in his town of why is it better to have a judge know the Liberty, the town attorney is empowered people?” by the D.A. to meet with defendants in “No one said, ‘know the people,’” said traffic violations and “he reduces it to a Bauman. “I said, closest to the people. The charge where the municipality gets 100 majority of people’s first court experience percent of the money.” is in these courts.” Cayuga Heights justice Glenn “So, does it make it more fair?” asked Galbreath bridled. “I’m not there to make Thomas. Another question: “Any judge money for the village,” said Galbreath. comes before the voters, every four or Chair of the task force, attorney Ray Schlather said, “In Seneca County the D.A. 10 years. But, how would you judge a judge? How would anybody know unless publishes online the parameters for plea they’re a defendant or an attorney? We are bargaining. It would save a fair amount supposed to be talking to the people, but I of time and would be helpful to litigants don’t think the judges are.” who cannot afford counsel.” He asked the The next meeting of the task force will justices what they thought of such a plan. Bauman said it was improper, because be on Dec. 2, and will focus on assigned counsel. • it amounted to advising the defendant on the Internet. –Glynis Hart “Of course, it’s not binding,” said editor@flcn.org attorney Mark Solomon. “If they have a uniform policy, there’s nothing wrong with T
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Ups&Downs ▶ Ithaca teachers at impasse, Ithaca City School District teachers took to the street on Monday, Nov. 23 to call for a new labor agreement that improves on what they say are uncompetitive salaries. The Ithaca Teachers’ Association demonstration along Route 13 near the entrance to Wegman’s called for better compensation in a new contract, which is currently being negotiated between the ICSD administration and the union. Right now, teachers are operating on a contract that expired at the end of June. If you care to respond to something in this column, or publish your own grievances or plaudits, e-mail editor@ithacatimes.com, with a subject head “Ups & Downs.”
Heard&Seen ▶ Homeless Taskforce, The Human Services Coalition’s Dec. 2 Homeless and Housing Task Force meeting will feature a presentation and discussion on “What Service Providers and Clients can do about Substandard Housing in Tompkins County”. The meeting the is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 2, 9:30 to 11 a.m. in the sixth floor board room of Tompkins County Mental Health Services building, 201 E. Green Street. Free and open to the public. No registration is required. ▶ Top Stories on the Ithaca Times website for the week of Nov. 18-23 include: 1) BMX Bike Company Sets Up in Dryden 2) Enter the Dragon: Martial arts-based soccer in Ithaca 3) LPG Protesters Get Dismissals 4) Downtown Ithaca Welcomes Four New Businesses 5) Tompkins County Bans Microbeads, Passes 2016 Budget For these stories and more, visit our website at www.ithaca.com.
question OF THE WEEK
Should we stop celebrating Thanksgiving out of respect to the tribal people? Please respond at ithaca.com. L ast Week ’s Q uestion: Do you throw out your old clothes or donate them ?
10 percent of respondents answered “throw them out” and 90 percent answered “donate”
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Planet Aid Rebuts Charges T he recent guest op-ed “Planet Aid Does Not Keep Donations Local” in the Ithaca Times was grossly unfair to Planet Aid. The allegations were mean and untrue, and we suggest readers consult the Better Business Bureau’s charity rating arm, Give.org. The BBB gives Planet Aid high marks across the board on every single criterion for judging a charity. Our full accreditation report is available online—something the Ithaca Times essay notably failed to mention. Moreover, our financial reports, like any non-profit’s, are available publicly and have been reviewed every year by the IRS for 17 years. There is nothing dark or mysterious about them. Because of fast fashion trends, the U.S. today generates a phenomenal 25 billion pounds of unwanted textiles every year. Only 15 percent of that quantity is diverted from the waste stream and reused or recycled. That is an abysmally low figure, and less than half of the overall recycling rate in the United States. And it looks like it will only get worse. The Council for Textile Recycling estimates that by 2019 the country will be generating 35.4 billion pounds of textiles. There is clearly a lot of work to do and everyone must be involved if we are to begin to approach a zero waste society. Part of Planet Aid’s mission is to encourage recycling in order to keep used clothes and other textiles out of landfills and incinerators, where they contribute to global warming and other negative environmental impacts.
Planet Aid welcomes and appreciates the donations it receives. But if there is a local shelter that individuals want to support with donations or another charity, we applaud that too. We are not in competition with other charities that receive textiles; we want people to keep their unwanted items out of the trash and help those in need, which is at the core of our mission. Planet Aid sells its clothing on the international market. We have always been upfront about that on our website and want people to understand what happens to their clothing. Few people realize that that is what large charities do with the vast majority of the clothing that they receive. NPR reported on this very phenomenon in, “The Afterlife of American Clothes” (Planet Money, December 2013). We consume so much clothing today in the United States that something must be done about it. It is important to understand that three to four pounds of CO2 are saved for every pound of clothing that is spared from disposal. This means that people who placed clothing in our yellow boxes just last year (100 million pounds of it!) helped to save 300-400 million pounds of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Based on statistics from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, that is the equivalent of taking 26,000-35,000 cars off the road, given that the average passenger car emits an continued on page 7
We Love Teachers By C h a r l ey G i t h l e r
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ews item: Ithaca City School teachers have been working under the terms of a contract with the district that expired at the end of the last school year. In fact, all five bargaining agreements affiliated with ICSD are currently expired, according to the district website. These include contracts between the district and the Education Support Professionals (expired June 2014), the Ithaca Principals and Directors Association (June 2013), the ICSD Employees Association (June 2012), the Ithaca Substitutes’ Association (June 2013), and the Ithaca Teachers’ Association. As of October 21, the school district and the teachers’ union declared contract negotiations to be at an impasse. Non-binding mediation sessions are scheduled. Ithaca teachers’ salaries are notoriously low, ranking 579 out of 667 school districts statewide and below those of Horseheads, Elmira, Trumansburg, Groton, Cortland and Watkins Glen. Meanwhile, Ithaca is the eighth most expensive city in the country in which to raise a family. Within the past year, over 30 Ithaca teachers have resigned to take positions at other districts. As the negotiating teams in Ithaca prepare for mediation, might it not be instructive to look at the experience of a similarly-situated educational institution that just last year wrestled in contract negotiations with issues of social justice for its educators? We take you now to a chamber deep within Hogwarts Castle where a mediation session has just been convened. Contract negotiations between the professors and the administration have broken down. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Superintendent Sirius Brown represent the school, and Professors
Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape are negotiating for the teachers. Mediator and Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge is already having trouble. Let’s peer into the pensieve … McGONAGALL: The point I’m making, Minister Fudge, is that we here at Hogwarts consistently exceed the performance-driven benchmarks set by your ministry, and yet we are paid less than almost every other school of wizardry. Why we’re paid less than teachers at muggle school districts! Just last week, Professor Slughorn resigned and took a job at the Utica Academy of Magic. Utica, New York was a greener pasture than here! SNAPE: Professor Sprout is a full-time teacher here and her children qualify for free lunches! Does that seem right? FUDGE: All right, people, let’s step back a moment and hear from the other side. Albus, I myself am a resident of Diagon Alley right here in the school district. My taxes are crushing, to be frank. Why, last year I paid over six thousand gold galleons in school taxes! How is it that the school can’t afford to offer more than a 1.5 percent raise to the teachers? DUMBLEDORE: It’s not as simple as it seems. Perhaps Superintendent Brown can address our budget decision-making process better than I. BROWN: Glad to. With all due respect to teachers, we here at Hogwarts see technology as the key to building a wordclass institution. Learning from established, long-term teachers is so last century. I don’t know if you’re aware, Minister, but I was named one of the nation’s most ‘tech-savvy’ superintendents by eSchool News. continued on page 7
YourOPINIONS
Good Will Curdled
His name was “Sonny” and we loved him. Of course, his name wasn’t really “Sonny,” but that is what he called himself and it is the name we called him that summer when he was our camp counselor. It was 1965 (or was it 1966?), and I was all of 12 years old, attending a church-sponsored camp for two weeks (or was it ten days?) not far from the Hudson River. Clearly many details are now fuzzy, fifty years later, but Sonny remains indelibly imprinted in my mind for the events of a single afternoon that taught me more in fifteen minutes than I have learned in many years since. Lunch had ended – “bug juice,” always, and perhaps hot dogs? A group of us gravitated to the shade of the porch of a very rustic cabin that sweltering summer, 6
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relaxing as we waited for the next session of activities to begin, and Sonny joined us (or perhaps he was there first?). How or why the conversation began is long lost, but what remains in sharp focus for me is the brief interchange between Sonny and one young man. Race riots were shaping our view of the world in 1965, shattering the innocence of childhood with horrific scenes of fire hoses and German shepherds loosed on peaceful protestors. The young man was of slight build and fair skinned, fair haired, priding himself in always, always being fair in every regard – and so we saw him, too, a kind soul who sought to understand the disintegrating social fabric, puzzled and anxious as cities burned. Our young companion – I will call continued on page 7
Every day kids are dying because they starve to death or they don’t have medicines to save their lives! We are super lucky that we have friends to help us.
Guestopinion contin u ed from page 6
average of about 11,000 pounds (4.75 metric tons) of CO2 per year. We want to thank our many supporters in helping us achieve this result, and hope to continue saving more textiles from wasteful disposal. As the name implies, Planet Aid is focused on helping people across the planet. We support numerous projects overseas with the net revenue raised through the recycling of clothes and other donations. These projects include supporting teachers’ colleges, HIV prevention initiatives, nutrition programs and agricultural programs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I encourage you to read more about our projects on our website Planetaid.org, and learn what our employees are also doing here in the United States. • – John Nagiecki, Communications Director, Planet Aid surrroundedreality contin u ed from page 6
FUDGE: Yes, congratulations, but what does this have to do … DUMBLEDORE: We don’t have money for raises, Minister. Building and maintaining these 21st-century classrooms is expensive. And the technology becomes obsolete every six weeks. There are only so many galleons, Cornelius, and we can’t raise taxes any higher. BROWN: Minister Fudge, every single student at Hogwarts has a brand new chromebook. It’s so exciting! Imagine what Abraham Lincoln could have accomplished if he’d just had a chromebook. And ENO boards. There’s now an ENO board in every room in Hogwarts, even the janitors’ closets! FUDGE: ENO boards? McGONAGALL: They’re interactive whiteboards. Very fancy. I’m sure Jesus would have made something of himself if he’d just had access to an ENO board. Look, I’m sorry to have to cut this session short, people, but I need to get to my second job as a cashier at Five Below. Then, I have a commute to Hector, New York. It’s the only place I can afford to live. FUDGE: Well, I feel like real progress has been made here today! Until next time? The pensieve fades out … • youropinions contin u ed from page 6
him “Tom” although I confess I do not recall his name - must have noted that he would never resort to violence, regardless of insults that might be hurled his way. Sonny asked him very softly if the young man would mind if he touched him, gently. Our friend stood tall, shoulders back, chin up – I can see this clearly in my mind’s eye – I was sitting on the rail of the porch, facing him and Sonny, who quietly, gently, used two brown fingers
–Sophia Nickerson (age 9), Ithaca
#BLACKLIVESMATTER
On the morning of Nov. 3, I was stopped at the bottom of Elm Street by a traffic jam, not atypical for a weekday at 8 a.m. The car ahead of me Ithaca teachers protest on Rt. 13. Story on line at Ithaca.com had stopped across a lane of traffic on Floral Avenue. An (Photo: Josh Brokaw) elderly black man stopped to push slightly against Tom’s shoulders. his car at the base of Elm so Tom smiled indulgently. Sonny used the that his friend, a middle-aged black man, same two fingers, and once again gently could get out onto the curb. Suddenly, the pushed against Tom’s shoulders. Tom driver of the car ahead of me jumped out continued to smile. Another gentle nudge. and pointed a gun at the man standing Another smile. Another nudge. Smile on the curb. I realized that we were fading. I am no longer seated on the rail. surrounded by undercover police. Every I am standing, transfixed. Push. Lips taut. car in the traffic jam contained men in Stance uncertain, off balance. Once again, regular dress who got out of their cars to the gentlest nudge of two slender black surround the black man on the side of fingers. Smile gone. Eyes wide, almost the street. I recognized him as a neighbor panicked. My hands are now behind me, who I know by face but not by name. All the rustic porch rail supporting me as, of the undercover officers were white men. cicadas droning, the tension mounts. Many of them carried guns, some pointed One more nudge, softly, gently. And at my neighbor. Their faces wore calm and another. And Tom’s breath is now shallow, business-like expressions, communicating his face pale, his anxiety palpable. Sweat is to passerby that this was just business as dripping from all of our faces as we watch usual: nothing to be alarmed about. this drama unfold between two young However, I found everything to be men, perhaps ten years but somehow, light alarmed about. I was brought back to years apart. Another nudge. Now we all films about fascist regimes when every have shallow breathing, are tense, good car in our traffic jam suddenly produced will curdling as we fear an eruption. an armed agent wearing no identifying Sonny stopped. He did not need to uniform or badge, this group of secret say a word. He made his point, and as police suddenly surrounding my neighbor. I read now of “micro-aggressions” that On first instinct, I wanted to film the scene sting those who endure them daily, and around me, but a sneaky fear crept in: that seem trivial to those who would like Would they take my phone and smash it? to pretend that all is well, I remember Would they arrest me? If I started filming, Sonny who demonstrated so clearly how would those guns turn in my direction? I such nudges, whether physical, verbal, or am disturbed that such fears even crossed insinuated, are incredibly destructive as my mind. If I, a white person, who is they build, tensions mounting daily and in not poor, am afraid of the police, how danger of erupting. bad is it for my neighbors who are poor, Fifty years later. “When will we ever who are people of color? As I watched learn,” the refrain from Pete Seeger’s folk my neighbor quietly comply with the song we sang that summer, replays in my police, I felt sick at the message this scene head, unwinding, unraveling once again. projected to everyone driving by: A black man surrounded by the police. Message: – Eileen Bach, Town of Ithaca he must be guilty of something (how many of us ever remember that we are innocent until proven guilty?). A black man with guns to his head. Message: Black lives Thankfulness is very important. If you don’t matter. I felt sick in my complicity. only say your thanks on Thanksgiving, you I want us all to stop and think about should say your thanks everyday. We are what happened at the base of Elm Street all very fortunate that we all have clean that morning, and to ask ourselves, where water and that we have healthy fruits, do I stand? Are we a community where vegetables, and meat. commando-style force used against our Many people don’t have water, or if own community members is seen as they find water, they might not have it normal, as acceptable? Do we assume because they don’t know if it’s clean! Plus, that someone stopped by the police is California is running out of water because guilty? Are we the community that lets in the mountains it isn’t snowing as much Shawn Greenwood’s killing by officer due to global warming. Also, some adults Brian Bangs go un-prosecuted because that are 20-30 years old don’t know how we have not demanded an independent to read! We are really lucky that we have investigation? What if my neighbor who education. the police ambushed last Tuesday were to
We Are Super Lucky
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be prosecuted for a “crime?” What do we allow to be prosecuted as crimes? What about black and brown children passing by on their way to school that day? They hear the news so often of another black body murdered by police. What kind of fear does this scene at the bottom of Elm Street instill in them? A real and founded fear. How do we, as a community, show that Black Lives Matter? Next, I want us to have this conversation: How can we call anything that my neighbor may be accused of a crime, when the real and enormous crimes of our governments and corporations go unchecked? The real crime is millions of Americans without housing, healthcare, healthy food. The real crime is every person not meaningfully employed or paid a living wage. The real crime is Wall Street making billions of dollars off the whole mess, off of even our visits to the doctor. The real crime is the imprisonment and slave labor of over 2 million people in our country, most for nonviolent offenses, for crimes of poverty, for the crime of being abandoned and targeted by the system, for the crime of being black, for the crime of being poor. The real crime is the theft of trillions of dollars from US tax payers for war. The real crime is our government’s complete disregard for native treaties, leaving our native brothers and sisters without land, homes, food, work, clean air, water, soil. The real crime is mothers and fathers who fled here for their lives and their children’s lives, being deported, taken from their families. The real crime is our export of violence and poverty to resourcerich countries so that we can enjoy cheap fossil fuels and cheap factory goods. The real crime is our flying drones that assassinate anyone anywhere without due process. The real crime is white supremacy, which built this country by the massacre, enslavement and displacement of its original inhabitants, by the kidnapping and enslavement of 12.5 million Africans (“How Many Slaves Entered The US?” Henry Louis Gates Jr., Jan. 6, 2014. theroot. com). The list of crimes goes on, far beyond the end of this paragraph, beyond the end of this page. When will we as a community call these the real crimes? As my mom so poignantly reminds us: to the extent that we as a society fail to hold our governments accountable for the real and giant crimes of grand theft and murder, we will continue to scapegoat poor people and people of color, here and around the world. Sharing these words with my community is a small gesture in breaking my own silence, in recognizing my own complicity. I am grateful to so many in my community who name the real crimes and who actively change their relationship to the system. It is their presence and their voices which embolden me to become part of the conversation. I hope that my sharing can only encourage more voices to join in. This is our community and police salaries come out of our tax dollars. How do we want to see that resource and energy spent? – Leah Grady Sayvetz, Ithaca –
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zero food waste The Friendship Donations Network: it works
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here’s a lot of so-called trash out there which is perfectly good for the taking and the eating. Long before America knew that a freegan was someone who didn’t see the need to buy food when edibles fill dumpsters behind grocery stores, Sara Pines was plucking that perfectly good food from the trash and giving it to those in need. “What do you mean, do I know what ‘dumpster diving’ means?” the 78-yearold Pines said during a recent interview. “That’s my middle name.” After she founded the Friendship Donations Network in 1988, Pines said she learned when to go looking for food put out for the garbage man by grocery stores who didn’t understand the value they were wasting. “I’d go to the back of supermarkets that are no longer in existence, and they’d have these 4-by-10 foot sheds where they put the day-old food. Day-old cake and bread, produce, dairy, delicatessen,— everything,” Pines said. “They’d pile it up in a mountain and later in the day the garbage truck came and took it all away. Only I preceded the garbage truck. [The stores] had no idea I was doing this. “Every food source culls the food in the morning so everything is beautiful by 8 o’clock,” Pines continued. “That’s a good time to go, after they cull it. But for the rest of the day it keeps coming in. The truck never caught up with me. I’d come back later that day, at night, in the morning. They kept throwing food out the whole day.” The Friendship Donations Network (FDN) for years was nothing more than Pines picking what she could and coordinating volunteers to pick up food donations and take them to pantries, to Loaves & Fishes, to wherever they could be distributed to the needy or stored for soon-enough use. Transport was and is provided by volunteers—Pines’ own old Volvo station wagon could hold 18 banana boxes full of food, she found. FDN now has its own storage space in the Just BeCause center on West State Street, created by Jerry Dietz of CSP Management in memory of his wife Judy. 8
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progress in educating retailers and consumers about how much of our abundance goes to waste that is just fine for eating, there’s a long way to go yet. “We have to continue to connect with food donors and make sure we get more than just bakery items,” Rosen said. “There’s something of an ugly fruit and vegetable movement going on. We have to teach how to use imperfect foods, that with use-by dates there’s not really a connection to whether the food is good.” Pines, for her part, won’t be satisfied until all the waste is eliminated and all the people who are hungry get their share of the abundance that we can be thankful grows in this region.
