January 10, 2018

F R E E J a n u a r y 10 , 2 0 17 / V o l u m e X X X V I I I , N u m b e r 2 0 / O u r 4 6 t h Ye a r

Online @ ITH ACA .COM

150 Years at the Y Filthy

Proposition

what is

historical?

Activists Prepare Pushback Against Trash Burning

Landmarks Group Wants Answers From City Hall

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We Want The Airwaves back

This Year in theater

Back To Roots

Why Our Local A Look Back At Folk Legend Television News Is The Best Stage Shows Peter Yarrow And No More Of 2017 Life Changing Classes PAGE 4

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I HAVE A DREAM

Delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, in the March on Washington D.C. for Civil Rights

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.

But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize an appalling condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on their promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall march ahead.

We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials

and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.

You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood., I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plains, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning My country, ‘tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing: Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims’ pride, From every mountain-side Let freedom ring.

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvacious peaks of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

These are the words that moved a nation. We believe they are the best way to remember Martin Luther King, Jr., on Monday, January 18th.

PHONE: 607-272-2602 guitarworks.com

DeWitt Mall 215 North Cayuga St. Ithaca, New York

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VOL.X X XVIII / NO. 20 / January 10, 2017 Serving 47,125 readers week ly

150 Years Down ������������������������������ 8

City Of Ithaca

The YMCA looks to the future with ambition.

What Should Make A Building Historic?

The year in theatre �������������������� 11 A recap of all the best onstage this past year.

NE W S & OPINION

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he Ithaca Landmark Preservation Commission is mulling changes that would modify Common Council’s involvement in the historic designation process, citing the confusion and politics that plagued the debate over Chacona Block’s historical merit late last year.

New guidelines proposed by City Historic Planner Bryan McCracken would clarify Common Council’s role and the criteria the body should consider when voting on a structure’s historic designation. The goal, McCracken said, is to provide Council members with guidelines more in line with what the ILPC follows when considering a project for recommendation – a more concrete guideline for what is actually historically significant, as compared to a vague landmark ordinance followed

by Common Council that can allow room for misinterpretation.

Accompanying those changes would be expanded justifications for historic recommendation by the ILPC, including tenets relating to a building’s construction methods or its historical significance to Ithaca’s growth, rules which could obviously impact future development or redevelopment proposals submitted by developers. It’s another step in the larger, ongoing tug-of-war between development and historic preservation throughout the city, though especially in the uber-lucrative Collegetown area. The back-and-forth seemed to come to a head late last year when Common Council tied a vote to historically designate the Chacona Block building, before Mayor Svante Myrick subsequently broke the tie with a vote against the designation.

Unlike most historic designations before it, that debate was riddled with tension between Council members, input from the community and rife with unprecedented lobbying commissioned by Student Agencies, which has long considered renovating or redeveloping the building and was strongly and vocally against the historic designation.

Historic designation in Ithaca is currently a three-step process: the ILPC reviews a property and makes a recommendation, that recommendation is reviewed by the Plancontinued on page tk

Newsline ��������������������������������������������������3-7 Sports �������������������������������������������������������� 10

ART S & E N T E RTAINME N T Environment

Dr. Paul Connett, in Romulus on Monday.

Activists Prep For Battle Against FLX Incinerator Proposal

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ince a proposal to construct a trash incinerator in the former Seneca Army Depot was first made public in November, environmentalists in the region have been quickly organizing to prepare a public campaign against the facility which will arguably be among the biggest in the United States.

Located not even one mile from the proposed site, hundreds of local residents, environmentalists and community leaders packed the Romulus High School auditorium in a forum organized by a relatively new group called Seneca Guardian, an offshoot of established activist group Gas Free Seneca, to hear of the potential dangers trash incinerators present to the environment and to set to organize a massive opposition campaign to the facility.

Present were owners of a number

of local wineries, town planning officials and professor emeritus at St. Lawrence University Dr. Paul Connett, a renowned authority in environmental chemistry and trash incineration, who was there to present an overview of the environmental impacts of trash incineration and its byproducts.

The forum took place just days after the facility’s developer, Rochester-based firm Circular enerG, said it would be withdrawing its application for a special use permit from the town, leaving the plant’s approval up to state regulators in a move critics, including former Environmental Protection Agency Regional Director Judith Enck (who was in attendance), called a direct challenge to home rule, or the right for municipalities to set laws based on their community’s own interests.

Init ia l ly u nvei led i n late

November, the trash incinerator – six times larger than one located on the southern outskirts of Syracuse, the nearest example of such a facility – would be sited on a 48 acre parcel of the former Seneca Army Depot in Romulus, located midway between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. Proposed designs call for the capacity to burn 2,640 tons of trash a day, which journalist Peter Mantius’ environmental blog, Waterfront Online, notes is about 45 percent of the limit allowed at a nearby landfill in Waterloo, Seneca Meadows Inc., which is presently set to close in 2025. More than 200 trucks hauling 1,300 tons (2,600 tons in 2023) of waste and ash are expected to shuttle in and out of the site each day and, eventually, rail service would be introduced at the facility, hauling 30 railcars of ash out of the facility each

Stage ���������������������������������������������������������� 12 Music ���������������������������������������������������������� 13 Film ��������������������������������������������������������������14 Music �����������������������������������������������������������14 TimesTable ������������������������������������������ 16-18 Classifieds ������������������������������������������19-20 Cover Design: Marshall Hopkins, Cover Photo: Casey Martin

ON T HE W E B Visit our website at www.ithaca.com for more news, arts, sports and photos. Call us at 607-277-7000 N i c k R e y n o l d s , M a n a g i n g E d i t o r , x 224

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T a k e ▶ Looking to tackle those New Year’s resolutions?

A couple of great seminars are coming up for those among us looking toward advancement (or even a new job) in the coming months.

A workshop on Goal Setting w/ Steve Moolin will be held on Thursday from 9 to 11 a.m. at Workforce New York in Center Ithaca. Skills learned there are applicable to a first time job seeker, those looking for a new or better job, those wanting to start a new career or business or anyone looking to develop a new skill.

They have similar events a lot, so

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check them out! ▶ Still looking for Catholic schooling options now that ICS is closed? There will be an open forum on Catholic school education this Wednesday, January 10TH, at 6:30 PM at St. Catherine of Siena Church (309 Siena Drive, Ithaca) with faculty, students, and the principals and middle school coordinator of: Notre Dame High School (Grades 7-12), St. Mary Our Mother (Pre K-6), Holy Family Elementary (PreK-6), and the busing available from downtown Ithaca to these Elmira-Horseheads areas schools.

The event is free and open to the public, geared towards families

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 aTi m e s . c o m

with children entering grades K through 12th. ▶ The annual MLK Breakfast is happening at GIAC this weekend!

The Greater Ithaca Activities Center will be hosting the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Breakfast, Saturday, January 13th, 2018 from 9:00 to 11:30 AM at Beverly J. Martin Elementary School. Included with the delicious meal will be performances and presentations from GIAC participants and staff.

The cost for breakfast is $4 for seniors/students, $5 for adults and $15 for a family of four to six.

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F r ee l a n ce r s : Barbara Adams, Rick Blaisell, Steve Burke, Deirdre Cunningham, Christie Citranglo, Jane Dieckmann, Amber Donofrio, Karen Gadiel, Charley Githler, Warren Greenwood, Isabella Grullon, Vaughn Golden, Warren Greenwood, Ross Haarstad, Rich Heffron, Peggy Haine, Austin Lamb, Steve Lawrence, Amanda Livingston, Marjorie Olds, Cassandra Palmyra, Lori Sonken, Henry Stark, Jason Warshof, Elizabeth Williams and Bryan VanCampen.

T he entire contents o f the I thaca T imes are cop y right © 2 0 1 7 , b y newski inc .