Give Us Your Milk, Your Yogurt, ...
M e ag h a n S h e e h a n R o s e n a n d L i n d a My e r s ( P h o t o : P r ov i d e d) There’s a modestly-sized cooler, now crisp with the smell of apples donated from Cornell’s orchards. A truck-sized trailer built into their space is rich with the smell of root vegetables and holds some canned goods in reserve for emergencies. The space allows FDN to take on overflow items when big donations happen. When the colleges go out on breaks, FDN picks up what it can from dining services that would otherwise be thrown away. A “new foray” for FDN has been taking prepared food donations from the Statler Hotel, which had been composting everything until last November, according to current FDN director Meaghan Sheehan Rosen. o v e m b e r
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FDN started the “Food Hub” program three years ago, which allows people who might have a little extra produce in their garden to donate to a local drop-off location. FDN now touches on six counties in about a 40-mile radius and provides about 30 programs with food, Rosen said. The local food-saving program is growing, but there are no plans to “create anything big and extravagant,” Rosen said. “We all want to stay true to the mission Sara created. There’s a lot of food still being wasted, and we want to stay close to that mission. Because we’re small, we have a lot of flexibility to respond quickly.” Though Pines and FDN have made
2015
FDN began in 1988 when Pines visited migrant labor camps in the Sodus area and saw the need for food and everything else there. “I had a verbal agreement with a migrant advocacy group that I would collect whatever they needed,” Pines said. “The catch is you need to come and get it, because they were 88 miles from me. That hobbled along for two or three years, but they couldn’t get the gas money, the transportation, the drivers, and I was sending volunteers constantly to Sodus. I frantically looked for other pantries or other sources that would take the food, and it drew a lot of media attention that got the word out. Slowly, slowly, slowly, we built it up.” When Pines approached Wegman’s Ithaca location for donations in the early ‘90s, they had “never given food to anyone. It was an alien word to them,” she said. “I suggested they try it for one month to see how it works. They took it to corporate and said ‘We can try it.’ It never stopped. That doubled or tripled our quantity, with them giving us three, four, five, 600 pounds of everything every day.” When Pines came with her request, Wegman’s manager Gary Woloszyn told her, “We had many worthy organizations that requested the same things, and it was difficult for us to say yes to one organization but have nothing left for the others.” “Sara offered to become a “hub” for
the redistribution of the products, and we began our decades-long relationship,” Woloszyn said. “She created a systematic ‘daily pickup’ system with hundreds of volunteers to help the program be so successful.” From about 1993 until FDN found their own space a couple years ago, volunteers sorted every day’s take on the Wegman’s loading dock. Where Pines and Rosen say there’s still work to be done is that Wegman’s is the only store around to donate “everything”—not only bread and sweets, but produce and dairy too. “We’ve never had any problem with the donations, and we feed 2,000 people a week,” Pines said. There are Good Samaritan food-donation laws on both the state and federal level that protect retailers who donate produce in good faith from liability if someone might get sick. Other retailers have stopped giving out dairy and produce, leaving only the less nutritious breads and cakes. “They throw out all of their day-old fruits, vegetables, dairy, and deli,” Pines said. “They refuse to look at the Good Samaritan Act. If you’re saying no, let’s examine why.” Pines admits it might “take a lot of time to cull food and set it aside in a cooler” and to train three shifts of staff. “The worst thing is they throw it out. They pay to throw it out,” Pines said. Woloszyn makes the process sound pretty easy: “Our produce and bakery employees cull their departments every morning of day-old or bruised products,” he said. “These products don’t meet our standards for sale, but they can certainly be used.” Retailers letting FDN have at more of their waste is a “win-win-win,” Rosen said. “The businesses get a tax write-off, and they’re not paying to get waste hauled away.” Volunteers also need to learn that they “don’t need to be so perfect and picky,” Pines said. “Picture-perfect food that can be put in a magazine is what Americans are trained to look for,” she said, “which is why we have to use so much insecticides and chemicals. One of the problems with organic food is it has no insecticides or chemicals, so it won’t last as long and won’t look as good a day or two later, which is when we get the food. That’s an excellent byproduct of people wanting organic food. “You have the kind of volunteer who looks at the food and says ‘That apple has a little speck in it,’” Pines continued. “I said, ‘Sweetie, if we began to throw out the apples with specks, we’re going to have nothing. You take a little knife and just take out the bad spot, and it’s beautiful. Or you put it in a pot with several quarts of water and a bouillon cube and make a soup out of it.” Another large part of the FDN mission, besides educating stores and volunteers, is giving cooking lessons to the people who receive the food—preferably fresh—for they may have no idea what to
food. The worst enemy of nutritious food is the food industry: every time someone’s tried to publish on the industry effects [on nutrition], they’ve killed it through lobbying.” Pines is not so much of a zealot for healthy food that it obstructs her mission of saving waste. One friend who volunteered for Pines was fired “on the spot” after she turned down 500 pounds of Ghiradelli chocolate. “She was very addicted to sugar, and it made her sick,” Pines said. “There was a Wegman’s representative for Ghiradelli who said ‘I have 500 pounds of chocolate I’d like to donate.’ She said, ‘Oh, no, we don’t take sugar.’ I had a fit. I told her, do with a bag of onions or leafy greens.
You Can Add the Salt and Fat
“From the beginning,” Pines said, “my emphasis was on rescuing good food that would be dumped. Of course I was going to go to fresh, perishable food, because it’s perishable. I don’t think I would’ve got into rescuing food if it was all cans.” While she had “no qualms about diving anywhere,” Pines said she “scrupulously checked” with Cornell Cooperative Extension and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for their food safety guidelines. Getting fresh food to people who don’t have much of a shopping
‘Don’t ever make that judgment. People have a right to eat sugar, if they want to have a treat and rot their teeth.’” Teaching people how to use unfamiliar but healthy foods is part of the mission for FDN, both Pines and Rosen said. The Groton “Healthy Tuesday” at the village library is one example Rosen gives of a program that educates through cooking up a dish for people to try. Pines said she’s always an advocate of pantries and other food providers giving out samples. Booklets with instructions and recipes, like the one put out by Cooperative Extension on how to use kale, are also helpful. “Greens like kale and spinach are budget not only saves waste, it increases the nutrient value of the fuel folks are putting into their bodies. “Cans contain a lot of salt and don’t taste that good,” Pines said. “Fresh, perishable food is nutritious, and tastier, and you can do so much with it. You can put in as much salt, sugar, and fat as you want, but prepared food usually [already] has a high quantity of sugar, salt, and fat.” Pines has been looking for years for a dry cereal that takes it easy on the sugar. “One of the reasons poor people tend to be so fat is every dry cereal I’ve seen contains sugar. There’s something in our brain that gets addicted to sugar early on, so every company puts sugar into their T
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very expensive in the supermarket,” Pines said. “If people aren’t used to it, they’re not going to touch it. There are people who don’t even know how to use a potato unless it’s in a can. Spinach, what does it take? You wash the damn stuff, put it in a pot with a minimal amount of water, steam it or cook it for two minutes, and it’s done.”
Leave It On The Porch, Please
FDN’s newest venture is the “neighborhood food hubs,” which are nothing more than a cooler put out on a volunteer’s porch or yard as a drop box for food which needs using. “If you’re growing food in a garden, and you have a little bit of extra tomatoes or peas, you’re not going to bring them here,” said Linda Myers, editor of the FDN newsletter. “Or if you have a CSA share and you can’t get it that week, the hubs are great.” The program started three years ago with four hubs, with volunteers bringing the coolers full of produce and other donations to the Just BeCause center for sorting and distribution. Over 11,000 pounds of food have been donated through the program so far—which is still just a sliver of the more than half-million pounds of food FDN saves every year. “The hubs have got us a little bit more on the map,” Rosen said. “FDN has always been working out of the back entrances of stores.” The hubs have also increased neighbor-to-neighbor sharing, Rosen said; with 15 of them now, food that comes to the hub in Lodi stays in Lodi, and that which comes to Danby stays in Danby. “It allows people the joy of donating a gift of their labor, knowing it will give to people who need it, right in their community,” Myers said. Over her whole life, Pines has kept the memory of growing up poor. She had a “single, somewhat incompetent mother” from the age of 4 when her father passed, and said she “looked around and said, ‘This isn’t fun. I’m not going to be poor.’” Pines completed a doctorate and married “someone quite educated” in her husband Aaron, which suddenly put her “in the middle-class world in my early 20s.” “I never wanted anything. I’m not a material person,” Pines said. “I always had a consciousness of people who don’t have resources. I don’t like waste, I never liked waste, and if you don’t like waste, what are you going to do about it?” Though Pines is “retired,” she still gets calls from Rosen for advice. “She has an amazing ability to hone in on where there’s a need and how to serve,” Myers said. “Sara talks to you as a lifelong friend and says, ‘Do you know anybody who needs this?’” “Wherever I am, if I’m going to stay continued on page 10
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Microbeads Banned By Legislature
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ith the support of about 10 members at a public hearing on Nov. 17 the Tompkins County Legislature voted in favor of banning products with microbeads from the shelves of county retailers after a six-month transitional period to educate storeowners and allow time for stores to clear their inventory. The new countywide law will prohibit the sale of personal care items that contain the tiny plastic spheres. Most commonly found in some kinds of toothpaste and face wash, microbeads have been shown to work their way into local waterways. Several members of the public attested to the fact that they have been found in Cayuga Lake. Earlier this month, Albany County Legislature unanimously passed a similar law. “Plastic microbeads were designed to wash down the drain, and a study by the New York State Attorney General shows that they are bypassing sewage treatment plants,” said Hanna Ring, of Lafayette, central New York program coordinator for the Citizens Campaign for the Environment. “Studies show that when fish and aquatic life consume microbeads, the attached toxins transfer to their tissue. The toxins then bio-accumulate up the food chain, with humans being susceptible to the greatest accumulation of toxins.” A group of young environmentalists relayed what they’ve seen while volunteering for Plastic Tides Jr., a group of students combining adventure and science through stand-up paddle boarding to fight plastic pollution in the Finger Lakes, according to its Facebook page. “We did beach cleanups and later analyzed the samples, and we found microbeads in Cayuga Lake,” said Kayla Markwardt, 13, of Ithaca. “We came here today to show that another age group, like middle schoolers and high schoolers, want to preserve our lakes in Tompkins County,” added Owen Crane, 15, of Lansing. The resolution passed unanimously, and Don Ellis, the sole member of the Tompkins County Weights and Measures Department, will be in charge of conducting store inspections to make sure the products are no longer sold once the six-month grace period ends. Those found to be in violation could be fined up to $2,500 per day. There was some discussion among the legislators about whether or not six months was a sufficient period of time for business owners to clear their shelves of the products. Legislator James Dennis (D-Ulysses) made a motion to amend the
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Hannah Ring (Photo: Jaime Cone)
resolution to give a 12-month grace period of instead. He said he was worried about small business owners losing money if they’re not able to sell the products they already have in time. Legislator Carol Chock (D-Ithaca) responded that other counties have been using the six-month model, and they seem to be doing just fine. The board also considered instating the six-month period to get the products off the shelves with an additional sixmonth period during which warnings would be given, not fines, but it was acknowledged by the board that most likely only warnings would be given out on the first offense anyway, and the original resolution passed. • –Jaime Cone southreporter@flcn.org Donationsnetwork contin u ed from page 9
there a few months or more, I’ll start a donations network,” Pines said. In 1986 she visited Nepal and asked tourists for their excess food, medicine, and clothing, which she took to one of Mother Teresa’s homes for sick and dying children in a taxi. And now that she’s living at Kendal at Ithaca, she has advertisements on the in-room television network asking people to donate food to a box she leaves in the coat room, which then goes to FDN. She also comes into a goodly number of mattresses from Kendal residents who are moving, since they can’t be sold by reuse stores under state law, and she gives those to people “who are sleeping on the damn floor.” “I wouldn’t dream of buying new. It’s against my principles of sustainability,” Pines said. “I believe in peace and not violence, and I believe throwing out food is violence. It’s taking it away from people who need it, whose health is going to be impaired because they’re not getting what they need.” You can call the Friendship Donations Network at 216-9522, email info@ friendshipdonations.org, and visit the website at friendshipdonations.org. •
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expenses projected. They can only charge so much for rent in this market. A lot of times it’s about cutting your expenses.” Bohn noted there are often legacy issues downtown, like remediating gas stations, that don’t add to the value of a project. Bohn said he was talking to the project manager of the Canopy Hotel recently, who told him they “wouldn’t be able to pursue this project anymore” because the cost of construction had come in well above their architect’s estimates. For the “they’ll build it anyway” crowd, McDaniel had this to say: “In the early years [of the assessment program], we paid an independent third party $3,000 to $8,000 to go through and verify everything. It’s now just as rigorous a process in-house. We look at all of the income numbers and expense projections. How’d you get this vacancy rate? How are you calculating tax dollars, your marketing budget? All of that is submitted and gone through over a significant period of time.” • • • For those just catching up to this issue, the city’s tax abatement policy is known as CIITAP (pronounced “see-tap”; Community Investment Incentive Tax Abatement Program). An abatement now gives developers a steadily declining break on property taxes over the first 10 years after their project is complete. The current policy starts the tax break at 90 percent off the assessed value
of the developer’s reported on Nov. 19 improvement to before getting into the lot and declines other issues that it by 10 percent every was quickly decided year until it runs by consensus that tax out. abatements weren’t There are three the appropriate current abatement tool to encourage requirements. One affordable housing, is that the building always a need in the live within the city. The sense was, Jennifer Kusznir, Nels Bohn, Heather McDaniel appropriate McCollister said, the (Photo: Josh Brokaw) density district, county Industrial which covers Development Agency downtown and parts of the West End. A that makes the final call on abatements second is that it’s at least three stories high wasn’t suited to the task. or is a rehabilitation of a historic property. “Affordable housing would be And, most importantly for taxpayers, the better monitored through inclusionary development should increase the tax value or incentive zoning,” McCollister said, of the property by at least $500,000 a year. referring to requirements the city doesn’t Whenever a new project comes for an yet have for developers to put in a certain abatement, there are always people asking percentage of rent-controlled units. for guarantees that the building will be Eventually, McCollister’s committee environmentally friendly, that it will use came up with a proposal to offer a baselocal labor, that the completed project— level seven-year abatement and offer a 12often a hotel, recently—will pay a living year abatement for those doing a little bit wage. more for the community. In addition to the Those oft-repeated concerns led current requirements, the entry-level sevenMayor Svante Myrick to task a committee year proposal would require developers of stakeholder-types—business and to do a lot of self-reporting. They would labor leaders, city and county reps, those have to use energy use tracking, or get sorts—with coming up with some new certification as a base LEED design. They recommendations that could increase would have to report where their workers “broad community benefits” that might live. And they would be required to make include addressing the most popular demographic reports and give stated goals concerns. for workforce diversity. Alderperson Ellen McCollister (D-3rd) Those aiming for a longer, 12-year chaired the committee’s six meetings; she abatement could choose from one of three
Stories, poems, drawings and photographs are welcome.