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 607-277-1012, 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 mes G a z e t t e : Tom Newton

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N e w s l i n e

INQUIRING Why WENY Vanished Local Media

PHOTOGRAPHER

By C a se y Mar tin

“Had myself a nice big breakfast with some hot chocolate.” ­— Gustavo Licon

“Well, I just stayed inside!” ­—Louise Hertz

contin u ed from page 3

“Layed on the couch with my cat Slinky and watched the Hallmark Channel! ” ­—Kathy Servoss

“Can we say, ‘Intense’ Cuddling?” ­—Danilo and Ali Zeron

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or the past nine months, you may have been wondering why Channel 18 – the longtime home of Elmira-based news channel WENY – has disappeared from your television.

So is Ithaca Common Council member George McGonigal.

In April, Time Warner Cable – purchased by Charter Communications in October 2016 for the massive sum of $85.4 billion – announced that, as part of an existing rule in FCC regulations, it would no longer be carrying the station, leaving the Ithaca/Tompkins market with just one television news channel to cover it: A Syracuse-based news station now owned by Charter Communications. (Formerly branded as Time Warner Cable News, the company underwent a rebranding in May and is now called Spectrum News.) The reason? Under FCC guidelines, Syracuse is considered to be the closest metropolitan area to Ithaca and, within that sphere of inf luence, is only required to carry a single station from any one affiliate.

Therein lies the problem: Both Spectrum News’ channel, out of

Incinerator

“ Lots and lots of blankets.” ­— OJ Prescott

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From Basic Cable

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How did you survive this past weekend’s “Bomb(diggity) Cyclone?”

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day on pre-existing train tracks running through the compound.

The facility, anticipated to break ground in 2019, is expected to generate 25 megawatts of power in its first year, eventually increasing to 50 megawatts by the time its processing capacity doubles in 2023.

But the risks, many in the community argue, far outweigh the benefits of developing the nation’s second trash incinerator since 2015: especially in as fragile an ecosystem as the Finger Lakes.

Though developers argue projected greenhouse gas savings of about 168,485 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year compared to landfilling, experts warn the contents of the emissions the facility and its 260-foot-tall smokestack will emit far outweigh any potential benefits and the economic development opportunities and that, in any sense, the proposal had no place in the community, especially sited approximately 3,200 feet from the

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Syracuse, and WENY are affiliated with ABC. In regards to coverage, this presents a problem. Elmira, located closer to Tompkins County than Syracuse, is located in a corresponding State Senate and Congressional district, where Syracuse is not. Elmira’s high school sports teams not only play in similar leagues to teams in Tompkins County, but also compete in Section IV where the Syracuse market primarily serves Section III, which stretches from Cortland County into the North Country and the Adirondacks.

Though WENY isn’t technically unavailable (you can still get the station on Channel 1210, McGonigal notes) the elimination of the channel from basic cable could be seen as an issue of access, not to mention bad optics: While the ABC-affiliated Spectrum News channel, WSYR, is owned by Charter Communications, WENY, also an ABC affiliate, is owned by Lilly Broadcasting, which owns six stations in New York, Pennsylvania, Hawaii and the Caribbean.

Spectrum News has a Southern Tier branch based out of Binghamton, that often covers issues in Elmira and Corning but rarely operates in Tompkins County.

“It’s in everyone’s best interests to communicate with our community,” McGonigal said. “You and I both know the Journal is almost nonexistent now, so having

as many reporters as we can get, whether it’s television, print or online, is important.”

After writing a letter to the company that was signed by all members of the Ithaca Common Council, McGonigal was contacted by a corporate representative based from Rochester who informed him that the change was spurred not by Spectrum, but by a rule under the Federal Communications Commission requiring local cable providers to use network affiliates within a respective market’s home region. Across the country, Nielsen Media Research has divided the country into 210 distinct markets, known as DMAs (Designated Market Areas) which are oriented around a region’s largest metropolitan area and have been adopted by virtually all players in the television industry.

Though WENY, geographically, is located much closer to Ithaca than Syracuse-based Spectrum

station, Ithaca – under the FCC’s definition – falls within the Syracuse Television Market Area.

“I was told it was out of their control,” McGonigal said. “What I wasn’t told was why we couldn’t have both stations – Elmira and Syracuse – like we used to. And I want to change it back” According to Ithaca College professor Jack Powers, whose research revolves around the television industry, Charter is not required by FCC rule to include any broadcast affiliate’s signal that is not in their market where they are offering the service. Ithaca, he said, is sort of an island surrounded by markets Sy racuse to the northeast, Elmira to the southwest, and Binghamton to the southeast and therefore, could fall within any of those. With this in mind, the choice not to provide multiple options for consumers,

local high school.

The incinerator, which as proposed will be the largest in New York State and among the largest in the country, he said, is anticipated to generate 800 tons of toxic ash per day while withdrawing approximately 445,000 gallons of water per day from Seneca Lake. Used water, according to the proposals, will be dumped into Reeder Creek – already designated as a threatened waterway by the EPA, due to its high phosphorus levels.

The primary issues lie with the content of the emissions from the incinerator, which can contain numerous neurotoxins such as lead and arsenic. Other issues are presented by the toxic ashes the facilities produces and the verifiable drop in property values that can occur on properties within close range of the facility, something he told the crowd would ensure that, from an economic development standpoint, the decision to build a trash incinerator would be their last due to potential impacts to the area’s vibrant agritourism industry.

One of the main areas of concern come from the emittance of toxins like dioxins and mercury, which can have profound impacts both on agriculture and on the food chain as a whole. like meat and whole milk. Mercury emitted from such facilities, he added, have been shown to impact bodies of water and impacting numerous species of fish, elevating mercury content in those species to levels rendering them unsafe for consumption.

And for any benefit – particularly the energy to be generated by the facility – Connett said that was a moot point as the energy used to create the materials the facility would be burning far exceeds the net amount of energy such a harmful method of disposal would have.

Any prospective victory, organizers said, will not only come from a legal standpoint, but from overwhelming public response.

The main concern, right now, is Circular enerG’s withdrawal from the town’s special use permit application process, instead invoking Article 10 of Public Service Law,

which provides for the siting review of major electric generating facilities in New York State by the Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment (Siting Board) in a “unified proceeding,” rather than dealing with numerous entities as the project originally would have.

This is an issue in Romulus as such a rule would be a direct challenge to a measure in Romulus Zoning Law that would mandate such a plan to undergo site plan review.

“As I read it, there is a possibility of preemption of local law,” said Wil Burns, an environmental and energy attorney invited to comment at Sunday’s forum.

However, there is hope: Burns said there was precedent of a similar proposal being knocked down in New York City and that there was a pathway he could see to preventing the preemption of local law.

“I think home rule is going to win at the end of the day,” Burns said. “But you have to show up.”

continued on page 5

–Nick Reynolds

N e w s l i n e

City Of Ithaca

Teaching Basic Human Rights

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nter i ng t he f i r s t g r ade marks an important milestone in a child’s cognitive development.

It’s t he yea r t hey beg in to understand and connect symbols and their handwriting, starts to improve. It’s the year they begin to develop habits, as well as start to learn the difference between right from wrong, and separate what is real and what is fantasy.

Without a doubt, the first grade marks a vital year in a child’s life.

One teacher, at Belle Sherman Elementary School, sees it as an undeniable opportunity to instill a sense of compassion and human rights in a new generation.

Throughout the school year, schoolteacher Emily Graw works to build a sense of empathy and awareness of the world around them, from easing in topics of huma n rights into lessons to starting every single day by saying hello to each other in another language – something the class of 17 students’ homeroom parent, Sarah Galbreath, said was particularly important in a class made up of lots of multilingual kids.

But it’s one project Graw has assigned for the past seven years that shows the students – in a tangible way – how their education could have a greater impact on

Cable News contin u ed from page 4

where the benefit is largely based on consumer convenience, seems like an arbitrary one.

“What’s interesting here is that Charter’s predecessor, TimeWarner Cable, operated under the same rules but opted to carry WENY,” Powers wrote in an email. “I suspect Time-Warner believed that the small cost to carry the station was the most consumer friendly option and I’m surprised that Charter has not come to that same conclusion.”

“While it’s true that Charter is not ‘required’ to carry WENY,” he added, “there’s nothing stopping the company from reaching an agreement with the station to distribute its content to Ithaca and surrounding communities.

Strategically, I believe it’s a mistake on Charter’s part not to carry WENY here in Ithaca.”

This is not the first time a local

both the planet and their own neighborhoods.

Since 2011, Graw’s classes – as part of work ing on t heir writing and literacy s k i l l s – h ave b e en assigned the task of writing brief essays in class (illustrated in a separate session in art class) on a specific human right, like the right to clean water or the right to good health. Taking their work, Graw then takes her students’ work and compiles it into calendar form, producing it in large quantities to sell for the benefit of organizations like UNICEF, Nothing But Nets (an international malaria net organization) and Catholic Charities’ Refugee Resettlement Program, right here in Ithaca.

A native Filipino, the project was one near to Graw’s heart: As a college student in the Philippines and later, she said, as a public information officer for an umbrella human rights organization, Graw was a first hand witness of her home nation’s struggle against poverty, social injustice a nd v iolat ions of t heir basic human rights: starving and sick children, deplorable levels of poverty, and state sponsored suppression enforced through violence.

But what she also saw, was resilience. Marching in the streets and cable news channel was dropped: a d e c a d e a go, Ti me Wa r ner Cable, under the same regulation, dropped Nexstar-owned ABC affiliate WIVT, which operates out of Binghamton. (Nexstar also owns Elmira/Corningbased WETM, better known as MyTwinTiers.)

For the time being, it’s unclear what can be done to reverse this.

It remains unclear why Charter Communications chose to eliminate a competing station despite its ability to provide more thorough coverage and, beyond contacting state representatives as wel l as Congressman Tom Reed’s office on the topic (which McGonigal said has expressed interest in the issue) no concrete courses of action have presented themselves. Representatives from Charter, McGonigal said, told him the decision to eliminate WENY from its basic cable package was a coincidence.

“And I’m not so sure about

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ning Board, which then prepares a report. That report is passed along to Common Council, which has the final designation authority.

The move would represent a significant, and hopefully beneficial, shift in the historic designation process, though any modification to Common Council’s role would have to be approved by the Council itself. Increased specificity would lower the chance of outside, possibly inappropriate or irrelevant factors inf luencing landmark decisions. Second Ward Alderperson Seph Murtagh, who is the Council’s liaison with the ILPC, said while he thinks Common Council would be willing to discuss any modifications the ILPC may want to propose, he standing with picket lines in the feels there is value in the Council tumult of Manila, Graw fought having some margin for debate. alongside the oppressed in their “The ILPC doesn’t take into fight for livable wages and safe account economic development, working conditions their govern- they don’t take into account the ment would not allow them. tax base, the housing affordabil“They taught me about cour- ity problem,” Murtagh said. “It’s age and standing up for justice important that Council has the and human dignity,” she recalled. flexibility look at all the numerous “But demanding for what was factors that affect the city to be rightfully theirs had its dangers: consistent about whether to preone of the marches near the presi- serve buildings.” dential palace in Manila led to the He also doubted that the Chashooting to death of 17 farmers by cona process was a harbinger of military forces. Standing about ten things to come. rows from the frontline of farmer“I would guess that is somemarchers linking arms and facing what of an anomaly,” Murtagh the phalanx of soldiers, I saw the said. “Particularly when a desigpeaceful march turn violent, with nation conf licts with a development proposal, you’re going to see continued on page 10 some controversy.”

Coincidentally, though, that that,” he added. “I’d like some looks to be the case with the Nines reassurance.” restaurant redevelopment proSpectrum once maintained a posal, a debate that is looming in one-reporter presence in Ithaca the near future. The restaurant’s but now, assigns reporters to owner is interested in selling the the Ithaca market on an irregu- property to retire, and Visum lar basis from out-of-area. In a Development, which has made statement to The Ithaca Times, a aggressive strides toward improvspokeswoman from Charter said ing rental stock in Collegetown in the company, local staff or not, recent months, has revived their will continue to provide cover- redevelopment efforts after iniage of happenings in Tompkins tially announcing they would not County. continue due to negative city reac“Spectrum News is commit- tion. The group’s latest proposal ted to covering the stories that for the site, a six story, 50 apartare relevant to our viewers,” the ment unit mixed-use proposal, statement reads. “We have a des- has drawn much more optimistic ignated reporter assigned to the reviews during initial discussion Ithaca/Tompkins County and with the Planning Board.

Elmira/Corning areas, covering t the thought of setting a collithe stories that are relevant to sion course with an active develthe local communities. Spectrum opment process. McCracken said, News Central New York’s Ithaca for now at least, the development coverage is seen throughout Syra- proposal and the landmark procuse/Watertown and Binghamton cess would run simultaneously. footprint.”

Ups&Downs ▶ The City Of Ithaca For joining a massive lawsuit to sue pharmaceutical companies for manufacturing opioids that have led to the addiction issues of countless thousands across the United States.

We’re not sure what the potential windfall will be, but let’s hope if money is involved, it’s put to good use. ▶ Winter Break Before you attack us on this one, let us say first that time off is great. But in the news, when you have a period of two weeks (three, if you count recovery) where nobody answers your calls and ad revenue is tight (smaller issues, meaning weird formats and online only stories) it’s a really difficult time to be in the news biz.

If you care to respond to something in this column, or publish your own grievances or plaudits, write upsanddowns@ithacatimes.com, with a subject head “U&D.”

Heard&Seen ▶ The Congressional Race Has Started To Thin Out Pastor Karl Warrington, of Naples, dropped out of the race the other day, giving his endorsement to Ithaca candidate Tracy Mitrano. There are now 9 people vying to take on Tom Reed. ▶ The Top Stories On Ithaca.com This Week Are...

1) Things to know for the incoming ‘bomb cyclone’ 2) Activists prepare for battle against proposed FLX trash incinerator 3) House fire kills two 4) The biggest development stories of 2017

question OF THE WEEK

Are the jobs created by a trash incinerator worth the potential ecological impacts?

Please respond at the Ithaca Times Web site www.ithacatimes.com.

L ast Week ’s Q uestion : A ll in all , how would you rate 2017?

58.8 percent of respondents answered “Mostly Bad” 27.5 percent answered “Mostly Good.” and 13.7 percent answered “All Years Seem The Same.”

–Matt Butler

–Nick Reynolds

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Ithaca Notes

ourOpinion

Romulus Trash Incinerator Proposal Is A Regional Issue O

We c a n’t a ffor d t o t r e at t h is l i k e a l o c a l probl e m | By Nick R ey nol d s n Sunday afternoon, I pulled out of the driveway of my Fall Creek apartment to make the 45-minute drive to Romulus to learn more about a trash incinerator that was recently proposed to be built on 48 acres of land there. Announced as a public information session, Sunday’s forum – hosted by the regional advocacy group Seneca Guardian – was intended to raise awareness of the impacts of these facilities on the land around them, citing expertise from former Region 2 Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, Judith Enck, and Saint Lawrence University Professor Emeritus Paul Connett, a noted expert on trash incinerators as they relate to environmental chemistry.

After what was said Sunday, it should be clear that this proposal and the millions of tons of downstate garbage it would address, is not merely a Romulus issue: this is a regional issue.