This year’s theme is “Transitions”
Email submissions, with a subject line of “Readers’ Writes” to editor@ithacatimes.com
options: building a project that uses energy at a level 20 percent below state code; hiring 40 percent local labor; or, in a singleuse building like a hotel, guaranteeing a living wage for 100 percent of a workforce numbering at least 25 people. Just because the working committee came up with this proposal didn’t mean that every member was happy with the results. Stacey Black of IBEW Local 241 was calling for a 95 percent requirement in our Sept. 16 feature on the issue (“City, County, and Local Labor Argue About Tax Abatements”), and his tune hasn’t changed. “It’s been a struggle for people to believe there is enough labor and contractors willing to hire local workers on these projects,” Black said. “The tangible data is hard to come by because we don’t have a recorded history.” 100-percent local labor, Black admitted, wasn’t feasible because of specialized skills that are required on highcost downtown jobs like sheet pile walls, elevator construction, and crane operation. “When that crane comes today, it comes with Joe, and if it goes to Buffalo, Joe goes with it,” Black said. “Some of these guys are used to traveling all over the state, even the Northeast. You’re going to see weird numbers on certain trades.” The committee will “circulate” the new CIITAP requirement proposal and return to it in January. • – Josh Brokaw reporter@ithacatimes.com
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architect Frank Furness, who designed the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts along with many other Philly buildings, briefly tutored Louis Sullivan, and was called by Lewis Mumford “the designer of a bold, unabashed, ugly, and yet somehow healthily pregnant architecture.” The houses at 310 and 314 W. State St.—the former Planned Parenthood building—were designed by Alvah Buckbee Wood, who was an architecture student at Cornell from 1871 to 1874 and designed several of Ithaca’s houses along with the first Ithaca High School and the Morse Chain Works, according to historic preservation materials. – Josh Brokaw reporter@ithacatimes.com
Holiday Events
City of Ithaca
Eyesores on Green and State to Go
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wo buildings west of downtown are slated for demolition by the end of 2015. JoAnn Cornish, the city planning director, reported at the end of the Nov. 19 Planning & Economic Development meeting that the long-unused buildings at 404 W. Green St. and 327 W. State St. recently received demolition orders, which must be fulfilled by the end of December. The two residential buildings, which abut the City Health Club property, have sat abandoned for a very long time. Cornish, a lifelong Ithaca resident, said she couldn’t recall when they were last occupied. “We’ve been talking about this for years, what kind of mechanism we can put in place to allow us to work with property owners to fix properties up,” Cornish said. “We didn’t have anyone that was focusing on it. The end goal is always compliance.” City code inspector Skip Schell has been instrumental in taking on some of these “attractive nuisance” properties, Cornish said. That term refers not to the aesthetic qualities of a building, but to the tendency that less-than-savory activities inevitably occur in an empty structure. That is, they attract nuisances. Schell has a firm handle on the warnings and other documentation that must be granted a property owner who is “letting properties deteriorate or become unsafe,” Cornish said. The inspector has been working with city judge Scott Miller and prosecutor Bob Sarachan to issue judgments and fines. In the past, Cornish said, when council members have heard from constituents about nuisance properties, they’ve often had to answer that the city started prosecution, but “it
was thrown out in court.” “This is all written into city code, and it’s just that not anyone has paid so much attention before,” Cornish said. “I think council and the courts have not had the will, or perhaps the stomach, to prosecute some of these properties.” The Green Street property is assessed by the county at $30,000 in value, and the State Street property is assessed at $75,000. There’s also an agreement in place to “cure” the Stick-style house at 310 W. State St. owned by the Salvation Army and adjacent to its facility on South Albany Street. “We’ve been trying to work with them a long time to fix it up so there’s no further deterioration,” Cornish said. “The Salvation Army does a lot of really good things, and we don’t want to give them a black eye, but they’ve got to step up to the plate and get that house so it’s not going to be damaged any further.” A carriage house out back of the 310 W. State St. property that was “absolutely beautiful,” Cornish said, did require demolition. The property is part of the TitusWood Historic District, created by Common Council in April. John Schroeder, a planning board member, spoke highly of the “architectural significance” of the 310 W. State St. house during deliberations over creating the historic district. “In the exuberance of its expression and the quality of the detailing I think it’s an example of the Stick style that could be in a national textbook. I looked up photos of nationally-known Stick-style buildings and this holds its own.” The house’s scalloped edges under the eaves and overhangs are a “reference to an early Romantic idea of canopies, what would have been called an Oriental style at the time,” Schroeder said. The colonnades of the porch have bands in the middle “clamping together two pistonlike elements” that are “a machine-like expression of the power of the building.” Schroeder compared the colonnades to the work of 19th-century Philadelphia T
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– Alicia Freedman with reporting from Josh Brokaw
Alt Gift Fair Moves To the Space
Stick -style Victorian to be saved. (Photo: Josh Brokaw)
Foodtrucks contin u ed from page 4
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very year since 2004, the Ithaca Alternative Gift Fair has brought the well-meaning back into the holiday season with its sale on the first Saturday of December. Amazing Elastic Plastic is too mainstream for these intrepid tablers. The Egg-tastic-patterned Snuggie will be nowhere in sight. An electronic Finger Dance Mat doesn’t get these nonprofiteers grooving. Tickle Me Elmo’s insipid 20-year reign of loudmouthed narcissism over Sesame Street will have no influence over the Space@GreenStar—where the IAGF moves this year for its 12th annual sale. The “alternative” to a gift of some disposable stuff from the made-for-TV stand offered at this fair are donations, made out in the recipient’s name, and granted for use by one of 54 local nonprofits. This model has raised over $540,000 the past 11 years for nonprofits in Tompkins County and the surrounding area. There are hundreds of gifts to choose from, including helping someone who is having a rough year get what they need to do laundry, buying books for kids that don’t have any, and covering the cost of lab tests for sick low-income patients. In most cases, offerings range from $1 to $25. Though donations can be given online from Dec. 6 to 31, the inscribed gift cards with the honored donor’s name are only available from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Dec. 5 at the Space. Donations can be made for anything from snacks and dinners, to gas for Gadabout vans, to tuition discounts for seniors at the Community School of Music and Art, to pop-up tents to shelter kids’ games at Ellis Hollow Community Center. $5 to the Cayuga Lake Watershed Network provides fish food for a “Trout in the Classroom” aquarium. $20 to Catholic Charities buys a gas card for a low-income person looking for a job. $20 for the Lehman Alternative Community School buys paint for a renovation trip the I
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students are making to New Orleans. In recent years, the growth of the IAGF has caused the event to be split between two area churches. “Moving to The Space @ GreenStar is a very exciting new element for the Ithaca Alternative Gift Fair,” Devan Rosen, a long-time organizing team member, said. “They’re providing a single location that will bring together all of the participating nonprofit organizations into one space. We just couldn’t fit everyone in one room. This will catalyze a more cohesive feel to the event. It’s a beautiful space for a beautiful event, and there is plenty of free parking.” Gift descriptions can be browsed online at ithacaaltgiftfair.org. Once the fair is over, gifts can be bought online until the end of the year.
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McClive said of the early food truck days in Rochester. “Any restaurant owner, any resident who didn’t like the sight of us could call in and we’d lose.” The overarching vending law in Rochester came out of a committee that included “15 or 20 people,” McClive said, and “the fire department was there from the gate, saying this is why this or that is unsafe.” The fire department was one of the easiest players to deal with in the regulatory process, McClive said, in large part because firefighter Scott Sardone served as a liaison to mobile vendors. The cost of compliance wasn’t cheap, but the three-year phase-in was the “key to it being successful.” “Every year there was a rollout, we were spending money at the cost of the business owner. It was a tough pill to swallow at first. The suppression system had a $3,000 price tag,” McClive said. “They could have ostensibly stopped all of our business by saying starting a month from now, you have to have this. That would have halted all food truck sales.” “The consensus was after the regulations were phased in,” Parsons said at City Hall, “most of the food vendors welcomed them. They leveled the playing field. Anybody can build any vehicle to serve food, and that’s competing with people with high-quality food operations and state-of-the-art equipment.” Parsons said that any laws would not apply to stands that don’t have roadworthy wheels, like the hot dog stands of Lou Cassaniti or Thomas Bailey. How the fire department might regulate a truck that doesn’t move, like Al Smith’s Hot Truck on Stewart Avenue, is something that has yet to be studied, Haines-Sharp said. An earlier version of this story appeared on Nov. 18 at ithaca.com with the headline “Fire Safety for Food Trucks?” • – Josh Brokaw reporter@ithacatimes.com –
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Up and Coming Runners
Coach Rich Bernstein in the Grooming Business By Ste ve L aw re nc e
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hen I took over this sports column, I was impressed that some coaches seemed so perpetually excited about the kids they mentored. The first time I spoke with Rich Bernstein (who had been coaching for eight years), he was clearly grateful for the opportunity to be a high school track and cross-country coach at Ithaca High, and his enthusiasm was inspiring. Fast-forward 23 years to Aisle 17A in Wegmans. I saw Rich on Friday, and he hustled over and said, “Steve! I have a great group of kids running in the Federation Meet this weekend!” I replied, “Let’s talk on Sunday, Rich.” Talk we did, and Rich said, “That great group of kids I told you about is a real work
in progress. There is only one senior, and they bought into a very demanding training program that has seen them put in 1,200 miles since June.” He added, “They got together six days a week to run, they held each other accountable, it’s very special. In fact, in my 31 years as a coach, it has been very hard to find a group of kids like that.” The lone senior is Kieran Loehr, and Bernstein told me, “That kid stuck around the JV program for three years, and this year—when a lot of seniors back off and focus on other things like college—he made a commitment to ramp it up. He has been really steady and strong.” I asked Rich if the old adage “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit
of 35 or 36 guys coming up, and the girls’ in” translated to a high school team, and he numbers are very solid as well. I brought laughed and said, “Yes, it does. Everybody up the old movie, The Loneliness of the Long just noticed that an older guy was out there Distance Runner, and I asked if that applied running, knowing that he wouldn’t be the to this team. Rich said, “No, they are seeing top guy, but just working hard and pushing all that hard work paying off, and they say, the engine forward.” ‘I want to be like those guys.’ The other runners These guys’ long-term goal is competing in the to win States/Feds and qualify Federation Meet were for Nike Nationals, but enjoy sophomore Silas Durfel the two-year commitment and juniors Cole Beells, and process—very rare for Ian Tomasik, and Jake kids.” Avery. Bernstein said, Bernstein and his charges “Jake finished 22nd at the Federations, 15th in the will climb aboard a yellow States, and he’s our top bus again next weekend, as IHS runners (Provided) dog.” the Federation Meet, which I asked Rich if 31 years Bernstein unofficially calls was feeling like a long “the real State meet,” is not time, and he laughed again. “Well, to be the end of the road for the 2016 version of honest, I am getting tired of yellow buses,” the Little Red. “We are running in the Nike he said, “but I keep seeing these new crops Regional Meet in Poughkeepsie,” Rich said. of runners coming up and I find myself ‘We’re back at it.” While he is not one to saying, ‘I need to stay with them until they complain, he recalled, “Last year, there was graduate.’” a major snowstorm and they had to plow The next few years do look promising the course for the runners. I have a photo for the Little Red. In addition to the of me, trying to get to various parts of the aforementioned underclassmen that ran last course to yell at the kids and I was trudging weekend, Bernstein said, “There is a group through knee-deep snow.” •
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NO ONE COVERS YOUR TEAM LIKE
OUR TEAM Keith Raad
Jeremy Menard
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Community beat still strong after 22 years b y Wa r r e n G r e e n w o o d
to it as the “RichieSing”.) Holtz is a schoolteacher in Ithaca, a guitar teacher, and he also works at the Tompkins County Public Library. I have written of him before. I wrote an article about his former folk group, Fall Creek Folk, for the Ithaca Times. Holtz told me that Fall Creek Folk grew out of Ithaca Community Sing. (And both FallCreek Folk and Ithaca Community Sing have performed at the yearly Ithaca Festival.) As I write this, it is November. I went to one of the Ithaca Community Sing events last summer in August … on the Saturday night of Aug. 22. I went with Richie Holtz and friends. We drove out into the country, past Ithaca College, south of Ithaca, to a beautiful property on a road called Richie Holtz (standing with guitar) and fellow Ithaca Community Sing members (Photo: Rye Bennett ) Nelson Road, with a charming neolog cabin house … All music is sacred. And it seems like an important, ongoing, surrounded by pine forest and a pond with Kurt Vonnegut long-time community event. And, ultimately, cattails. what I’m writing about is the Ithaca arts The log cabin house was the home of an his is something that I’ve wanted community. Ithaca activist named Susie Kossack. The logs to write about for some time now. Also, it seems like something from were a yellow-brown color, with a russet-red There is an Ithaca America’s vanished past, a pre-digital second floor, a brown gable roof, and a Tin Community Sing event that America where people would gather on a Woodman chimney. The porch had hanging occurs every month here in Saturday night for barn dances, or at a dance plants, little Japanese lanterns, rattan Ithaca. Incredibly, they haven’t missed a pavilion, and music was live, and human furniture, and Buddhist prayer flags. single month in 22 years. (Since Labor Day, interface was person-to-person as opposed Purple flowers and cattails, a pine forest, 1993.) to electronic. and four Air Force towers blinking red in the My interest in writing about the Ithaca I became aware of the event through my summer night surrounded the pond. Community Sing is that it seems like such friendship with the musician Richie Holtz, The Sing itself was set up under a big an Ithaca phenomenon. (I suspect that not a who essentially created it, and who functions lot of other American cities have an ongoing as its host/impresario/coach/spiritual guide. continued on page 24 event like this.) (So much so that members informally refer
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Wishing For Something Else New Hunger Games fights for attention By Br yan VanC ampe n
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o little actually happened in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1 that I got soured on the whole series, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 2 is nothing but gloom and doom, and not the kind of gloom and doom that’s cathartic. The final chapter in the Hunger Games franchise left the whole audience muted and bummed. We all just got up and left, thinking, “Well, that’s over.” After Part 1, I was just grateful for a movie with an actual ending. (If you only have time in your life for one of them, I think the second film is the best in the series. Part 4 finds Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) rallying an army against President Snow (Donald Sutherland) as they creep along many city blocks rigged with machine guns, firebombs, and some weird black ooze. And I don’t know where the alien critters in the sewers came from in the series bible, but Lawrence and her crew go ahead and fight ‘em. I sat there thinking about Aliens and 20 other movies that did this same stuff so much better. That extends to the actors, too. Every
time an actor like Jena Malone came onscreen, I started daydreaming about how much better I liked her in Donnie Darko; when Elden Henson showed up playing the mute Pollux, I wished I was at home, watching him in Daredevil. A listless, grey mood of hopelessness and contractual obligation hangs over the conclusion of the tale, starting with a fluorescent-lit shot of Katniss trying to speak with a bruised throat. Most disheartening was seeing Boogie Nights co-stars Julianne Moore and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman trading political soap opera-isms in a series of unnecessary scenes that typify the direction the Hunger Games movies have taken. I couldn’t get into the Suzanne Collins novels, so I can’t tell you how faithful the ending is, but when it came along, I couldn’t help but think, “It’s 2015. After being a national symbol/female warrior, this is the best thing you can do with your life when you’re done with that?” Maybe the Hunger Games movies don’t fail the Bechdel test, but ultimately I feel that they failed their heroine.