In his more than hour long presentation, Connett laid out all he had come to learn through his decades of experience on the topic of trash incineration, walking the audience of approximately 200 people through decades of research and case studies surrounding the

environmental impacts facilities of this nature could have. The examples he laid out, frankly, are troubling.

Located smack dab in the middle of the farm country between two lakes – Seneca and Cayuga Lake – the exhaust from the incinerator will spread not just over the farm fields of Seneca County but into both bodies of water as well, introducing dioxins (which build up in the fat tissues of mammals like humans and cows and can cause reproductive and developmental problems) to neurotoxins like mercury and arsenic.

Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake represent two very large catchment areas for these toxic pollutants, which Connett argued could have a profound impact on the food chains within those watersheds, from the lake waters themselves to the farm fields that surround them.

According to figures provided by Connett, because of the toxins that will build up in grasses consumed by grazing animals, the equivalent of breathing eight months of toxic air will be contained in one glass of cow milk.

In regards to mercury, as little as a third of gram of mercury could contaminate up to 25 acres of lake, rendering even the largest contin u ed on page 7

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Good Sports

By St e ph e n P. Bu r k e

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here’s a saying in business that you should pay attention to every opinion, complaint, or suggestion you hear about your enterprise, because for every person who says something, there are many more who feel the same way but don’t bother to tell you.

This applies to the newspaper business too, I guess, so maybe I make a mistake by not heeding the reader who told me she always looks forward to reading this column, but if it deals with sports, she skims and sometimes even skips.

Or maybe I don’t. The column covers Ithaca, and there are sports fans in Ithaca, and I keep it parochially in-state, if not quite local, by writing only about teams from New York.

Also, I often say that I feel sorry for people who don’t follow sports, any sport, because they never get to feel the anticipation, angst, disappointment, joy, and sense of community that sports fans know.

Of course, everyone experiences these things in life, but usually about things that

matter. The beauty of sports is that they matter not one bit. They provide these feelings while being completely inconsequential to your life, well-being, or future. Thank goodness for something like that.

Vince Lombardi, the legendary football coach, famously said, “Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.”

Too bad he didn’t say “Winning isn’t everything,” and leave it at that, or maybe add “at all” for mysterious emphasis, but I guess you don’t become a legendary football coach with that kind of attitude. Of course, Vince Lombardi has a rest area on the New Jersey Turnpike named for him, and I don’t, so who’s the smart one?

But I am backed up by partisans of the Buffalo Bills (the only pro football team that plays in New York), who are among the most fervid fans anywhere, even though for years the Bills are the least successful team in the league, shut out of postseason championship competition since 1999, the

YourLetters

the Hunchback is being oppressed, just like her people.

The young woman who was cast in this role has hazel eyes, blonde hair, and is the epitome of whiteness. This is an unfair position to put her in. At best, this is cultural appropriation.

At worst, it is whitewashing, a racist casting practice which has it’s roots in minstrelsy.

It also reinforces the damaging narrative that only white power structures can save oppressed people, rather than people of color having the fortitude to do so themselves. It is in line with countless movies which portray white people coming into brown and black communities and saving them. We know from our history that it is people of color who have been at the forefront of social justice movements. This white centered narrative is inaccurate, damaging, and should never be reinforced on the stage of our beloved high school. The arts are the place where we create our narratives about society. This casting can not stand. Not now, not ever. We call upon the adults in the ICSD, the adults who hold the power, to step in and right this situation.

We respectfully ask them to either: 1- Choose a different show and hold new auditions 2- Do the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but recruit the many talented brown and black female students at IHS who have received the message that IHS musicals are a playground of the white privileged students of our school. We ask that these students are actively recruited and encouraged to audition. There are students who have never stepped foot in the choir room but can blow the roof off their church choir. They should be playing this role.

It is their story to tell.

In Theatre, Messaging Is Critical

W

e, the undersigned, are a diverse group of students from Ithaca High School. We write this letter together in the hopes that our unified voices can help create much needed change in the performance arts for all students at IHS. It has come to our attention that Ithaca High School will be mounting the musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This is a musical which centers around a critical message. It is a message of inclusion, particularly for those who have historically been oppressed. We could not be more in favor of this musical, particularly in such a divisive time in our nation. Unfortunately, it has also come to our attention that the casting of this musical is antithetical to the very message which beats throughout the heart of the musical itself.

We speak, specifically, of the casting choice of the role of Esmerelda. Before we speak further, we want to stress that the talented young woman who was cast in this role is a stellar actor, singer, and dancer. She has worked hard to hone her craft and the IHS stage, or any stage, would be lucky to have her. Our concern is not with her, but with the fact that in terms of demographics, she is the wrong choice for this role.

Esmerelda is accurately depicted in the Disney musical, and is written for, a young woman of color. Esmerelda is a Roma, part of an oppressed class of people. It is her oppression, and that of her people, which allows her to better understand the perspective of the Hunchback and to ultimately advocate for him. She sings a song in which she calls to the heavens, asking God to save her people. “God Save My People, hungry at birth, show them the Mercy, they don’t find on Earth.” She cries out for justice. In the movie, she raises her fist in the air and yells “Justice!” and explains that

contin u ed on page 7

This letter was written by numerous students at Ithaca High School. A full list of their names is available online, as well as a number of other letters.

IthacaNotes contin u ed from page 6

longest of any team.

That changed this year, in spectacular fashion, but as much on the part of the fans as the team.

The Bills finished their season tied with the Baltimore Ravens for a postseason spot, but the Ravens still had a game to play against the Cincinnati Bengals. Baltimore had to lose for Buffalo to make it.

All seemed lost for Buffalo with Baltimore leading Cincinnati with less than a minute to play and Cincinnati in an unlikely position to score.

It didn’t really matter for Cincinnati, whose season was over anyway.

But on what should have been the final, rote play of a meaningless loss, Cincinnati’s quarterback, Andy Dalton, rather than running out the clock, heaved a pass half the length of the field and hit a receiver who ran for a touchdown that won the game, shockingly ending Baltimore’s season and saving Buffalo’s.

It was amazing for fans, but what hap-

Focusing On Our Shared Values

T

raveling across Western and Southern Tier New York as I run for Congress in New York’s 23rd District, I have found that the constituents of this area all have an important foundation of shared values. We all want affordable health care, improvements in education, happy families, and economic development. However, hanging over those shared values is a dark cloud of perceived divisions: red versus blue, rural versus urban, immigrant versus native, and even Genny versus Southern Tier Brewery.

Though these perceptions are often superficial, many in politics seek to exaggerate them for personal and professional gain. Neglecting the real issues we all face by our incumbent representative in Congress – Tom Reed – has made the superficial seem more important than it is.

Real leadership and real political representation would focus more on our shared foundation of values, rather than trying to drive a wedge between us. One of the perceived differences Tom Reed has consistently exploited over the course of his career in Washington is that of Ithaca and the rest of the district. He has used supposed “differences” between these two areas to great effect, getting elected and re-elected by calling any opportunity who is from or associated with Ithaca as “Ithaca liberals” as a way to discredit them and any political challenger.

Most recently, he has used the term “extreme liberals” for anyone who disagrees with him— from Endicott to Dunkirk or Elmira to Dublin.

But dairy farmers who are concerned about HB2 visa policy and how it impacts their small business are not extreme liberals. Families concerned about affordable health insurance and access to health care are our friends, our neighbors, our family, regardless of where in the district they live.

Though I’ve been told that a successful race against Reed means downplaying where I live, I will not do that. I am proud to have called Ithaca my home for more than 30 years. Like so many members of the community of the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes, I’ve moved around a bit in my life. I was born and raised in the 19th ward of Rochester. Our house was the last one on a flight pattern to the airport.

Planes over our house were so low I could read the serial numbers on their belly. Rochester was my parent’s hometown too.

My parents believed in the American

pened next should amaze anyone.

A grateful Bills fan looked up “Andy Dalton” online and saw that the quarterback has a philanthropic foundation that helps sick children and their families.

The fan sent a contribution and tweeted for others to do the same, perhaps as sort of a sporting jest (sorry, Baltimore), but also as a serious gesture of sharing their happiness in a helpful way.

Within hours, 15,000 Bills fans responded, sending over a third of a million dollars to Dalton’s foundation.

They did it because of a game. Andy Dalton gave it his best when he didn’t have to and no one expected it, and Buffalo fans gave back the same way.

Sometimes there’s more to a game than is obvious. Actually, most of the time, once you’ve learned that spirit isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.

Stephen P. Burke is a columnist for The Ithaca Times. His column, Ithaca Notes, appears biweekly.

Dream. In their view, that meant choices —where to live, where to work, what you could achieve. No matter where I go people tell me I still sound like I’m from western New York whenever they hear that tell-tale flat “a” in my speech. Just as the accent is still with me, are those values.

My first week in Ithaca, my father took me to a local gun shop. He was worried about my safety and wanted to buy me a pistol! But even though they worried, they were also very proud. In Ithaca, I went to law school and raised a family. I had a good job at Cornell University. These were steps so far removed from the world of a barmaid and high school dropout and my parents were proud of what I had achieved. Ithaca was not a place “5 square miles surrounded by reality” or full of “eggheads in an Ivory Tower.” It was a beautiful place where I could get a great education, send my children to public school, form lasting friendships and participate in activities that serve the community. It allowed me a good life while being close enough to take care of my parents.

My story is not all that different from many who reside in New York’s 23rd District.

Tom Reed would have you think otherwise.

He would have you think that because some members of our community—our family— think of a different way to achieve our shared values, or choose to live in a different town, that they are to be loathed. It is in Tom Reed’s best interest to promote a divide within the 23rd district. He uses it so that he can vote how he pleases in his pursuit of special interest money. But it is not good for us. Falling into his trap will continue to hold us back. It will divide us unnecessarily and keep us from uniting around our shared values. Rather than follow his deceptive lead, we should focus on our common ties. The same values my parents instilled in me — hard work, education and opportunity — are the values of most people in this district, no matter what their political affiliation.

If this experience of campaigning has taught me anything – and it daily teaches me many things – it is that ties to Ithaca should not be hidden. I am proud of who I am and where I come from. I believe in giving back to the community.

Tracy Mitrano is a candidate for Congress in New York’s 23rd District.

OurOpinion contin u ed from page 6

fish inedible. One example of this was seen at a trash incinerator in Syracuse (six times smaller than the plant proposed for Romulus), which the Syracuse Post Standard reported in 2009 had rendered most of the fish in Glacier Lake – a nearby glacial plunge pool with no watershed – inedible, with all of the mercury attributable to airborne sources.

With all the assurances of the companies who seek to construct these incinerators, there are no concrete assurances. Air quality monitoring is infrequent and the methods, oftentimes, manipulative. The toxic ash these facilities produce – due to a change in regulation in the 1980s that allow the most toxic ash to be diluted with less toxic ash – are labeled as non-hazardous when they shouldn’t be, and often works its way back into the environment.

Why did this occur? Because, Connett said, there was concern existing toxic waste dumps would be overwhelmed with the collective output of all these incinerators combined.

It is evident that those behind the proposal, Circular enerG, are fully aware the community is aware of the danger this incinerator will present. Since day one, little has been known about the company itself beyond the fact they were formed but a year ago, with no demonstrated experience in energy generation or trash disposal to show for it since. It is so clear that the local community will fight the proposal that last weekend, the company chose to forgo local involvement period, instead leaving the decision on whether or not it can proceed to state regulators. As we – and this company – have seen, the people of Romulus, early on, have decided the project is not good for Romulus. But, from the crowd I saw on Sunday, it’s more than apparent this plan concerns far more people than just those who live there: It concerns everybody who lives and loves the region we hold dear. In attendance, I saw not just activists or local townsfolk, but elected officials from as far away as Lansing, Cornell scientists, entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders, and plenty of young families whose children attend school nearby.

As for why the diverse crowd, the answer is obvious: This project will not be one invisible beyond the sightline of its 260-foot smokestack. If built, this incinerator – if we are to believe the expert opinion of Dr. Connett – will be a defining trait of our region’s health for decades to come. The only way the state is to be thoroughly convinced of the region’s wholesale rejection of this proposal is for all of us to make our presence known.

“This world isn’t going to be saved by people on top,” said Connett, in an impassioned passage of his presentation Sunday. “It’s going to be saved by people at the bottom, up – the grassroots… I think it’s absolutely marvelous that they proposed this here, because it’s going to galvanize so many people. I wish they would propose more of these in beautiful areas, because a threatened community is an active community.”

Connett wasn’t referring just to that small town – he was referring to all of us.

County Officials Unsure Of Opioid Program Impacts In May, some controversy arose among the county’s public health officials when it was revealed $2 million in funding to combat the opioid crisis Tompkins County was to be spent on firms located outside of the county.

In continuation of a state-targeted response strategy to the opioid crisis initiated by the Obama Administration, the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to (OASAS) announced it would be spending $25 million statewide to connect county residents in the 16 counties most affected by the crisis with localized addiction treatment services.

OASAS, Deputy Commissioner of Mental Health Services Sharon MacDougall said at a meeting in July, identified what providers will be providing the services without local government insight or conversations, deciding two out-of-county providers – The Addiction Center Of Broome County and the Chemung County branch of Council on Alcohol and Substance Abuse – CASA Trinity (based out of Livingston County) – would be handling the job, passing over local organizations like Cayuga Addiction Recovery Services (CARS) and the Alcohol and Drug Council (ADC).

Even after suggestions that the service providers would be working with local officials to decide how best to roll out their programs, several months later the specifics of the services remain unclear to many in the addiction treatment community and that, beyond brief meetings with the County Health Department, no meetings with other local professionals took place despite repeated requests.

“If you find out something from these people, you’d be the first one,” said Bill Rusen, CEO of Cayuga Addiction Recovery Services; one of the firms to be passed over by the state for the contract despite being certified to do the work described in the contract (and operating in Tompkins County since 1972). “I don’t know when these people are in the county, I don’t know where they are, I don’t know what they’re doing here.

They sure as heck don’t talk to me, and I’m very frustrated with this.”

“I’d like to tell you my spidey sense wasn’t going off,” he added. “But what’s going on here seems like Grade-A, USDA horsesh*t.”

Read the full story at Ithaca.com

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150 Years Ithaca’s YMCA Marks A Milestone

By Nick R ey nolds & M att Butler

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here is a group on Facebook called Tid Bits of Tompkins County History where amateur historians in Tompkins County longing for understanding of their community’s past can convene to share photos, share memories and share information of

Others shared memories of the old swimming pool there whose markings, one commenter said, could still be seen in the foundation that now serves as the base of the building that currently stands there.

What for a long part of its history was formally known as the Young Men’s

from rural areas into new cities, seeking new opportunities.

The first meeting of Ithaca’s YMCA was in a reading room of the Cornell Public Library on November 23, 1868, a marking of the promise of the area as an important center of industry and employment in the region. The small town of less than 8,500 was already established as an important waypoint of trade and Cornell University – founded just three

the community in the form of letters printed in the Ithaca Journal and neighborhood flyers, especially at the onset of the 1890s.

“From the response that has so far been given to the published statement of the needs of the Young Men’s Christian Association, one of two things is evident,” reads the letter, titled ‘The Appeal of the Y.M.C.A. “The benevolent people of Ithaca either deem the association not

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1943

The first recorded meeting of the YMCA in Ithaca takes place in a reading room of the Ezra Cornell Library

On July 1, the YMCA purchases a property at 202 E. Buffalo Street to construct a new facility for YMCA activities

YMCA establishes its first resident camp on the premises, two years after the first facility has been dedicated.