• • • It seems we’re living in the wake of a deluge of interesting documentaries on a dizzying variety of styles, subject matter, and sub-genres. As I am fond of saying, if you can find someone like Robert Crumb or the band of brothers seen in The Wolfpack, you’re almost guaranteed a compelling documentary. In recent weeks, I’ve seen docs on the legacy of Back to the Future, a Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen (Photo Provided) quest to unearth Atari cartridges buried in a New Mexico landfill, it. For years, he has been trying to make and film history epics about Cannon Films a feature based on the facts, and when he and the “unmaking” of the 1996 version of connected with the widow of a journalist The Island of Dr. Moreau. who took a 16mm camera looking for Michael Rockefeller, son of the answers, Heston took 10,000 feet of Nelson Rockefeller, was a young, active film and made The Search for Michael anthropologist who disappeared in 1961 Rockefeller. The documentary is now during an expedition in the Asmat region available on DVD and Netflix streaming. of New Guinea. The incident inspired Heston has been living with this material at least one book, and for decades, the for years, and while he has his own theory questions surrounding Rockefeller’s as to what became of the man, there is disappearance have become something of a a third-act shot that will stun you and National Geographic urban legend … and I question Heston’s answers. • had never heard of Rockefeller. Read an in-depth interview with Fraser Luckily, Fraser C. Heston, son of the C. Heston at Ithaca.com. actor Charlton Heston, knew about all of
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while “SCARLET FEVER”—apparently something like a scarlet letter—appears in all-caps. In two tiny pieces, I Love You and Badge Wrestles Death, Taylor works with white lines against black. (Both pieces are captioned with the titles below.) Love is amusingly crude in both conception and execution. We see two squirrel-like creatures in simple outline; one stabs the other in the back with what looks like a nail. Queenie parodies the royal portraiture of days gone by. We see in profile, facing right, the silhouette of a dark rat. She is intricately detailed with white hairs shrouding her black bulk. She sports a bright red pleated collar, stiff and proper. Badge is a more complex scene: under a hanging light, around a table, a figure with hood and scythe armwrestles a badger. It’s the sort of thing that would seem precious anywhere outside of a children’s book. And yet Taylor pulls it off with her refined graphic imagination. Cute, yes; saccharine, no. Square-shaped, “Queenie” by Sylvia Taylor (Photo: Bill Chaisson) One More River to Cross is another relatively detailed scene. A horizontal band of red above energy that carries through the small could be sky or just an abstract graphic gallery space. Many of the pieces use element; it bears, in jaunty black a cutout technique with an affinity to handwriting, the title of the piece. The folk art as well as modernist collage. larger black-and-white area below is Taylor has glued her animal and human characters onto clean toned backgrounds, filled with choppy waters, rendered as an intricate field of gently curling lines. creating a kind of silhouette effect that Toward the right, one of Taylor’s heroines heightens the disconcerting effect. The pokes her face up from the deluge. We figures seem off-kilter, out-of-place, like see her eyes and her animal headdress. figures in a dream or vision. She stares out at us—incongruously Scarlet Fever: The Diagnosis is a deadpan, nonchalant. striking demonstration of Taylor’s blend Shelter features an intricately-cut, of wit and angst. It is a storytelling image, small, central design against a large area like something out of a graphic novel. of pale yellow. Amidst a thicket of black Two heads in profile face each other: branches a red human baby reaches out a male doctor with spectacles and a to embrace a wild creature—possibly a mustache, and a red-faced, ponytailed fox. The piece strikes a note of sweetness girl with a tiny snake coiled around that plays off of the more sinister images her neck. The doctor appears dutiful here. and meek. He holds out a disembodied Taylor’s show at FOUND effectively arm with which he employs his tongue balances portrait-like pieces and depressor. The girl, however, is feisty and narrative scenes. Both are notable for wild—just this side of enraged. their graphic economy, offbeat sensibility, There is a large caption above— and range of invention. The show is hand-lettered, as in several other pieces uncommonly rich. • here. “She has” is in lowercase cursive ocal printmaker Sylvia Taylor is one of our great stylists. Working primarily with hand-printed linocut, she creates modern day animal fables that combine fancy and wit with a streak of darkness and disquiet. She employs a deceptively simple cartoon-like drawing style, which she combines with a clean, pared-back sense of graphic design and a fertile narrative imagination. Her November exhibit at FOUND Antiques (through Nov. 29) shows off her range with a generous selection of prints and drawings, mostly on the small side. The bulk of her work here is printed in black-and-white—sometimes accented with red—creating a striking graphic
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MOVE-IN SPECIALS
Open floor plans with guest bath on first floor perfect for entertaining. Upstairs has spacious bedrooms, a full bath, and ample closet space.
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Spacious floor plans Private entrance Private patio Central heat & AC 24 hour maintenance Off street parking Fitness room Playground
100 GRAHAM RD ITHACA, NY 14850 [E} themeadowsithaca@coniferllc.com [P](607)257-1861 www.themeadowsithaca.com
CabarETC
MOVE-IN SPECIALS
Open floor plans with guest bath on first floor perfect for entertaining. Upstairs has spacious bedrooms, a full bath, and ample closet space.
**Discounted Security Deposit Only $450!!!!** **Free Cable & Wi-fi for the first 6 months**
Fully equipped kitchens The Meadows offers Spacious floor plans generously sized town Private entrance homes in Ithaca, NY Private patio with a unique blend of Central heat & AC comfort and functionali 24 hour maintenance ty. Located just minutes Off street parking away from shopping and Celebrate the Holidays at the Hangar as the Burns perform original songs and Sisters Fitness room dining, all located in a seasonal favorites from cultures around the world. Playground peaceful setting.
Home for the Holidays Concert
Bring nonperishable foodstuffs or give on-site donations to the Food BankMEADOWS and be entered to win fabulous Hangar prizes. THE AT ITHACA
100 GRAHAM RD ITHACA, NY 14850 [E} themeadowsithaca@coniferllc.com [P](607)257-1861
www.themeadowsithaca.com December 11 & 12 @ 8pm Tickets start at $18 Get yours today! Call 607.273.ARTS or visit HangarTheatre.org
PREMIER SPONSOR
*
Located at 801 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca, NY 14850
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Open floor plans w guest bath on first fl perfect for entertain Upstairs has spacio bedrooms, a full ba and ample closet spa
The Aesthetics of Distinction **Discounted Security Deposit Only $450!!!!**
Make Do at Handwerker Gallery **Free Cable & Wi-fi for
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Fully equipped kitchens
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the By Ambe r D onof r iofirst 6 months**
The Meadows offers generously sized townhomes in Ithaca, NY with a unique blend of comfort and functionality. Located just minutes away from shopping and dining, all located in a peaceful setting.
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Fully equipped kitchen Jonathan Kline, another artist in the ake Do” is theThe final show of the Meadows offers show, is a basket weaver, and his selected fall semester generously at Ithaca College’s sized Spacious floor plans townworks, collectively titled Circle, ” focus Handwerker Gallery, and it is “Full Private entrance in Ithaca, NY both on the resulting products and on the one of eclecticism andhomes political boldness, Private patio withspecifically, a unique of process involved. By stripping down black wholly aware of itself. More the blend he harvests Central heat ash trees and hickory near his& AC politics the show dealscomfort with are thoseand of functionali 24 hour maintenance Kline gathers the materials he needs hierarchy and both thety. labor and materials Located just home, minutes for his baskets, time used in objects’ creation. As thefrom show’s shopping he has Offspent street parking away and objects perfecting and becoming knowledgeable statement bluntly and clearly posits: “In Fitness room dining, all located in a about. But beside his baskets, Kline also contemporary markets, the distinction work Playground reflecting on between art and craft ispeaceful severe—the setting.exhibits an installation how the products came to be. Numerous former belonging to distinction as ‘high tree trunks, likely the inner bits after the art’ through association with galleries and more malleable outer layers stripped, museums, while craft tends to be labeled THE MEADOWS ATareITHACA are presented upright again, as if creating a as ‘low art,’ relegated to commercial and GRAHAM RD ITHACA, NY 14850 miniature forest. domestic spaces.” An object, thus, 100 is By literally juxtaposing functional societally considered more based [E}valuable themeadowsithaca@coniferllc.com [P](607)257-1 and nonfunctional works, these two in on aesthetics rather than functionality. particular seem to illustrate the point of “This distinction,” the statement continues, www.themeadowsithaca.com the show: how what we consider as “fine art” and the distinctions we may make between artists and artisans can be so arbitrary. It feels strange examining functional objects within a contemporary gallery, as if the objects, in being presented as aesthetic, are Open robbed floorofplans w simultaneously their guest usefulness by being bath on first fl put on display where they perfect for entertain cannot be used. They appear like cultural **Discounted Security Upstairsobjects has spacio fit for anthropological Deposit Only $450!!!!** a full ba study, bedrooms, somewhere at the crossroads of being Part of Julie Crosby’s “Gather” section. (Photo:& Facebook) and ample closet spa **Free Cable Wi-fi for neglected as objects the first 6 months** yet presented in a way that forces us to look, that deems them “builds a false hierarchy, one that this significant and as art. exhibition seeks to confuse. ” Fully equipped kitchen The Meadows offers When seeing materials used in two And indeed, Make Do does an Spacious floor plans generously towndifferent ways—created into objects of use, excellent job of confusing boundaries. sized Private entrance homes andNY also presented in nonfunctional but With work ranging from sculpturalin Ithaca, Private patio aesthetically that society statements to basket weaving, theunique show with a blend of pleasingfashions brings Central heat would accept as art—it to light the & AC features four artists, each of whom and functionalicomfort hypocrisy of the situation at hand. We are addresses these issues of craft versus high 24 hour maintenance ty. Located just minutes more inclined to accept these baskets and art in their own distinct way. While some Off street parking away from shopping bowls as and fine art in the present because works are fully functional for everyday aFitness room all located a are presented within gallery space purposes, others by thedining, same artists may be they in afterPlayground leaving this entirely aesthetic, of nopeaceful useful value apart setting.- presented as art. But context, what then? In the outside world in from décor. which we live, similar objects are still taken Julie Crosby, who works primarily in for granted, and visual pieces still the pottery, presents intricately textured and THE MEADOWS ATare ITHACA ones societally accepted as valuable. The shaped cups and bowls that populate her 100 GRAHAM RD ITHACA, NY 14850 hierarchy continues. section of the show (entitled “Gather”), Also included in the exhibition are illustrating the tedious work and thought [E} themeadowsithaca@coniferllc.com [P](607)257-1 Sarah Gotowka, who once again excels that goes into pottery and how the useful in her focus on material, and Aram Han is also aesthetic. Meanwhile, two whitewww.themeadowsithaca.com Sifuentes whose poignantly affecting painted display boxes jut from the wall, works explore the complex histories and inside of which are clay works also created relationships involved with sewing. by Crosby. In one, handfuls of brown Make Do is on display at the cylinders or cups stack haphazardly atop Handwerker Gallery, located on the first one another. In the other, shards of broken floor of the Gannett Center at Ithaca pieces sit in a pile, the resulting form College, until Dec. 13. • organic and oddly satisfying.
MOVE-IN SPECIALS
2015
books
The Secret Lives of Birds New book highlights nature’s high risers By Bil l C h ai s son
T
he new coffee-table book published by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology evokes words like “sumptuous” and “exquisite.” The large format—10.5 x 9.5 inches—allows for reproduction of bird images that are lifesize or even larger, as is the case with a golden-winged warbler on page 146. Gerrit Vyn’s photographs are presented on pages that would have been said to have a matte finish in the old days of producing prints from film. This tiny softening of Vyn’s crystal-clear images gives you the feeling of seeing the birds with actual air around them, air with a hint of moisture in it. In a brief chapter by Miyoko Chu at the end of the book, you learn that the Lab of O, as it is often called, began a century ago with the hiring of Arthur A. Allen
as the first professor of ornithology at Cornell. Hence the subtitle of this book, “100 Years of Listening to Nature.” But Chu also points out that Allen’s style included a great deal of popularizing. He led bird walks himself, wrote articles for popular magazines, and hosted a radio show about birds. Allen was also keen to introduce new technologies to the science of bird study. To that end he dragged enormous recording machines (borrowed from the motion picture industry; talkies had just been invented) into the field to record bird songs. Now the Macaulay Library at the lab holds more than 200,000 audio and video recordings of all sorts of animals. Allen’s populist bent has survived through the years. Ornithology probably has more amateur contributors than any of the other natural or physical sciences. But his influence is also seen in this book, which has a foreword written by novelist Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver has a master’s degree in ecology and evolution and is married to an ornithologist, but she isn’t a research scientist. In fact, the charm of her contribution to The Living Bird is her admission that she grew up not
liking birds much; although her parents were both devoted birders. Once she got through adolescence and early adulthood her attitude started to soften, but it was only on a bird-watching trip to Panama with her father that she finally “gets it.” The three chapters in The Living Bird are by Scott Weidensaul, a natural history writer and researcher who is also an editor at Audubon Magazine; Lyanda Lynn Haupt, a naturalist and eco-philosopher who has worked with birds in a management capacity; and John Fitzpatrick, a professor of ecology and evolution at Cornell and the director of the Lab of O for the last 20 years. Weidensaul’s chapter, “The Secret Lives of Birds,” is an introduction to the biology and behavior of birds. His writing is clear without being chatty, informative without droning, and some of the information departs from the usual received wisdom. For example, he rated the brown thrasher as a better mimic than the mockingbird. Haupt’s chapter, “Inspiration Aloft,” is a bit more impressionistic than Weidensaul’s, as one would expect, given her billing as ecophilosopher. In her opening section, “Wild Wisdom,” she lists several examples of observed bird behavior, and she sums up by saying we “remember that no matter where we live, the cycles of nature surround and support us.” In other words, what do we get out of birdwatching? Why is it good for us? Fitzpatrick, in his “Beacons of Our Planet” chapter, addresses the politics of birdwatching. Birds are ubiquitous and active; they are a component of nature that is easier to monitor than some others. “One cannot fully grasp,” he writes, “how much birds reflect planetary conditions without first acknowledging the devastating scale at which humans have already altered bird populations.” In an afterword by none other than Jared Diamond, the geography professor, who started his career studying the birds of New Guinea, meditates briefly on the future. Contrary to the tone of some of his books, Diamond strikes a hopeful note, allowing for a best-case scenario in which many of the “good” (as opposed to “rubbish” or generalist) species will be extant and so will Western technological society. Holding together everything are Vyn’s magnificent photos of North American birds. In his best photos they are actively doing something, which is why we watch them. • T
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Gift certificates available.
which were widely attributed to climate change. He notes that Lake Champlain rose to its highest level in 184 years of record keeping and that there were two “100-year floods” within five years. A “100-year flood” is a statistically derived phenomenon; a flood of that size has a 1-percent chance of occurring in any given year. That is, they can occur two years in a row or 50 years apart. Climate scientists would not consider 184 years to be a long record. There are naturally occurring climate cycles in the North Atlantic region that could also account for the record amount of rain. Kelly is looking at a single explanation rather than considering multiple possibilities, something of a contradiction to his Chinese medicine practice. The acupuncturist repeatedly returns to the idea that climate science is confusing because of the amount of data involved and the complexity of the systems discussed. This is a fair criticism. Many attempts have been made to write popular summaries with Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth receiving the most attention. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times praised the book for its readability but noted, “It does not pretend to grapple with climate change with the sort of minute detail and analysis” that other popular books had. Kelly implies that if you learn more about Chinese medicine, which insists that you pay attention to “patterns and tendencies” in a system, then you will be better able to understand the world around you, including climate change. He may have something there. Many university earth science or geoscience departments,
books
The Patterns of Change
Climate change from an Eastern point of view By Bil l C h ai s son
B
rendan Kelly is a practitioner of Chinese medicine who decided that there was more to climate science than understanding how climate works. “If we were to look at climate change from a different vantage point, we can see how what is happening in the environment around us is also happening within us,” he asserts in his introduction. Our “usual perspectives” have led us to destabilize the climate. Chinese medicine, on the other hand, holds that we are inseparably connected to nature. “An Eastern perspective on the Western science of climate change helps us to see patterns in the vast amount of global climate data,” Kelly writes. Kelly is an acupuncturist and a practitioner of herbal medicine, and his descriptions of his practice are detailed and informative. It is, as he claims, a quite different approach to health care and a very different model of understanding physiology, with a greater emphasis on the movement of organizing energy—called Qi—through the body. But critiquing Western medicine is different from critiquing Western science, about which he seems to know little. Medicine, like engineering, is an applied science and does tend to be reductive. Climate science is quite the opposite. Not only does it encompass several different disciplines—physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and mathematics—but in the case of climate
modeling, it looks at the entire globe at once, generally considering multiple factors at once, and presuming that they are interactive. Kelly claims, “We look for patterns and connections rather than the more common Western perspective that looks for the absolute truth.” A geoscientist who has just finished doing multi-variable statistical analysis on faunal data to produce eigenvectors that correlate with sea surface temperatures would be pretty baffled to read such a statement, as there is uncertainty is every step of her work. It soon becomes evident that Kelly is first and foremost addressing the so-called “climate change deniers.” Writing in 2015, he harkens back to James Hansen’s 1988 confidence in the reality of warming and Bill McKibben’s 1989 prediction in The End of Nature that we were all going to hell in some kind of hand-basket, seemingly under the impression that the scientific community wasn’t sure about climate change at that point. Generally speaking, they were, but few aside from Hansen addressed the general public about it. John Gribbin published Hothouse Earth: the Greenhouse Effect and Gaia in 1990, and his bibliography includes references on the greenhouse effect that go back to the early 1980s. Kelly’s belief that the scientific consensus has changed is incorrect. The public and political consensus has changed. Kelly makes much of the severe storms that pummeled Vermont in 2011,
particularly those with faculty that study climate, have actually changed their approach to studying the planet: it is now called “earth systems science,” and explicitly presented with a greater emphasis on the relationships among objects than the objects themselves. Kelly seems unaware of this, but he is in a sense proposing an alternative perspective that amounts to using Chinese medicine as a metaphor for understanding earth systems. Furthermore, because Chinese
medicine urges you to think yourself as an inextricable part of a system, the environment around you, Kelly believe that this perspective will encourage more personal responsibility on the part of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, the residents of Western countries. The striving materialism of the West corresponds to yang energy in Chinese medicine. He blames our surfeit of doing for generating yang energy that is warming the globe. He does not seem to distinguish between metaphor and cause and effect, but frankly the message is the same. •
Shop Local Buy Local S R e a de R s ’
W Rites
is su e d e a d li n e d e c . 18
ince 1981, the Ithaca Times has closed the year with the “Readers’ Writes” issue, featuring submissions from our most valuable commodity, you. Stories, poems, drawings and photographs are welcome. It’s a chance for you to have a voice in the paper other than the letters page.