During WWII, the YMCA becomes home to the USO where, years earlier, state renowned basketball and wrestling teams competed.

community members come and gone.

In the group last week, an interesting thread opened up for individuals in the community to reminisce on some of their memories of the old YMCA downtown, as the local chapter of the organization gets set to celebrate its 150th anniversary this November. Some offered up old pamphlets and photographs.

Christian Association began in 1844, primarily, as a way to keep the young men of London off the street and out of trouble. The concept caught on and, seven years later, had spread to Boston, the organization undergoing a period of rapid expansion between the 1870s and the 1920s as places of recreation and refuge for countless thousands looking to move

years earlier – was beginning to grow on East Hill, overlooking a burgeoning city already forging a reputation as an important center of manufacturing.

The longevity itself is surprising, but even moreso when considering the Ithaca YMCA’s early years were riddled with funding problems, highlighted by routine pleas for funding assistance from

worthy of support, or they do not yet appreciate the full extent of the responsibility that rests upon them individually.”

Of course, maybe the people of Ithaca, benevolent then as they are now, had good reason: Records from the first few months of 1888 that show general figures about YMCA usage about the community show an average of 12 men were using

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the gymnasium every day, but only six baths were being taken per day. Regardless, the organization continued to bill itself as “The one place open every day and evening, where our young men might go without coming under any evil influence.”

It seems things stabilized, though, as the public fundraising requests go relatively quiet after that flurry.

But even entering its second century in 1968, the future was murky. An article printed in the Ithaca Journal, which published a full special edition dedicated to the YMCA’s first 100 years, mentions that the Y was scouring for money and land for a new Ithaca location -- though $30,000 in profits from a preseason New York Giants-Pittsburgh Steelers NFL game held at Schoellkopf Field at Cornell were being kept to help the YMCA when they decided on a building locale.

The rest of what is known about what happened within the local organization since then exists exclusively within a haphazard stack of bound volumes, newspaper clippings and unmarked photographs in the conference room of the new building. (There is a small collection, however, in the archive at The History Center Of Tompkins County) The structure these stacks sit in – expanded in 2002– was built in 1980 to replace the handsome facility that once existed on the corner of Buffalo and Tioga Streets, built in 1907 across from Ithaca Town Hall and destroyed by fire in 1978.

For all the names to head the organization over the years, you’d be hardpressed to find a leader more enthusiastic than Frank Towner, current Chief Executive of the local YMCA. At the helm six years now, Towner walks the halls of

proceeds to take us on a tour of the facility, weaving us in and out of every room in the sprawling two-story facility. First is the circuit training room, overlooking the facility’s three squash courts and well-used indoor playground that has been used by thousands of kids since it was installed in the late-80s. Then, a

water by the side, guessing all their names on the second try. You can see that sentiment of community everywhere, from the clustered groups of friends and family exercising with each other to the children at play in the gymnasium. You can even see it in the decor: Plastered all over the walls of the YMCA

multi-purpose room, which he gestures around with big plans to upgrade the facility from a one-time dance studio into a training facility, with white boards, projector screens and a fully functional kitchen to host nutritional classes. He walks us into the cardio room, past a dance studio, game room and nursery into the gymnasium and the attached weight room where, Blink-182 blaring over the stereo, he gestures to the facility’s latest acquisition.

“This thing is called the Octagon,” he says with pride. “It was designed for seniors and kids who might not use a weight room, and it’s a functional training center. You can work your way

are a list of flags, illustrating the more than one dozen various nationalities represented among the YMCA’s 4,000-person strong membership.

“It doesn’t take long to understand Ithaca is a diverse place,” he said. “And they all come to the Y.” Where the YMCA was once known for temporary housing, meals and workout equipment, the facility has now evolved into sort of a living room for the entire community: centrally located and relied upon by people from all over Tompkins County. Since 2010, the YMCA has had a philosophy geared not just for its membership, but as a higherfunctioning extension of the commu-

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To raise money for a new facility, the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers play an exhibition game at Schoellkopf Field.

In May, a massive fire detroys the YMCA facility and plans to build a new facility are put into motion.

A new facility opens on Graham Road, in Lansing. In 2002, a gymnasium and fitness center are added.

the facility with a bounce in his step – no person young or old goes unacknowledged and every greeting, warm and personalized: you’d have to be pretty new, it seems, for Towner not to know your name. And even then, it won’t take long for him to learn.

Towner greets us at the entrance and

around this and do your reach exercises, your pulls, your steps… all the equipment on this is designed to help you simulate moves you’d do in everyday life.”

He takes us down the hall and into the facility’s signature room – the swimming pool – where he strikes up a conversation with three children treading

nity. In fact, of the 4,000 individuals who count themselves as members, just as many without memberships use the facility each year.

“We really wanted to open the doors,” said Towner, gesturing to a number of young men playing a game of pickup basketball on the facility’s 17-year-old Ja n ua r y

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court. “I don’t know all of these guys right here. I bet half of them aren’t members. They get dropped off by the bus and paid their five bucks and they came to play. That gives us a more diverse group here.”

The YMCA, for years, has had a way of quietly going about its mission in the way it was originally intended: as a place for people to get fit and ease themselves into the local community. But Towner sees the potential for something greater, for an elevated presence in the community beyond swimming pools and free weights that today, means far more than just a social organization for young Christian men: it’s a facility for everybody, a microcosm of the community it exists to serve.

“The Y does so much,” Towner said.

“It’s not just racquetball and pickleball and basketball. It’s about kids being together, parents reading with their children upstairs. It’s about nutrition, and building a relationship with the outdoors… all those things are happening at once. We’re not just preventing alcoholism or addressing mental health issues. It’s bigger than that.”

Year 150 will be focused on helping the community better understand that.

On Wednesday night, the YMCA hosted a kick-off party to outline a bold set of objectives for the coming year: 150 separate events, all intended to raise awareness and funding to construct yet another addition to the facility out by Ithaca Mall. (Those plans aren’t concrete just yet, but there’s hope, he said.) The eventual objective is to build a better appreciation of the YMCA, Towner said, but to also make it as good as it can be.

And that comes, he said, through thinking creatively and ambitiously.

“My role, here, is to be sort of like the visionary,” he said. “I can go to the

2010 The YMCA opens up a health and wellness center on the premises.

board, who controls the money, and say ‘hey, let’s do this.’ And they’ll tell me I can’t, and give me a bunch of reasons why we can’t. And all I have to ask is, ‘Well why not?’”

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sports

Small Ball, Big Time Passion

By Ste ve L aw re nc e

I

’m not sure if I am (Ithaca High cross country coach) Rich Bernstein’s Publicity Agent or if Rich is my Content Procurement Agent, but we got it goin’ on…

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Silas Defel – who Rich coached to t he N YS hig h school cross country championship, and shortly thereafter, Rich was a part of the National Letter of Intent signing ceremony for five Little Red athletes, about which I wrote.

Last week, Rich popped up on my Facebook page, having traveled to Binghamton to watch Ithaca High graduate Mike McCoy play basketball for the semi-pro Binghamton Bulldogs of the American Basketball Association (ABA). My interest piqued, I reached out to Mike, and he was very pleased to spread the word about the Bulldogs.

I learned that after graduating from Ithaca High in 2005, Mike suited up for the TC3 Panthers, but his grandfather passed soon thereafter and he turned his attention to his family’s needs. Mike told me, “I grew up in Ithaca, playing in the GIAC leagues and AAU ball, and when I saw the notice that the Bulldogs were looking for players from the area, I was really excited to try out.”

Mike told me that the Bulldogs are a firstyear ABA entrant, and the team owner, Jim Evans, is a familiar face in the Binghamton hoops scene. “I have played in several rec leagues run by Jimmy, and when I saw his Facebook post that he was looking for play-

ers from the 607, I felt like he was reaching out to me.”