This year’s theme is “Transitions”
That can be as loosely interpreted, as tradition here dictates. Of course, a wide range of submissions will be accepted. Send submissions to Attn: Readers’ Writes, the Ithaca Times, PO Box 27, Ithaca, New York 14850. Or, you can email submissions, with a subject line of “Readers’ Writes” to editor@ithacatimes.com.
get writing!
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‘SING’ contin u ed from page 17
blue gazebo-tent with lawn chairs and Japanese lanterns of yellow and purple and red. Walking out to the pond, Richie told me that when they started the Sing, over twenty years ago, most people were in their 40s, and now they’re in their 60s - the oldest member, Walter, is in his late 80s. He told me that they used to routinely go to midnight and beyond, and now, being senior citizens, they wrap up earlier around 10 or 11. There was an excellent, largely vegan, potluck dinner, and then everyone got down to singing. (There were approximately 20-something people there, coming and going.) Holtz, leading the group on guitar, opened with the appropriate Beatles standard “With a Little Help From My Friends” and continued with the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” both superb singalong songs. And Holtz segued into the Kinks’ “Summer Afternoon,” which seemed appropriate for the season, and we continued on with Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon” (for which, unfortunately, I didn’t have the lyrics in my head like the other tunes). Then an English woman named Kathleen Gale coached the group through a folk song that was a variation of the venerable “Froggy Goes
a-Courting” (a song which, apparently, one can alter the lyrics to quite a bit). And I met the local musician Jan Nigro, who I had heard of and even read about before. Nigro played guitar while Rich Recchia - another Fall Creek Folk alumnus - played a bongo drum. And we sang the Rolling Stones classic “Ruby Tuesday.” I found it deeply meaningful to sing this song from my YA period circa 1965. And Susie Kossack had the most wonderful, friendly cat—a black-andwhite, Holstein-patterned cat—that circulated among us and sat on our laps as we sang. Eventually - being a bit slow on the uptake - I realized that the group was working out of a book called Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook, copies of which were scattered about on the various tables and chairs under the tent. The book claimed to have “Words, Chords, and Sources to 1,200 Songs”. Edited by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson—a Sing Out Publication. We sang an old folk song called “John O’Dreams,” and then Richie led the group through “John Barleycorn,” which I knew from Traffic, the rock group of my youth, but it is apparently a much older, traditional English folk song. And we sang the train song “City of New Orleans,” which was written by the late Steve Goodman, although we all know it from the sublime Arlo Guthrie version. I found it deeply compelling to
sing this one again—as I used to play and sing it years ago when I was in a band in L.A. (and played guitar every day on the lunch hour with a musical mentor that I worked with at Warner Bros. Animation). As it was growing dark on a summer evening, Susie Kossack put out tea and candles, and we sang “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.” This one was deep in my memory. I suppose we all have the Elvis version imprinted in our brains, but I know it from a compelling Bob Dylan cover. Richie and Jan played guitar together, Rich played percussion, and another musician named Chad Novelli played mandolin very beautifully. And we sang Lennon & McCartney’s “If I Fell,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow,” the Grateful Dead’s “I Know You Rider,” Tom Paxton’s “I Can’t Help Wonder Where I’m Bound,” and (if I am to believe my notes) a song called “My Sex Change Operation.” We also sang the Kink’s irresistible “Apeman,” the Rolling Stones “This Could Be the Last Time,” Bob Dylan and George Harrison’s “If Not For You,” and wrapped up with Paul Simon’s gentle and thoughtful “Slip Sliding Away.” And I noted that Richie is a terrific guitarist and singer, and I could see why people call this the Richie-Sing, as he is unquestionably the leader/coach/ impresario of the event. The temperature plummeted, even though it was an August night. (This is
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Ithaca.) It became cold. Susie Kossack brought out blankets from the house … and it was nice, singing, wrapped up in blankies. And, when the Sing finally concluded, it was with a feeling of time well spent. The late Jerry Garcia once said that one of the most fun things a human being can do is to sing harmony. He was right. People should sing more often and make music a part of their lives. It is life well spent. • • • I met with Richie at the Crow’s Nest Café on the Ithaca Commons for conversation. He’s a fun guy to spend time with. Richie has had a fascinating life. He grew up in Queens, and, as he put it, “woke up to the Beatles in 1963 at almost age 14.” He went to college in Binghamton, at age 17 (Harpur College, now Binghamton University). But he left to go traveling with his guitar—sort of like Woody Guthrie, except that Guthrie traveled America, whereas Richie traveled the planet. He said, “I spent several years all around Europe and North Africa and Asia. … They called it the Hippie Trail.” This was in the late 1960s and the ‘70s. He traveled and played guitar and sang with people wherever he went … Morocco … Crete … Holland … Turkey … Mexico. He said rock and roll was everywhere in the late ‘60s and “the common language … even with people who didn’t speak English that well … was music.” Eventually he returned to the States and Binghamton University as a French language major. Volunteering at a daycare center in Binghamton, he was offered a job as a preschool assistant, and he returned to the university to get his teaching certificate. He lived on a communal farm in the Binghamton area (“a story in itself ”), and in 1986 he moved to Ithaca, where he became a schoolteacher. He retired a decade ago but still substitute teaches. He said he discovered an affinity for children when he was traveling, “working with kids [and] playing with kids”. When I referred to the way he guides the Ithaca Community Sing as “a gentle guiding spirit,” he laughed and said, “Being a teacher, I know how to move things along. … I work with kindergarteners.” We talked about the community aspect of the Sing, and he said, “It really is community. That’s the good thing about this town; you can have community if you want it, by joining or creating.” • To receive emails on upcoming Ithaca Community Sing events, email Melody Johnson at rcrepea1@twcny.rr.com
Thank You
to our
2015
sponsors
Partners in Flight
Partner in Education
Mainstage Premier Sponsors
Charades Team Sponsors Cayuga Medical Center CFCU Community Credit Union Ithaca Times Travis-Hyde Properties
KIDDSTUFF Series Producing Sponsors Ithaca Child Wegmans
Mainstage Associate Sponsors Ciaschi, Dietershagen, Little, Mickleson & Company, LLP Family Medicine Associates of Ithaca,LLP The Finger Lakes Radio Group Ithaca Times
CFCU Community Credit Union Cayuga Radio Group
Pay What You Can Sponsors Ithaca Bakery Schlather, Stumbar, Parks & Salk, LLP CabarETC Premier Sponsor C.S.P. Management Event Sponsors Ithaca Beer Company Rob Ainslie of Wells Fargo Advisors Sheldrake Point Winery
Cornell University
C.S.P. Management Tompkins Trust Company Travis Hyde Properties
KIDDSTUFF Presenting Sponsors Buttermilk Falls Pediatrics The Elizabeth Ann Clune Montessori School of Ithaca Ithaca Community Childcare Center Northeast Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine The Strebel Fund for Community Enrichment of the Community Foundation Education Program Sponsors Drs. Richard & McCutcheon Dentistry Therm, Incorporated
These companies have a direct impact on the quality and artistry of Hangar programming while promoting their business and brand to the Hangar’s diverse audiences.
Hospitality Sponsor La Tourelle Resort and Spa
If you work for one of the companies that sponsor us, ask for a 10% discount on Hangar Shows**
To learn more about how to get your business involved in a sponsorship visit HangarTheatre.org or call 607.273.8588.
Supporting Sponsors Diane’s Downtown Automotive Dryden Mutual Insurance Company HOLT Architects Longview an Ithacare Community MasterCraft Miller Mayer LLP P.W. Wood & Son, Inc. Rachel Philipson Photography & Design Sciarabba Walker & Co LLP Sheldrake Point Winery Swarthout Coaches, Inc. Taitem Engineering, PC T.G. Miller P.C. Tompkins Weekly The William Henry Miller Inn WSKG Public Broadcasting WVBR ** Offer valid on Hangar Theatre productions only. Based on availability, restrictions may apply
Home for the Holidays Concert
Celebrate the Holidays at the Hangar as the Burns Sisters perform original songs and seasonal favorites from cultures around the world.
December 11 & 12 @ 8pm Tickets start at $18* Get yours today!
Gift Certificates, Giftiks, or Gift Subscriptions are the perfect fit for any occasion!
PREMIER SPONSOR
Call 607.273.ARTS or visit HangarTheatre.org Located at 801 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca, NY 14850
* Additional fees may apply
*Subject to availability.
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concerts
11/27 Friday
Music
Mountain Flair.
11/26 Thursday
bars/clubs/cafés
Moosewood Thursday Night Live | 8:00 PM-10:00 PM | Moosewood Restaurant, 215 N Cayuga St Ste 70, Ithaca | Local musicians. Jazz Thursdays | 6:00 PM-7:30 PM | Collegetown Bagels, East Hill Plaza, Ithaca | Enjoy jazz and bagels at CTB. Hoodoo Crossing | 6:00 PM | The Haunt, 702 Willow Ave, Ithaca | Blues. Rock. Ribs.
11/25 Wednesday Salsa Dancing | 10:00 PM | Agava, 381 Pine Tree Rd, Ithaca | Latin, Jazz, Soul, Dancing. Reggae Night | 9:00 PM-1:00 AM | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | I-Town Allstars are the House Band featuring members of: Mosaic Foundation, Big Mean Sound Machine, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, John Brown’s Body and More! Edick | 8:00 PM-11:00 PM | Two Goats Brewing, 5027 State Rte 414, Burdett | Bree and Scott. Two of Hector’s Finest. Jam Session | 7:00 PM-10:00 PM | Canaan Institute, 223 Canaan Rd, Brooktondale | The focus is instrumental contra dance tunes. www. cinst.org. Iron Horse | 7:00 PM-10:30 PM | Redder’s, 1710 Trumansburg Rd., Ithaca | Southern Rock. Thanks For Giving with the M.O.B. (Mary Ott Band) | 7:00 PM | Silver Line Tap Room, 19 W Main St, Trumansburg | Jazz Classics. Djug Django | 6:00 PM-9:00 PM | Lot 10 Lounge, 106 S Cayuga St, Ithaca | Live hot club jazz. i3º | 5:00 PM-7:00 PM | Argos Inn, 408 E State St, Ithaca | Live Jazz: A Jazz Trio Featuring Nicholas Walker, Greg Evans, and Nick Weiser Bobby Henrie & Dee Specker: Home On The Grange | 6:00 PM | Rongovian Embassy, 1 W. Main St., Trumansburg | Old-Time, Folk. Cap and Cady | 8:00 PM | Rulloff’s, 411 College Ave, Ithaca | Honest sound with
11/27 Friday Black Friday with The Gunpoets | 9:00 PM | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | Hip Hop, Rap, Indie, Underground Rap. Contra and Square Dances | 8:00 PM | Great Room at Slow Lane, Comfort & Lieb Rds, Danby | Everyone welcome; you don’t need a partner. Dances are taught; dances early in the evening introduce the basic figures. Jamie Arcangeli | 8:00 PM-11:00 PM | Two Goats Brewing, 5027 State Rte 414, Burdett | Acoustic Rock, Pop, Singer Songwriter. Matuto | 7:00 PM | The Haunt, 702 Willow Ave, Ithaca | Brazilian Bluegrass, Folk, Appalachian. Bob & Dee | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM | Americana Vineyards, 4367 E Covert Rd, Interlaken | Celebrating Great Songwriters. Folk, Bluegrass, Americana, Country. Paul Kempkes: Dr. K | 7:00 PM | Heavily Brewing Co., 2471 Hayes Rd, Montour Falls | Solo guitar. Songs by Steely Dan, Springsteen, and more.
11/28 Saturday Bobby Henrie and the Goners | 9:00 PM | Rongovian Embassy, 1 W Main St,
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11/29 Sunday Acoustic Open Mic Night | 9:00 PM-1:00 AM | The Nines, 311 College Ave, Ithaca | Hosted by Technicolor Trailer Park. International Folk Dancing | 7:30 PM-9:30 PM | Kendal At Ithaca, 2230 N Triphammer Rd, Ithaca | Teaching and request dancing. No partners needed. Whistling Dyl with special guest Badhand | 6:00 PM-10:00 PM | Maxie’s Supper Club & Oyster Bar, 635 W State St, Ithaca | Hillbilly Soul. Blue Skies | 4:00 PM-6:00 PM | Americana Vineyards, 4367 E Covert Rd, Interlaken | Vintage Jazz, Blues Standards.
12/3 CITY AND COLOUR 12/4 MATISYAHU WITH KEVIN KINSELLA 12/5 GRACE POTTER 12/6 PUNCH BROTHERS 1/29 GET THE LED OUT 2/20 THE MOTH MAINSTAGE 2/28 JOAN BAEZ 3/26 STEVEN WRIGHT
MANY MORE SHOWS NOT LISTED HERE! STAY UP-TO-DATE AT DANSMALLSPRESENTS.COM
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Trumansburg | Swinging Rockabilly. The Ithacats | 9:00 PM | Silver Line Tap Room, 19 W Main St, Trumansburg | Rockabilly, Retro, Early Rock and Roll. Gerald’s Crossing, Travis Knapp | 8:00 PM-11:00 PM | Sacred Root Kava Lounge & Tea Bar, 139 W State St, Ithaca | Folk, Old-Time, Americana. Brett Beardslee and Scott Adams | 7:00 PM-10:00 PM | Heavily Brewing Co., 2471 Hayes Rd, Montour Falls | Classic Rock, Blues, Jazz, Traditional Country. Butcher’s Blind | 6:00 PM | The Haunt, 702 Willow Ave, Ithaca | Americana, Folk, Rock. Ithaca Musicians for Bernie Sanders | 4:00 PM-12:00 AM | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | Music by Dan Aloi, Alan Rose, Ironwood, Common Railers, Johnny Dowd, Fly Rods, Bad Hand, Glacial Erotics, Kitestring, and Alter Koker. Amy Helm & The Handsome Strangers | 8:00 PM | Center For the Arts of Homer, 72 S Main St, Homer | Americana, Old-Time, Bluegrass, Folk.
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11/30 Monday Blue Mondays | 9:00 PM | The Nines, 311 College Ave, Ithaca | with Pete Panek and the Blue Cats. Open Mic Night | 8:30 PM | Agava, 381 Pine Tree Rd, Ithaca | Signups start at 7:30pm.
12/01 Tuesday Open Mic | 9:00 PM | Lot 10 Lounge, 106 S Cayuga St, Ithaca | I-Town Community Jazz Jam | 8:30 PM-11:00 PM | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | Hosted by Professor Greg Evans Irish Session | 8:00 PM-11:00 PM | Rulloff’s, 411 College Ave, Ithaca | Hosted by Traonach Professor Tuesday’s Jazz Quartet | 8:00 PM-10:00 PM | Madeline’s Restaurant, 215 E State St, Ithaca | Jazz. Intergenerational Traditional Irish Session | 6:30 PM-9:00 PM | Sacred Root Kava Lounge & Tea Bar, 139 W State St, Ithaca | Calling all fiddlers, whistlers, pipers, mandos, bodhran’s, and flute players. All Ages & Stages. Tuesday Bluesday w. Dan Paolangeli & Friends | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | Lynn Wiles & Angie Beeler: Viva Rongovia | 6:00 PM | Rongovian Embassy, 1 W. Main St., Trumansburg | Latin, Bossa Nova, Americana.