Mike lives in Newfield now, and he’s a musician in a local jazz/funk band, and he

plays music at his church as well. Given he’s a “grown up,” he knew it would take some juggling to get to practice once or twice a week and play on weekends, but he felt it was worth it. “We’re really doing this for the 607 community,” Mike told me. “We put the work in, and I want the young people from the Ithaca community to see that you should never stop dreaming. I realize I’m lucky to get this opportunity at age 30, and I hope to see a lot of Ithaca people at our games.”

I checked out the Bulldogs’ website, and when I saw some of the scores (like 163-132) I jokingly asked Mike if anyone played any defense. He acknowledged that since guys do have to go to work on Monday morning, there is not nearly the level of physical play one might normally see, the main reason for

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the high scores is the pace of play. “The ABA plays a really fast-paced brand of basketball, and we run the floor and push the tempo,” Mike said, “but that’s not to say that we’re not playing hard, taking charges and locking up!”

There are some very skilled players out there, like Ralph Bucci, a 42 year-old baller who played overseas for eighteen seasons.

Jimmy Gray was a D-1 player at Binghamton University, and many of the guys have college experience.

At 6’4”, McCoy plays small forward and power forward, and he finds himself in the paint against a lot of bigger players. “I use my body and my weight really well,” Mike offered, “and I have to because most of the guys are a legit 6’6” or 6’7.””

Bernstein said he really enjoyed going to Seton Catholic Central, where the Bulldogs’ home games are played. He said, “My daughter and ‘Big Mike’ have been close friends since elementary school, and I love the fact that a guy who didn’t get to play in college is now – a dozen years later – able to play at this level. I’m a big fan.”

Rich also said that his own brother is a referee, and he happened to officiate for the Bulldogs’ game. “I had two reasons to go,” Rich stated, “and I’ll tell you, after reffing a game that was that fast-paced, my brother was exhausted!”

The Bulldogs are halfway through their 24-game season, and McCoy wants everyone to know that if youth groups (like GIAC or Southside) want to see a game, the Bulldogs will offer bulk discounts. For scheduling and ticket information, please go to www.binghamtonbulldogs.com.

Human rights contin u ed from page 5

sold iers f i r i ng i nd iscr i m i nately at the crowd... I’ll never forget that horrific moment: farmers dying for land reform.

Dying for what was due them.”

In teaching the basics of human dignity and then, applying it to real world change, Graw hopes to demonstrate that each of us, in some way, can have a positive influence on the world. And that level of impact, Graw notes, has been significant, especially for a bunch of first graders: Last year, the class raised more than $2,300 for Heifer International and UNICEF’s fund in Syria and, just over a week into the new year, the class has already raised about $1,200. And that’s not all from calendar sales: some members of the class raided their piggy banks to add to the class’s donation total. One student opened a lemonade stand. Enthusiasm for the project rode so high, even the parents of the students threw their efforts into the calendar’s sales.

From all this, Graw hopes to give her students a life-long understanding of the world around them: that not all is fair but, in their own ways, they can help to bring some semblance of justice to places of the world where justice is absent. And that doesn’t always need to come from Olympic tasks like building a school in Tanzania (which through their donations, they’ve helped do for the past several years.) It can come, she said, through a gesture as small as inviting a new student to play with them at recess, or sitting with someone new at lunch in order to get to know them better.

–Nick Reynolds

A look back at local theater in 2017

T

heater in Ithaca has grown radically in the last several years. 2017 was a year of transitions and new beginnings.

A new Artistic Director at the Hangar, Michael Barakiva, selected his own summer season this time out (the first 5 play season in years) as well as mounting the Hangar’s first winter show ever: Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as adapted by local playwright Aoise Stratford.

The Cherry finally opened the theater-space it broke ground on two years ago. After the Hangar’s Lab Company gave the Cherry Art Space (on the inlet past Wegmans) a test drive this summer, The Cherry itself jumped into their digs with the world premiere of Ithaca College professor and international playwright Saviana Stanescu’s What Happens Next? directed by Artistic Director Sam Buggeln (who also did the sharp scenic design), featuring Erica Steinhagen and Associate Director Jennifer Herzog as actors, plus an updated version of their holiday storytelling enchantment ‘A Snow Queen’ with new songs, including a diva-ish meltdown for Steinhagen’s title character.

After 20 years building the Kitchen Theatre to a polished and innovative professional force in the region, Rachel Lampert handed the keys over to M. Bevin O’Gara (recently of Boston), who wasted no time putting her stamp on the space with three sharp plays that reshaped the actual theater space each time, with an invigorating mix of new and familiar faces on and offstage.

Civic Ensemble continued its own devised community work as well as its partnership with Cornell in both devised and scripted work that stressed social justice, education and climate change (and the intersectional realities all three entail.) Cornell itself (that is the Dept. of Performing & Media Arts in Collegetown’s Schwartz Center) has started a re-shaping of its performance aesthetics and ethics, with a strong push by students and junior faculty to an actual multicultural, racially diverse, complexly gendered and committed theater practice mixing it up with theory when possible.

Recent faculty hires Jennifer Williams and Courtney Young had their debut as directors on the Ithaca College stage, in opera and musical theater respectively.

The Ithaca Savoyards turned last year’s experiment of not only doing a full-up Gilbert & Sullivan but also doing a “modern musical” utilizing the Hangar space with The Mystery of Edwin Drood, strongly directed by Ella Carr. And Ellen Jackson created a young people’s version of Cerentola for Ithaca Opera, while Zachary James teamed up with Amy Cohen at the Circus Culture (and a Cirque de Soleil performer) to create a spell-binding Pagliacci that glowed with rough magic and crooked charm.

And yet another theater company announced itself: Walking on Water, whose inaugural production was Godspell at CSMA.

Also new was the administration in Washington. And that sparked some other moments. A collective theater commitment to resist, sounded by the national Ghost Light Project (with a big assist from the Kitchen locally), a thrilling night.

Not My President’s Day: A Political Cabaret with academia and performers from both hills creating outrageous and pointed comedy/manifesto/ satire (also held at the Kitchen). And a fabulous joint project dreamed up by the artistic directors of the Hangar, The Cherry, the Kitchen and Civic Ensemble: commissioning new plays to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage in New York.

Which isn’t to say change was the only thing going. Continuity and growth were also on hand.

From “In the Red and Brown Water” at Ithaca College.

(Photo provided)

Running to Places, Tompkins County’s youth theatre group, celebrated its 10th season with a lovely ‘Music Man’ featuring founder Joey Steinhagen as Harold Hill and a luscious Lynn Craver of Opera Ithaca as Marian (who did huge musical credit to the role created by the late Barbara Cook.) And of course, as always R2P said goodbye to another group of talented high school seniors.

George Sapio wrapped up his fourth Ithaca Fringe, proving the impossible is not so improbable. Homecoming Players celebrated five years, winding up with a second new play from cofounder Arthur Bicknell, Easy Out. Wolfs Mouth Theatre Company’s bevy of local playwrights again did Spring Writes, showing less can be more, when you give actors you know words they require. Ithaca Shakespeare gained an Executive Director and also finished up its History Plays cycle with Richard III. Some things I particularly admired or remember from the year. I did not, could not see all, but I did see a bunch.

Ensembles were the touchstone of 2017.

Glorious casts working to buoy each other up, with immense commitment to the show.

Kicked off by IC’s annual opera in February,

By Ross H a a rstad

Mozart’s sublime La Clemenza di Tito. In this case the ensemble was the orchestra and singers under the musical direction of Christopher Zemliauskas. A thing of joy. The staging was not as much so under Jennifer Williams, a strong concept was muddled by the monumentalism of the set and a certain timidity in execution.