Team Atlas Presents: Black Friday with Tone Atlas, Banko Fresh, and Wvvy Wi | 8:00 PM | Funk ‘n Waffles, 727 S Crouse Ave Ste 8, Syracuse | Rap, Hip Hop. Sirsy, Pale Green Stars | 8:00 PM | Funk ‘n Waffles, 727 S Crouse Ave Ste 8, Syracuse | Rock, Pop, Indie Rock. 95X Locals Only Live: Stone Thrower, Impulse, SaltLake | 7:00 PM | Lost Horizon, 5863 Thompson Rd., DeWitt | Heavy Metal, Hardcore, Death Metal.
11/28 Saturday OFA/OAMS Fall Band Concert | 7:30 PM | Owego Apalachin Middle School, Owego | Big Band, Classic Covers Hamell On Trial with Charley Orlando | 9:00 PM | Funk ‘n Waffles, 727 S Crouse Ave Ste 8, Syracuse | Hardcore Folk.
11/29 Sunday A Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols | 3:00 PM | Christ United Methodist Church, 36 Church St., Moravia | A traditional Christmas service with Organ, Brass, Harp, Soloists, and Vocal Ensemble. Followed by a Christmas Tea with Scones and Cookies. Contact rhv2@cornell.edu
12/01 Tuesday Cornell Music Piano Studio Recital | 8:00 PM-9:30 AM | Barnes Hall, Cornell, Ithaca | Piano students of Xak Bjerken. Ithaca School of Music Woodwind Chamber Ensemble | 7:00 PM | Hockett Family Recital Hall, Ithaca College, Ithaca | Classical.
Film cinemapolis
Friday, 11/27 to Thursday, 12/03. Contact Cinemapolis for Showtimes Suffragette | The foot soldiers of the early feminist movement, women who
ITHACA BALLET PRESENTS
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Regal Cinemas Ithaca
Wednesday 11/25 to Tuesday 12/01| Contact Regal Ithaca Cinema for Showtimes Creed | The former World Heavyweight Champion Rocky Balboa serves as a trainer and mentor to Adonis Johnson, the son of his late friend and former rival Apollo Creed. | 132 mins PG-13 | The Good Dinosaur | An epic journey into the world of dinosaurs where an Apatosaurus named Arlo makes an unlikely human friend. | 100 mins PG |
11/27 MATUTO 12/6 ALL THEM WITCHES 12/12 THE JOHN KADLECIK BAND 12/31 NYE SPECTACULAR WITH DRIFTWOOD 2/21 KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS THE HAUNT
FRIDAY 7PM ∙ SATURDAY 3PM ∙ SUNDAY 3PM
DECEMBER 11-13 TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
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were forced underground to pursue a dangerous game of cat and mouse with an increasingly brutal State. | 106 mins PG-13 | Brooklyn | An Irish immigrant lands in 1950s Brooklyn, where she quickly falls into a new romance. When her past catches up with her, however, she must choose between two countries and the lives that exist within. | 111 mins PG-13 | Room | After five-year-old Jack and his mother escape from the enclosed surroundings that Jack has known his entire life, the boy makes a thrilling discovery: the outside world. | 118 mins R | Spotlight | The true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese, shaking the entire Catholic Church to its core. | 128 min R | Trumbo | In 1947, Dalton Trumbo was Hollywood’s top screenwriter until he and other artists were jailed and blacklisted for their political beliefs. | 124 min R | Obvious Child | A twenty-something comedienne’s unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront the realities of independent womanhood for the first time. | 84 mins R | Can You Dig This | Can You Dig This explores the urban gardening revolution currently taking place in South Central Los Angeles, one of the largest food deserts in the country. We follow the inspirational personal journeys of five ‘gangster gardeners,’ all planting the seeds for a better life.. | 80 mins NR |
2015
11/27 GUNPOETS 12/2 THE MIGHTY DIAMONDS 12/5 SISTER SPARROW & THE DIRTY BIRDS 12/19 DAVID BROMBERG QUINTET 1/9 GILL LANDRY 2/13 FREAKWATER THE DOCK
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Victor Frankenstein | Told from Igor’s perspective, we see the troubled young assistant’s dark origins, his redemptive friendship with the young medical student Viktor Von Frankenstein, and become eyewitnesses to the emergence of how Frankenstein became the man and the legend - we know today. | 109 mins PG-13 | Secrets In Their Eyes | A tight-knit team of rising investigators, along with their supervisor, is suddenly torn apart when they discover that one of their own teenage daughters has been brutally murdered. | 111 mins PG-13 | The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 2 | As the war of Panem escalates to the destruction of other districts by the Capitol, Katniss Everdeen, the reluctant leader of the rebellion, must bring together an army against President Snow, while all she holds dear hangs in the balance. | 137 mins PG-13 | The Night Before | On Christmas eve, three lifelong friends, two of whom are Jewish, spend the night in New York City looking for the Holy Grail of Christmas parties. | 101 mins R | Love The Coopers | When four generations of the Cooper clan come together for their annual Christmas Eve celebration, a series of unexpected visitors and unlikely events turn the night upside down, leading them all toward a surprising rediscovery
of family bonds and the spirit of the holiday. | 107 mins PG-13 | Spectre | A cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organization. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE. Daniel Craig stars with Christopher Waltz and Lea Seydoux. | 148 mins PG-13 | The Peanuts Movie | Snoopy embarks upon his greatest mission as he and his team take to the skies to pursue their arch-nemesis, while his best pal Charlie Brown begins his own epic quest back home.| 88 mins G | Bridge of Spies | During the Cold War, an American lawyer is recruited to defend an arrested Soviet spy in court, and then help the CIA facilitate an exchange of the spy for the Soviet captured American U2 spy plane pilot, Francis Gary Powers. | 141 mins PG-13 | The Martian | During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. | 144 mins PG-13 |
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Groundhog Comedy Presents Stand-Up Open-Mic | 9:00 PM, 11/25 Wednesday | Lot 10 Lounge, 106 S Cayuga St, Ithaca | Held upstairs. The Soup Comes Last | Kitchen Theatre, 417 W. State St., Ithaca | Runs Sunday ,11/29 through Sunday, 12/13 | Rachel Lampert’s memoir of her 1997 trip to China to stage the first-ever production of West Side Story in the People’s Republic returns for an encore production. Miscommunications, awkward translations, and cultural missteps beg the question, “Will the show go on?” A one-woman play, with a dozen characters, about clashing and collaborating. Info and tickets at www. kitchentheatre.org Anon(ymous) | 8:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Dillingham Center, Ithaca College, Ithaca | Homer’s “Odyssey” is transported to the modern world by playwright Iizuka, whose multicultural heritage informs this work. In search of his mother after being shipwrecked, Anon travels through the United States. He encounters menacing and enticing characters and strives to find his own identity as he considers what it means to be an immigrant in America. Ticket Details go to ithaca.ticketforce.com. Info at http://www.ithaca.edu/hs/ depts/theatre/mainstage/theatre1516/
PM, 11/27 Friday | Triphammer Marketplace, 2255 N. Triphammer Rd., Ithaca | Farmer’s & Artisan’s Market at Triphammer Marketplace. Outside 8 a.m. to noon, Inside 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Fridays through December. Locally grown & produced foods and handcrafted items. Local seasonal produce, honey, flowers, baked goods, meats, pottery, woodwork, jewelry, glass, fiber arts and the Owl’s Head Fish Truck! Lots of variety, plenty of parking. CRC Walking Club | 5:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Ithaca High School, 1401 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca | Walking, large muscle group strengthening, and gentle yoga.
Mentors Needed for 4-H Youth Development Program | CCE Education Center, 615 Willow Ave, Ithaca | Mentors commit to 3 hours per week for this school year, with the option to continue next year. The Mentor and Student meet twice a week at Boynton Middle School from 3:25 PM until 4:35 PM.The Mentor-Student Program is an opportunity to make a positive impact in a young person’s life. An adult Mentor meeting regularly, one-on-one with a middle school student and read, do homework, play board games, and more. Behind-thescenes help with programming very much needed. For more info, call (607) 277-1236 or email student.mentor@ yahoo.com. Open Jam with Featured Songwriters | 7:30 PM-10:30 PM, 11/25, Wednesday| Varna Community Center, 943 Dryden Rd (Rt. 366), Dryden | Join hosts David Graybeard and Mitch Wiedemann. We are looking for local songwriters, poets and authors to showcase their work. Each week we will spotlight an artist for an hour, from about 8:00 PM to 9:00 PM, to perform (mostly) original compositions Friday Market Day | 8:00 AM-2:00
Special Events Thanksgiving Day Dinner | 12:00 PM-2:00 AM, 11/26 Thursday | Burdett Presbyterian Church, 3995 Church St, Burdett | The menu will include roast turkey, mashed potatoes, cornbreadapple-sausage stuffing, traditional stuffing, gravy, squash, escalloped corn, green beans, fruit salad, cranberry relish, homemade breads and pies and beverage. Take-outs will be available. Deliveries will be made in the Burdett area. Reservations are requested by
Matuto,
Comics For Collectors, Friday, November 27, 11:00 a.m.
The Haunt, Friday, November 27, 7:00 p.m.,
Black Friday will be represented excellently by our local comic book fortress, Comics For Collectors. The creators and talented crew of the comic A Piggy’s Tale, will be in-store and singing books from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Local to Ithaca, artists Ethan Young and Tod Emko have both forged unique paths in the comic industry. A Piggy’s Tale, based on Emko’s real life three-legged dog Piggy, who will also be hanging out at the store, shares the adventures of Piggy and Simon (a cat) as they work to keep the streets of NYC safe for all sentient beings!
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Matuto, a Brazilian slang word for “country punpkin”, is a blues based NYC band that dabbles heavily into Brazilian based modes and tempos, fusing Americana stylings with bluegrass, dub, reggae, and traditional blues. The members of the band have worked and toured with the likes of Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Ezperanza Spaulding, and Bela Fleck. These guys have the chops, and combine it with a real passion to create original art. h e
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Black Friday: A Piggy’s Tale,
Art Classes for Adults | 11/25 Wednesday | Community School Of Music And Arts, 330 E State St, Ithaca | Adult classes and private instruction in dance, music, visual arts, language arts, and performance downtown at the Community School of Music and Arts. For more information, call (607) 272-1474 or email info@csma-ithaca. org. www.csma-ithaca.org. Learn to Play or Practice Bridge | 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, 11/27 Friday | Ithaca Bridge Club, 609 W Clinton St, Ithaca | Coaches available. No partner needed. No signups required. Walk-ins welcome. The Ithaca Bridge Club is located down the hall from Ohm Electronics in Clinton St. Plaza. Meaningful Activity for Aging Gracefully: Eleanor Leibson | 2:00 PM-4:30 AM, 11/30 Monday | Country Inn and Suites, 1100 Danby Road, Ithaca | The Ithaca College Gerontology Institute presents this workshop. The presenter will be Eleanor Leibson, OTR/L, PYT, DRS. To register, go to http://www.ithaca.edu/ agingworkshops/ Tu Salud: Insuring Your Health Workshop | 6:15 PM-7:45 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | GIAC, 301 N Albany St, Ithaca | CULTURA Ithaca workshop. Information about local healthcare services and opportunities for guests to start applications. Contact Info: Carolina Osorio Gil (Director, CULTURA Ithaca), (607) 227-2334 CULTURA Ithaca: Tu Salud: Insuring Your Health Workshop | 6:15 PM-7:45 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | GIAC, 301 N Albany St, Ithaca | Information about local healthcare services and opportunities for guests to start applications. ASLCI: American Sign Language
Learning Group | 5:00 PM-7:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Barnes & Noble, 614 S Meadow St, Ithaca | ASLCI is a casual group for Ithacans of all signing abilities. We welcome everyone, Deaf or hearing, to learn more about Deaf culture and practice ASL. Our group meets every Tuesday at Barnes & Noble (614 S. Meadow St.) from 5-7pm, in the study area behind Starbucks. You may arrive and leave whenever you wish. For more information and resources for beginning signers, please visit our website: aslchatithaca. wordpress.com P.L.A.C.E. A Local History Lunch Series with Rod Howe | 12:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | History Center, 401 E State St, Ithaca | P.L.A.C.E. as an acronym: People, Land, Architecture, Culture and Enterprise. Each session will focus on one of these themes and how they have contributed to instilling a strong commitment to this place. The sessions will be interactive as participants share their perspectives on these themes and place. Select local historical information will be shared to seed discussion. T’ai Chi Classes at Lansing Library | 11:30 AM-12:30 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Lansing Community Library, 27 Auburn Rd, Lansing | John Burger - Instructor. T’ai Chi promotes balance, flexibility, coordination and can reduce pain. T’ai Chi is also been shown to lower the risk of falls, increase energy levels, enhance sleep, and reduce stress and anxiety. Effective Decision Making with Arpi Hovaguimian | 9:00 AM-12:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | BorgWarner Room, 101 E Green St, Ithaca | This workshop is about the assumptions about life that influence our decisions. We will explore whether these assumptions help us make effective decisions, or whether we reflexively use our assumptions to protect ourselves from the anxiety that is part of the decision making process.
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O Tannenbaum | 10:00 AM-4:00 PM, 11/28 Saturday | Tioga County Historical Society Museum, 110 Front Street, Owego | O Tannenbaum is a German phrase meaning “Oh Christmas Tree”. The lyrics of the song express the beauty of an evergreen tree and how it stays true in form and color year round. TCHS’s event brings a similar delight, pleasure, and joy to the community. It is a special time for children, adults, families, organizations, and businesses to experience friendship, camaraderie, and the joy of the season. Children can write and mail letters to Santa – and receive responses in the mail – and even visit him when he stops by the museum! Holiday Vendor and Art Craft Show | 9:00 AM-3:00 PM, 11/28 Saturday | Ovid Fire Department, Brown Street, Ovid | 40 plus vendors and crafters for your Holiday Shopping. Don’t miss this amazing fair! Fill The Truck at Ithaca Walmart | 9:00 AM-4:00 PM, 11/28 Saturday | Walmart, 135 Fairgrounds Memorial Pkwy, Ithaca | FILL THE TRUCK at Ithaca Walmart with unwrapped toys and gifts for disadvantaged kids in Tompkins County. There will be a live broadcast with Cayuga Radio Group’s Chis Allinger and Santa will be there to visit. Applications will be available for parents who need some help during the holiday season. Holiday Bazaar and Craft Show | 9:00 AM-3:00 PM, 11/28 Saturday | Jacksonville Community United Methodist Church, 1869 Trumansburg Rd, Jacksonville | Everything to make this Christmas special can be purchased at this one stop shopping bazaar. You will find 32 local crafts booths, a holiday boutique featuring hand crafted items created by members of the congregation, beautiful ornaments, delicious baked goods, and a scrumptious luncheon starting at 11:30 am. Make sure to check out the silent auction with items donated by members of the congregation. Winners will be announced at 3 pm. Finger Lakes March for Global Climate Action | 1:00 PM, 11/29 Sunday | Village Marina Bar & Grill, 2 Seneca Harbor, Watkins Glen | Residents throughout the Finger Lakes Region will march in solidarity with climate action marchers across the globe on the eve of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris. (http:// www.cop21.gouv.fr/en) Bring your family, friends and neighbors.
November 23rd. Call 607-546-8560. 3rd Annual Notre Dame Turkey Day 5K | 9:00 AM, 11/26 Thursday | Notre Dame High School, 1400 Maple Ave., Elmira | Complete event information can be found on the ND website at http://www.notredamehighschool.com. FREE Race T-shirt to the first 800 registrants. On-Line registration is available at https:// runsignup.com/Race/NY/Elmira/ NotreDameTurkeyDay5K. For more information please contact race director Jessica Ryan at TurkeyDay5K@ notredamehighschool.com Community Fire Ceremony | 6:30 PM-9:00 PM, 11/27 Friday | Foundation of Light, 391 Turkey Hill Rd, Ithaca | Sing, drum, and be together at sacred fire outdoors. Info at www.connecting2spirit.com 607-229-5161 Tioga History Museum Thanksgiving Weekend | 1:00 PM-3:00 PM, 11/27 Friday | Tioga County Visitor’s Center, 80 North Avenue, Owego | November 27th and 28th from 1pm to 3pm, Roger Westgate will be performing a woodcarving demonstration for all to see and buy. The Tioga History Museum will be honoring his past wooden craving in a special exhibit to be found in the front entrance of the museum.There will be wonderful live holiday music for all to enjoy, from Frankincense and Myhhr on Friday and The Dove Family on Saturday. Remember to bring your camera, and take a picture with Santa and Mrs. Claus from 1pm-3-pm. Green Friday at Sew Green | 9:00 AM-6:00 PM, 11/27 Friday | SewGreen, 112 N Cayuga St., Ithaca | Join us for GREEN FRIDAY for a sewing machine sale, free workshops, discounts, and treats for all. More info at 607-3194106, www.sewgreen.org The Second Annual Holiday Dabble-Do | 11:00 AM-5:00 PM, 11/28 Saturday | Gourdlandia, 77 rachel Carson Way (EcoVillage), Ithaca | Drop in and make something lovely! Here’s a great opportunity to create a beautiful handmade gift. Ornaments, “Gourdaments”, Beeswax Candles, Origami Boxes. Each project $3 or less, as simple or as intricate as you like. Bring yourself, bring the family. Sit down, have a cookie, and make something. Info at www. handsongourds.com/index.php/news/
Online Calendar
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Daniel Irving Lisbe, a.k.a Rising Sun, one of the front men of Ithaca’s super-rap group The Gunpoets. They play a special Black Friday show at The Dock, Friday, 11/27, at 9:00 p.m. (Photo Provided)
Meetings
| The NAC supports the conservation of the designated Natural Areas within the City of Ithaca and advises the Board of Public Works, the Department of Public Works, Common Council, and the Conservation Advisory Council.
Public Art Commission (PAC) | 4:00 PM-6:00 PM, 11/25 Wednesday | Ithaca City Hall, 108 E Green St, Ithaca | The PAC is charged with overseeing a public art program to enrich the visual and aesthetic environment of public, private, and semi-public spaces within the city of Ithaca Community Police Board (CPB) | 3:30 PM-5:00 PM, 11/25 Wednesday | Common Council Chambers - Ithaca City Hall, 108 E Green St, Ithaca | CPB is charged by the City of Ithaca to act as a community liaison to the Police Department and actively foster positive communications between police and all segments of the community. City of Ithaca Board of Zoning Appeals | 7:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Common Council Chambers - Ithaca City Hall, 108 E Green St, Ithaca | The public is encouraged to attend. Town of Ithaca Planning Board | 7:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Town Of Ithaca, 215 N Tioga St, Ithaca | Natural Areas Commission (NAC) | 5:30 PM-7:30 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Ithaca City Hall, 108 E Green St, Ithaca
Health Sacred Chanting with Damodar Das and friends | 7:00 PM-9:00 PM, 11/25 Wednesday | Ithaca Yoga Center, 215 N Cayuga St, Ithaca | Free every week. An easy, fun, uplifting spiritual practice open to all faiths. No prior experience necessary. More at www. DamodarDas.com. Adult Children of Alcoholics | 7:00 PM-8:00 PM, 11/25 Wednesday | Community Recovery Center, 518 W Seneca St, Ithaca | 12-Step Meeting. Enter through front entrance. Meeting on second floor. For more info, contact 229-4592. Zumba Gold Classes | 5:30 PM-6:30 PM, 11/25 Wednesday | Lifelong, 119 W Court St, Ithaca | With instructor Nicole Bostwick. Starting June 3, 2015-December 31, 2015, Every Wednesday 12:00-1:00pm Support Group for Invisible
Holiday Dabble-Do,
You thinking “maybe I’ll make something all by myself this year for everybody”, but wait, don’t know how to make anything? Nonsense. Get your creative spirits flowing at Gourdlandia’s second Annual Holiday Dabble-Do. Make it the event that kicks off this year’s “awesome-handmade-gifts” theme for Christmas. Ornaments, Beeswax Candles, and Origami Boxes are just some of the fun things available to make. They’ll be cookies and you’ll have the chance to check out one of Ithaca’s more unique stores.
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Books Open Mic / Spoken Word / Poetry Night | 6:00 PM-7:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N Cayuga St, Ithaca | Led by Meredith Clarke, and featuring YOU! And your original literary works. A Novel Idea | 4:00 PM-6:00 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Argos Inn, 408 E State St, Ithaca | Hosted by Buffalo Street Books General Manager Asha Sanakar, this is an up tempo book club
Bobby Henrie and The Goners,
Gourdlandia, Saturday, Nov 28 and Sun Nov 29, 11:00 a.m.
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Disabilities | 1:00 PM-3:00 PM, 11/25 Wednesday | Finger Lakes Independence Center, 215 Fifth St, Ithaca | Facilitated by Liz Constable and Finger Lakes Independence Center Peer Counselor Amy Scott, and supported by Finger Lakes Independence Center Peer Counselor Emily Papperman. Call Amy or Emily at 607-272-2433. Alcoholics Anonymous | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM, 11/25 Wednesday | Multiple Locations, , | This group meets several times per week at various locations. For more information, call 273-1541 or visit aacny.org/meetings/ PDF/IthacaMeetings.pdf Walk-in Clinic | 4:00 PM-8:00 PM, 11/26 Thursday | Ithaca Health Alliance, 521 W Seneca St, Ithaca | Need to see a doctor, but don’t have health insurance? Can’t afford holistic care? 100% Free Services, Donations Appreciated. Do not need to be a Tompkins County resident. First come, first served (no appointments). Writing Practice as Self-Inquiry | 10:00 AM-11:30 AM, 11/28 Saturday | 108 S Albany St, 108 S Albany St, Ithaca | Leslie Ihde is forming an ongoing group to run alternate Saturdays. Members will learn to write poetry
and short prose inspired by their own perceptions. The goal of the group will be to encourage self-discovery first, and good writing second. Friendly group discussions will be facilitated. No experience necessary. Beginning and experienced writers are welcome. For more information see http:// www.spiritualself-inquiry.com or call 607-754-1303. Yin-Rest Yoga – A Quiet Practice for Women | 4:00 PM-5:30 PM, 11/29 Sunday | South Hill Yoga Space, 132 Northview Rd, Ithaca | Led by Nishkala Jenney, E-RYT. Email nishkalajenney@ gmail.com or call 607-319-4138 for more information and reserve your place as space is limited. Overeaters Anonymous | 7:00 PM-8:00 PM, 11/30 Monday | Just Be Cause Center, 1013 W State St, Ithaca | Overeaters Anonymous is a worldwide 12-Step program for people wanting to recover from overeating, starving and/or purging. Visit www.oa.org for more information or call 607-379-3835. Nicotine Anonymous | 6:30 PM-7:30 PM, 12/01 Tuesday | Ithaca Community Recovery, 518 W Seneca St, 2nd fl, Ithaca | A fellowship of men and women helping each other to live free of nicotine. There are no dues or fees. The only requirement for membership is the desire to be free of nicotine. Support Group for People Grieving the Loss of a Loved One by Suicide | 5:30 PM-, 12/01 Tuesday | 124 E Court St, 124 E Court St, Ithaca | Please call Sheila McCue, LMSW, with any questions: 607-272-1505. Anonymous HIV Testing | 9:00 AM-11:30 AM, 12/01 Tuesday | Tompkins County Health Department, 55 Brown Road, Ithaca | Walk-in clinics are available every Tuesday from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Appointments are available on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30 to 3:30 pm. Please call us to schedule an appointment or to ask for further information (607) 274-6604
2015
Rongovian Embassy, Saturday, November 28, 9:00 p.m.
Down from the great city of Rochester come some true-blue fellows playing some authentic old-school Rockabilly and Rock and Roll. Bobby Henrie and the Goners have been swinging around for quite some time, their sound refined, reflexed, and butt shaking-ly groovy. Honing the greats like Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Elvis, and Jonnny Burnett, you’re likely to find some some killer grooves and some sweet swings on this night! Come on down!
guaranteed to be filled with fun and laughter. Books are available for sale at Buffalo Street Books or Argos Inn.
Art Black Friday at Comics for Collectors | 11:00 AM-2:00 PM, 11/27 Friday | Comics For Collectors, 207 N Aurora St, Ithaca | It’s an opportunity to meet A Piggy’s Tale crew Tod Emko, Ethan Young, and the eponymous, magnanimous Piggy at Comics for Collectors! They will be signing from 11AM to 2PM. Not only do you get to support Darwin Animal Doctors, but you get to meet Piggy, the dog that inspired the comic! 607-272-3007 New Day Glass: Open House, Holiday Sale, and Classes | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM, 11/27 Friday | New Day Glass, 215 Burdge Hill Road, Newfield | Open to the public beginning November 27, 28, 29 and every Saturday and Sunday in December until Christmas from 9 am- 5 pm for our Open House and Holiday Sale. Come see live glassblowing right here in the studio and browse hand blown glass ornaments. Prefer to make your own glass ornament? Tuesdays and Thursdays in December from 6-9 pm New Day Glass will assist you. See our website (events) for details. www. newdayglass.com. 610-533-0505. ongoing EYE | 126 E. State/MLK St., 2nd, Ithaca | The Lustrous World of Giselle Potter. Artist Giselle Potter is like no other. Her colors are plucked from nature: her imagery, insanely appealing. She can take an everyday and make it extraordinary.. A frequent contributor to The New York Times and The New Yorker, Potter has illustrated over 25 books for kids of all ages and has shown at the Society of Illustrators in NYC and the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst. | www. eyegallery.com Buffalo Street Books | 215 N Cayuga Street, Ithaca | Jay Potter: Lines & Theories. Photographic prints, graphic work. Through November. State of the Art Gallery |120 West State Street, Ithaca | Wednesday-Friday, 12:00 PM-6:00 PM, Weekends, 12:00 PM-5:00 PM |State of the Art Gallery artists will host an all-member show during the month of November. For information: 607-277-1626 or gallery@ soag.org
HeadsUp That old country rock by Bill Chaisson
C
at’s Elbow makes a variety of “dad rock.” In this case, your dad is sort of a cool guy who used to silkscreen his own shirts, make beer at home, and grow organic vegetables. The sound hearkens back to the southern California sound of the 1970s, pioneered by the likes of Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers, but then popularized by the Eagles, Poco, Linda Ronstadt, and Jackson Browne. One of the hallmarks of that ‘70s sound was really nice production and deft professional playing. The production is handled by Big Time Studios in Interlaken, a room that is establishing a reputation in the area for a bright, clean sound. Indy rock veteran John Bunge recorded his most recent plectrum banjo album, All the Colors at Big Time and, having been in a few studios in his time, he came away impressed. When it comes to playing there is only one spring chicken in Cat’s Elbow and that’s lead singer and songwriter Davina Horrocks. The rest of the boys in the band have been doing this for decades. The SoCal sound evolved by starting with country music and adding elements of bluegrass, the blues, and eventually the Great American Songbook (from whence came the chord progressions that everyone associates with uplift and good times). In addition to Horrocks,
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University | Central Road, Ithaca | Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00 AM-5:00 PM | Imprint / In Print, August 8 to December 20. So it goes: Drawings by Kurt Vonnegut August 22 to December 20. Huang Hsin-chien: The Inheritance, September 5 to December 20, CUTS: Video Works by Gordon Matta-Clark, September 5 to December 20 James Siena: Labyrinthian Structures. September 5–December 20 The City: Works from the Collection. www.museum. cornell.edu Waffle Frolic | 146 East State/MLK Street, Ithaca | A combined photo and print show of works by Naomi Edmark and Kevin Cruz. The show will run through December 31. | www.wafflefrolicking.com
Cats Elbow’s songwriters include slide guitar player and organist Todd Edmunds and rhythm guitarist Andy Russell. Horrocks is the most prolific, contributing four of the album’s seven tracks. Incandescent is short, and it leaves you wanting to hear more. There is a good variety of paces and instrumentation, and with three songwriters, a number of different approaches to structure. “What I Gotta Do,” by Horrocks comes first and sort of screams “I’m the single,” even though we don’t really put out singles around here. The grace of her voice is effortless; it floats over and through the arrangement like wood smoke threading through the trees and out over a pond. The ‘ooo, ooo’ harmony vocals here are perfect. This is Cats Elbow reaching for an anthem of the most low-key variety possible. “Long Gone Sally” is an Andy Russell song that has a good time vibe, even though it’s about things going a little south. Cats Elbow does not reach for subjects of weighty consequence; they are about chronicling the routine bummers of life, bad relationships, bad habits, and bad luck. The eponymous Sally is an alcoholic who is losing control, but this isn’t a harrowing song because the music remains upbeat. “Quiet,” the other Russell track, is just that. This is the song in the set that allows the dancers at the bar to rest and everyone puts their elbows up and listens.
Tompkins County Public Library | East Green Street, Ithaca | Streetscapes, a new exhibit that brings street art inside the Library. Curated by Jay Potter, Streetscapes will feature a collection of work that draws on creativity and inspiration from our urban surroundings. Using a mixture of diverse media, artists will explore the influence of the urban environment through color, energy, movement and personal experience. | www.tcpl.org CAP ArtSpace | Center Ithaca, The Commons, Ithaca | Mon-Thu 9:00 AM-7:00 PM, Fri-Sat 11:00 PM-7:30 PM; Sun 12:00-5:00 PM | This exhibit features new watercolor paintings inspired by the details of the natural world around us. Learn more about Christi at www.christisobel.com. Through November | www.artspartner. org
Cat’s Elbow in their element (Photo Provided) The cello from Chris White is quite lovely and it would be interesting to see what they substitute for it in a live set. Edmunds’ sole contribution, “Almost Mine,” sounds almost straight out of the Eagles catalog, which is a compliment, because like them or not Henley and Frey were (and more or less are) master craftsmen. On Horrocks’ “Some Kind Lovin’,” probably the bluesiest number here, Edmunds gets to stretch out on the slide guitar, evoking players like David Lindley and Waddy Wachtel, which is pretty good company. Horrocks is a bit of a belter, which are pretty thin on the ground in the local music scene (Maddy Walsh of the
Lot 10 Lounge | 106 S. Cayuga St., Ithaca | Jay Stooks Show. J ay was born in 1980 in Ithaca NY. His work is inspired by his passion for hip hop culture, cartoons, comics, politics, skateboarding, video games, mathematics, movies, anatomy, science, fashion and everything in between. | 607-272-7224 | www. lot-10.com The Ink Shop | 330 E.State / MLK Street, Ithaca, NY 14850 | Tuesday to Friday 12 -6 PM, Sat 12-4 PM | Platypus Jenny Pope. The show is of multiple color reduction woodcuts; all the colors were carved and printed from one block. There is no going back once a color is carved away; the image must muddle through and survive. | 607-277-3884 | www.ink-shop.org Titus Gallery Art & Antiques | 222 E State St, Ithaca | Mon. Wed. Thurs.
11am-6pm; Fri. Sat. 11am-8pm; Sun. 11am-4pm; closed Tuesdays | Brian Keeler: The Spirit of Lake Light. Recent Landscapes of the Finger Lakes Region, and some choice pieces from New England and Italy. Runs November 6 through December 31.| www. titusgallery.com Creative Space Gallery | 215 East State St., Ithaca | The Space Between. A solo exhibit by Naomi J. Falk that explores the contrast between the manufactured environment we have constructed and the sublime qualities of the natural world. Collegetown Bagels | 203 North Aurora Street, Ithaca | Sun-Wed 6:30 PM-8:00 PM; Thurs-Sat 6:30 AM-10:00 PM | “Sfumato” recent paintings by Larry Repass. Atmospheric series of parking lot oil-slicks reflecting vibrant ephemeral colors appearing and then
vanishing in diaphonous mist. Through November | collegetownbagels.com Handwerker Gallery | Gannett Center, Ithaca College | www.ithaca.edu/ handwerker | MAKE DO features work by artists Julie Crosby, Sarah Gotowka, Aram Han Sifuentes, and Jonathan Kline. This exhibition was co-curated by Gallery Director Mara Baldwin and Vin Manta. Through December 13.
Got Submissions? Send your events items – band gigs, benefits, meet-ups, whatever – to arts@ithacatimes.com.
Amy HElm and the handsome strangers
The Dock, Saturday, November 28, 4:00 p.m.
Center For The Arts of Homer, Saturday, November 28, 8:00 p.m.
You like the idea of affordable and low-cost higher education, free health-care for every single person in the country? What about breaking free from the noose of Corporate America? You like music too? Well, I think this is the night to get together and show it. Ithaca musicians for Bernie Sanders will celebrate not only the man running for president, but it’ll also celebrate the people of this Country. Local bands like The Fly Rods, Johnny Dowd, The Common Railers, and more will be out! Feel The Bern!!!
Boasting a soulful, full bodied, and powerful voice, Amy Helm, who is Levon Helm’s daughter, is equal parts Aretha Franklin and Bonnie Ratt. Backed by the tight, clean-sounding, and impressive Handsome Strangers, she really gets a chance to let loose. Expect some tunes that rock and some tunes that explore the folkier side of Americana. All in all, the show is sure to be impressive, so do yourself a favor and take the trip out!
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Blind Spots is another), so her husky alto has welcome warmth and confidence. “All Our Lies” chugs along like good blues rock à la Tom Petty, but with Horrocks’ honied voice instead of Petty’s nasal rasp. “Hard Times” is the most old fashioned cut, with a shuffling gait that evokes traditional blues and a relaxed vocal from Horrocks that wraps her voice around the rhythm; her words get propelled forward by the lurching bass and drums. The “mama always told me ” lyrics are a real throwback perspective. This is an easy-going listen and you’ll be tempted to hit replay a couple of times. •
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buy sell 250/Merchandise CASH for Coins! Buying Gold & Silver. Also Stamps, Paper Money, Comics, Entire Collections, Estates. Travel to your home. Call Marc in NY: 1-800-959-3419 (NYSCAN)
140/Cars CASH FOR CARS: Any Car/Truck. Running or Not! Top Dollar Paid. We Come To You! Call For Instant Offer. 1-888-4203808 www.cash4car.com (AAN CAN)
Up to $35/Box! Sealed & Unexpired. payment Made SAME DAY. Highest Prices Paid! Call Jenni Today! 800-4133479, www.CashForYourTestStrips.com
HONDA
2008 Civic EX, 2 door, 4 cyl. (607)3194140
For Sale
2008 Cougar Travel Trailer. Call Laverne 702-428-3707
FREE LAYING HENS
Moving to California, have 30 to give away. Must call December 1st, One Day Only! Not before., 402-450-2223
WANTED TO BUY
Steel Wheels, Engine Parts, Call (607) 592-7198
PIANOS
300/Community
• Rebuilt • Reconditioned • Bought• Sold • Moved • Tuned • Rented
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Seneca County is accepting applications for temporary snow plow drivers as needed for the winter season. Must possess CDL. Wage $13.53/hour. For applications contact Seneca County Personnel Office, 1 DiPronio Drive, Waterloo, NY 13165. Deadline to apply: 11/30/15. Tel (315)539-1710. E.O.E.
ATTEND AVIATION COLLEGE - Get FAA approved Aviation Maintenance training. Financial aid for qualified students. Job placement assistance. Call AIM for free information 866-296-7093 (NYSCAN)
Writers Ithaca Times is interested in hearing from freelance movie, music, restaurant and visual & performing arts reviewers with strong opinions and fresh views.
Please send clips to: editor@ithacatimes.com
Open every day 10-6 thru Christmas
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PREGNANT? THINKING OF ADOPTION? Talk with caring agency specializing in matching Birthmothers with Families Nationwide. LIVING EXPENSES PAID. Call 24/7 Abby’s One True Gift Adoptions. 866-413-6293. (AAN CAN)
is accepting applications for the following positions until 12/2/15: Customer Service Representative Specialist or Customer Service Representative Specialist Trainee Currently, there is one vacancy in the Chamberlain’s Office. Minimum Quals & Special Reqs: Visit the City of Ithaca website for further info. Salary: $34,310 trainee rate or $37,526 non-trainee rate. Exam: A civil service exam will be given at a later date. Residency: Applicants must be Tompkins County. Light Equipment Operator: Currently, there are two vacancies in the Department of Public Works - Water & Sewer Division. Minimum Quals: Possession of a Class B Commercial Driver License. Salary: $17.57/hour. Residence: There are no residency requirements. School Crossing Guard: Minimum Quals: Must be 18 years of age and a grade school graduate or has sufficient maturity to indicate ability to do the work. Salary: $10/hour. Applications accepted until positions are filled. City of Ithaca HR Dept., 108 E. Green St., Ithaca, NY 14850. (607)274-6539 www.cityofthaca. org The City of Ithaca is an equal opportunity employer that is committed to diversifying its workforce
Seeking Reliable and Respectable Individuals Able to communicate well. Paid $500/wk. Send resumes to availablejob2@aol.com for more details
AIRLINE CAREERS begin here - Get started by training as FAA certified Aviation Technician. Financial aid for qualified students. Job placement assistance. Call Aviation Institute of Maintenance 800725-1563 (AAN CAN)
227 Cherry St. 319-5078 foundinithaca.com
950 Danby Rd., Suite 26
PAID IN ADVANCE! Make $1000 A Week Mailing Brochures From Home. Helping home workers since 2001! Genuine Opportunity. No Experience Required. Start Immediately! www. MailingHelp.com (AAN CAN)
430/General
Gift Certificates available
South Hill Business Campus, Ithaca, NY
Residence Counselor II Overnight Unity House of Cayuga County seeks caring and nurturing individuals interested in pursuing work with adults with developmental disabilities in supervised, home-like settings providing training and support to foster independence in daily living skills in Tompkins County. HS diploma/GED and valid NYS Driver’s License required. One year of residential experience in a related field required Experience working with a higher needs population preferred. The DSPRCHII will work in the therapeutic treatment and rehabilitation of person within the program and work with individuals who require an enhanced level of supervision, are multiply diagnosed with Intellectual Disabilities, Mental Illness and/or have Sex Offender histories. Full-time, Parttime and relief positions available, varied shifts. Benefits package included. FT/ PT: $13.18/hour. Apply online/download application at www.unityhouse.com by clicking on Join Our Team or complete application at Unity House. 15 Catherwood Road Ithaca, NY 14850 EOE/M/F
Looking for Chidren
One-of-a-kind Holiday Gifts for Everyone on your list!
(607) 272-6547
Direct Support Professional
A son named Travis age 28, originally from Cortland and a Daughter whom I have never met and is from the area. Please contact with any info (call or text) Earland Perfetti (Butch) 607-339-6842 or on Facebook
antiques • vintage • unusual objects
Ithaca Piano Rebuilders
1st Annual
Clear old heavy energy and fill with light and love. Shaminc Services by Susan (607)229-5161
FOUND
Complete rebuilding services. No job too big or too small. Call us.
employment
Home And Land Blessings
SAWMILLS from only $4397.00 - MAKE & SAVE MONEY with your own bandmillcut lumber any dimension. In stock ready to ship. FREE Info /DVD: www. NorwoodSawmills.com 1-800-578-1363 Ext. 300N (NYSCAN)
235/Free
community
320/Bulletin Board
Christmas Trees
Firefly Fields Tree Farm: Cut your own Christmas Tree. 576 Nelson Rd., Ithaca. Open weekends 607-227-3502
10
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Ithaca Chill Challenge - Dip or Dodge Event . A fundraiser to support Ithaca Community Recovery. The event is similar to a Polar Plunge but with a twist! For more information, go to www. ithacachillchallenge.org
CASH FOR DIABETIC TEST STRIPS
Donate your car to Wheels For Wishes, benefiting Make-A-Wish. We offer free towing and your donation is 100% tax deductible. Call:315-400-0797 Today! (NYSCAN)
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Non-Commercial: $14.50 first 12 words (minimum), 20 cents each additional word. Rate applied to non-business ads and prepaid ads. Business Ads: $16.50 for first 12 words (minimum), 30 cents each additional word. If you charge for a service or goods you are a business. Inquire about contract rates. $24.00 Auto Guaranteed Ad - Ad runs 3 weeks or until sold. 12 words $24.00, each additional word 60¢. You must notify us to continue running ad. Non-commercial advertisers only 25% Discount - Run your non-commercial ad for 4 consecutive weeks, you only pay for 3 (Adoption, Merchandise or Housemates) Employment / Real Estate / Adoption: $38.00 first 15 words (minimum), 30 cents each additional word. Ads run weeks. Box Numbers: Times Box Numbers are $2.50 per week of publication. Write “Times Box______” at end of your ad. Readers address box replies to Times Box______, c/o Ithaca Times, P.O. Box 27, Ithaca, NY 14851. Headlines: 9-point headlines (use up to 16 characters) $2.00 per line. If bold type, centered or unusually spaced type, borders in ad, or logos in ads are requested, the ad will be charged at the display classified advertising rate. Call 277-7000 for rate information. Free Ads: Lost and Found and free items run at no charge for up to 3 weeks. Merchandise for Sale, private party only. Price must be under $50 and stated in ad Website/Email Links: On Line Links to a Web Site or Email Address $5.00 per insertion. Blank Lines: (no words) $2.00/Line - insertion. Border: 1 pt. rule around ad $5.00 - insertion.
Internet: www.ithacatimes.com Mail: Ithaca Times Classified Dept PO Box 27 Ithaca NY 14850 In Person: Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm 109 North Cayuga Street
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2015
610/Apartments NEW
2 BR APT $975 INCLUDES. 2 miles from Ithaca College. Non-Smoking. No cats. Texting preferred. 607-279-5519
South Hill Area
Nice, one-bedroom large apartment in private home. Full eat-in kitchen, living room, full large bathroom, 3 closets. Private large patio entry and off street parking. Near TCAT bus stop, 7 blocks to downtown. Available December or January. $750 includes utilities. NON SMOKING, NO PETS. CALL 607-3513089 to take a look.
WWW.ITHACARENTS. COM
520/Adoptions Wanted My greatest wish is to adopt a baby. A loving home awaits with secure, educated woman. Expenses paid. Call Anne-Michele 1-877-246-1447. Text 516-305-0144 or www.amadopt.info (NYSCAN)
Find Your Next Apartment: www.ithacarents.com...www.ithacarents.com No Scams, Searchable, Free
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the place that’s right for you with Conifer. Linderman Creek 269-1000, Cayuga View 269-1000, The Meadows 2571861, Poets Landing 288-4165
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www.SouthSenecaWindows.com Romulus, NY Romulus, NY 315-585-6050 or 315-585-6050 Toll Free at 866-585-6050 or Toll Free at
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Non-Commercial: $14.50 first 12 words (minimum), 20 cents each additional word. Rate applied to non-business ads and prepaid ads. Business Ads: $16.50 for first 12 words (minimum), 30 cents each additional word. If you charge for a service or goods you are a business. Inquire about contract rates. $24.00 Auto Guaranteed Ad - Ad runs 3 weeks or until sold. 12 words $24.00, each additional word 60¢. You must notify us to continue running ad. Non-commercial advertisers only 25% Discount - Run your non-commercial ad for 4 consecutive weeks, you only pay for 3 (Adoption, Merchandise or Housemates) Employment / Real Estate / Adoption: $38.00 first 15 words (minimum), 30 cents each additional word. Ads run weeks. Box Numbers: Times Box Numbers are $2.50 per week of publication. Write “Times Box______” at end of your ad. Readers address box replies to Times Box______, c/o Ithaca Times, P.O. Box 27, Ithaca, NY 14851. Headlines: 9-point headlines (use up to 16 characters) $2.00 per line. If bold type, centered or unusually spaced type, borders in ad, or logos in ads are requested, the ad will be charged at the display classified advertising rate. Call 277-7000 for rate information. Free Ads: Lost and Found and free items run at no charge for up to 3 weeks. Merchandise for Sale, private party only. Price must be under $50 and stated in ad Website/Email Links: On Line Links to a Web Site or Email Address $5.00 per insertion. Blank Lines: (no words) $2.00/Line - insertion. Border: 1 pt. rule around ad $5.00 - insertion.
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Internet: www.ithacatimes.com Mail: Ithaca Times Classified Dept PO Box 27 Ithaca NY 14850 In Person: Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm 109 North Cayuga Street
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720/Rooms Wanted ALL AREAS - ROOMMATES.COM. Lonely? Bored? Broke? Find the perfect roommate to complement your personality and lifestyle at Roommates .com! (AAN CAN)
805/Business Services
Dish TV Starting at $19.99/month (for 12 mos.) SAVE! Regular Price $34.99 Ask About FREE SAME DAY Installation! CALL Now! 888-992-1957 (AAN CAN) ELIMINATE CELLULITE and Inches in weeks! All natural. Odor free. Works for men or woman. Free month supply on select packages. Order now! 844-2447149 (M-F 9am-8pm central) (AAN CAN) Four Seasons Landscaping Inc. 607.272.1504 Lawn maintenance, spring + fall clean up + gutter cleaning, patios, retaining walls, + walkways, landscape design + installation. Drainage. Snow Removal. Dumpster rentals. Find us on Facebook!
ATTENTION BUSINESS OWNERS Get up to $259k of working capital in as little as 24 Hours. (No Startups) - Call 1-800-426-1901 (AAN CAN)
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The Bank Repossessed Your Car. Now They Want $$$ ?
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Certified Consultant
in Clinical Hypnosis Dr. M. Djafari, MC, FAAP, 1420 Hanshaw Rd., Ithaca, NY. Neurobiofeedback/Hypnosis. For Migraine Headaches and Irritibal Bowel Syndrome. (Pregnant women welcome) By appointment only: 607-753-3051
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DONATE YOUR CAR
Trip Pack n Ship
Packing & Shipping around the World. Save $5 with Community Cash Coupon. Trip Pack n Ship in the Triphammer Market Place 607-379-6210
Wheels For Wishes Benefiting
1040/Land for Sale
825/Financial
Land for Sale
Are you in BIG trouble with the IRS? Stop wage & bank levies, liens & audits, unfiled tax returns, payroll issues, & resolve tax debt FAST. Call 844-7531317 (AAN CAN)
Make-A-Wish® Central New York
Greene County, 6 Acres $29,900. Beautiful open and wooded property, old stone walls, easy access NYS Thruway, and skiing, abundant wildlife. Bank financing available 802-447-0779 (NYSCAN)
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x % Ta 100 tible c u Ded
hometown electrical distributor Your one Stop Shop
Since 1984 802 W. Seneca St. Ithaca 607-272-1711 fax: 607-272-3102 www.fingerlakeselectric.com
607.532.4673
Okay, they hooked your ride. But before you pay Credit Acceptance, Five Star, Autovest, Empower, Byrider, Stephen Einstein, Forster & Garbus, Kirschenbaum & Philips, Lacy Katzen, Melvin & Melvin, Newman Lickstein, Riehlman Shafer, Relin Goldstein, or Rubin & Rothman anything, call us. If the lender didn’t follow the law, the lender may owe you. *
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Anthony J. Pietrafesa Esq. — A Consumer Lawyer 721 University Building, 120 East Washington St., Syracuse, NY 13202 • ajp@ajp1law.com serving: Binghamton Ithaca Oswego Syracuse Utica Watertown * Past results no guarantee of future outcome. Attorney Advertising.
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Men’s and Women’s Alterations for over 20 years Fur & Leather repair, zipper repair. Same Day Service Available
John’s Tailor Shop John Serferlis - Tailor 102 The Commons 273-3192
4 Seasons Landscaping Inc.
OSKAR SCHMIDT MASSAGE THERAPY
Full line of Vinyl Replacement Windows Free Estimates South Seneca Vinyl
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NAL HOT YOGA) 10 DAYS IN A ROW
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LPs 45s 78s ROCK JAZZ BLUES PUNK REGGAE ETC Angry Mom Records (Autumn Leaves Basement) 319-4953 angrymomrecords@gmail.com
SUCH DEALS! CALL COW YOGA HOTLINE
Honor a Life like no other with ceremonies like no other. Steve@reallifeceremonies.com
The Yoga School
RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL
Signorama of Ithaca Your Full Service Sign Center From Business Cards, to Window Lettering A NYS Certified Women’s Business Enterprise FREE Quotes
*Semester Pass $300
Janitorial Service * Floor/Carpet High Dusting * Windows/Awnings 24/7 CLEANING Services 607-227-3025 or 607-220-8739
Ashtanga * Vinyasa *YA registered school * 200 hr TT *Yoga Philosophy * Ayurveda *Cooking & Tea Classes *Gentle Vinyasa *Over 15 years experience
607-273-1502
Love dogs?
Enjoy yoga & healing massage!
THE ART OF RELAXATION
INTRO SPECIAL JUST $20!
Check out Cayuga Dog Rescue!
www.yogaschoolithaca.com
Start your Weekend Thursday Sign up for the
We Buy, Sell, & Trade
Ithaca Weekend Planner
Black Cat Antiques
Saturday, December 5 * 2-4 pm Save $5 before 11/27 * $38 after 11/27
Adopt! Foster! Volunteer! Donate for vet care!
MIGHTY YOGA
www.cayugadogrescue.org
www.mightyyoga.com 272-0682
Sent to your email in box every Thursday
www.facebook.com/CayugaDogRescue
Sign up at Ithaca.com
607-898-2048
New at GreenStar
Looking to stretch your grocery budget? So are we! That’s why we’re pleased to introduce our new Co+op Basics program. Co+op Basics offers everyday low prices on many popular grocery and household items,
like Field Day Bite Size Stoneground Crackers
www.greenstar.coop 32
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FIELD DAY BITE SIZE
STONEGROU N CRACKERS D
1.99
$
8oz