More good ensemble work: the cast of IC’s Rock the Cradle; Mark Blitzstein’s satire was keenly executed across the spectrum by the actorsingers under Susannah Berryman’s electric direction (though Blitzstein’s score does run out of musical steam towards the end.) Up at Cornell a solid Baltimore with a cast mixed in experience lovingly coached and supported by Sarah K. Chalmers. The summer brought the zany glories of Barakiva’s pansexual re-invention of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The cast of The Foreigner reached superb heights of farcical overdrive, especially the trio of innocents portrayed by Berryman, Cam Weinrich and Lilly Waldron. Topped off by the Hangar’s final play, Melissa Kievmann’s restaging of Joe Calarco’s R&J with four girls. This whip-sharp cast kept me breathless.

The Homecoming Players exploded a tale of early Civil Rights struggle in a staged reading of From the Mississippi Delta, featuring Leslyn McBean-Clairborne, Sylvie Yntema and Chisom Awachie (directed by Chalmers.) And Opera Ithaca made chorus, circus performers and the leads a vast social unit in James startling imagining of Pagliacci.

On to a terrific fall on both campuses: Robert Moss elegantly staged Angels in America, Pt. 1 in the round, with attentive work by all the actors.

Over at Cornell the season opened with Beth Milles’ imaginative bare bones staging of Brecht’s A Caucasian Chalk Circle. While it didn’t always sustain its pace and burn throughout, this was a great stretch of a very diverse group of actors’ muscles, with impact in the current moment. An even more diverse and international cast, rich in texture and commitment, managed the intricacies of an Arab satire on Hamlet, adapted and directed by Rebekah Maggor.

IC finished their season strong in two great evenings: Courtney Young directed and choreographed a madcap, silly, dizzy Wonderful Town.

Despite being a star vehicle, everyone seemed a star at their particular moment. Finally, the best ensemble work of the season was from the cast who inhabited the magical reality of Tarrell Alvin McCraney’s In the Red and Brown Water. The sense of generosity and delight they displayed in one another is a hallmark of director Cynthia Henderson’s work in general.

And storytelling by actors doesn’t get better than the work of the ensemble in The Cherry’s The Snow Queen.

Most important: steps toward honest diversity on many area stages (not all) this past year. • Read more about theater in 2017 at ithaca.com.

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Theater in Review

I t h a c a T i m e s 11

stage

Tumbling Through Life

R2P and Circus Culture join forces in ‘Pippin’

By Lin d a Gl a se r

R

unning to Places’ production of Pippin, like the Broadway revival, marries the poignancy of theater with the spectacle of circus in a non-stop extravaganza of acrobatics, aerial silks, juggling and more. The production, a collaboration with Ithaca’s Circus Culture, runs Jan. 12-14 at Cornell’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.

The adult jokes and much of the humor will go over the heads of the kids who come for the circus fun, as will the more serious themes. Pippin (Jasper Fearon) is the story of a young man’s quest to discover his purpose in his life, to find his “corner of the sky.” His search is guided by the Leading Player (Imri Leshed) of a performance troupe that serves as a rotating band of characters, from soldiers to courtesans to townsfolk, performing impressive circus feats that had this reviewer holding her breath. Full splits while suspended from silks high in the air, daring duets on the trapeze – think Cirque du Soleil done by teens.

Pippin is a “meta” story — the actors come right through the fourth wall that

metaphorically separates show and audience, with the Leading Player pulling you right into the story. Leshed’s character is having fun, “enjoying himself through the mystery,” says Leshed, and he wants the audience to enjoy along with him.

Fearon describes Pippin as figuring out life “with a dark little twist,” trying to overcome a dysfunctional relationship with his father, King Charles (Howard Kraskow) and his stepmother Fastrada (Alyssa Salerno). Pippin doesn’t do well in competition with his stepbrother Lewis (Aspen Earls), either, or in trying to follow the path of hedonism his grandmother Bertha (Julianna Cuevas) suggests. Things just get worse for the directionless Pippin until he meets widowed farm-owner Catherine (Cameron Park-Miller) and her young son Theo (Andrew Kaiser) and confronts real love for the first time.

But Park-Mi l ler’s Cat herine is no breathless ingénue. “She doesn’t let the man save her, she saves the man,” says Park-Miller. “She doesn’t stand back and watch — she’s out there telling the story.”

Joey Steinhagen, R2P artistic director,

sees Pippin as an appropriate story for today. “The strain from social media, when people think everyone else has the perfect life and vacation and feel their life should have more, means that Pippin resonates in a way it never did before,” he said. “Pippin feels dissatisfied if life is not spectacular.

But does he want to choose a spectacular life even if It means a spectacular death? Is love worth it?”

Awa rd-w i nni ng composer Steven Schwartz revolutionized musicals by using modern rock and pop music in the Pippin score, most of which he wrote in high

One of the characters hanging upside down.

(Photo provided)

school. “Musical theatre history can be described as before and after Pippin,” notes resident music director Jeremy Pletter. Schwartz went on to write Godspell, Children of Eden, and Wicked, and is the winner of three Grammy Awards, three

Academy Awards and was nominated for six Tony Awards. Fearon, with his big, smooth voice, and the rest of the accomplished cast, make the familiar songs their own, from “Corner of the Sky” (my alltime favorite) to “Magic to Do.” In separate interviews, both Steinhagen and Circus Culture founder and director Amy Cohen emphasize how R2P and Circus Culture are sister organizations, sharing an ethos and both celebrating diversity of spirit, inclusivity, and honoring each individual’s gifts. Their collaboration, says Cohen, has been an “effortless, joyful cohesion.”

The language of circus is used throughout the show, in the same way as dance choreography would be used in a conventional musical. Fortunately, the choreographers – Circus Culture’s Amy Cohen, Emily Healy and Holly Adams – are “bilingual,” each f luent in several movement languages.

And lighting designer Natty Simons (a physics teacher at LACS), knows how to design for circus, having been a lighting designer at French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts. Cohen oversees both the circus choreography and aerial set design; Copper Santiago contributed additional aerial coaching. Other members of the design team include Deborah Drew, set design; Elizabeth Woods, costume design; and Jordan Fearon, sound design. • Pippin runs Jan. 12-14, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets available online at www.runningtoplaces.org.

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music

Activism, Hip-hop, Exorcising Flobots come to Ithaca for an exclusive show

By C hr i s tie Cit rang l o

of thinking from people’s souls.

The song serves as an exorcism for white supremacy and Nazi ideas: ridding the body of anything to do with internalized racism, misogyny, homophobia and more.

“Pray” was released Jan. 20, 2017, the day of the 45th presidential inauguration — exorcising the demons entering the administration.

“You have to talk about it, and you have to act on it. Those things are really important, but there’s a third dimension, and that’s our spirits,” Jonny 5 said. “How we feel, and how it feels to always be on the receiving end of racism, how it feels to be always having your world view corrupted by racism. Wherever you are from, everyone needs that sense of exorcism.”

Through the NOENEMIES tour, Flobots will continue to resist and exorcise. During each live show, the group will build a small community between the stage and the audience members: singing together, crying out together and joining together spiritually.

“We build a community and we build trust or we build a culture in that room, and we learn how to respect and interact at the club,” Jonny 5 said. “So that becomes really important and really sacred, and it becomes a congregation. Everyone in that congregation matters, and all of those stories matter.” • Additional reporting contributed by Samuel Rubinstein.

Jonny 5 and Brer Rabbit raising the voices of the youth. (Photo provided)

Flobots, 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 18, The Haunt, with opener Tropidelic.

I

thaca continues to welcome the fight for justice, this time in the form of alternative hip-hop protests. Flobots will bring its rhythm and resistance — featuring a special appearance from an old member of the group.

Jesse Walker, the original bassist of Flobots, will join the performance at The Haunt — and nowhere else on the tour.

Walker is currently getting his PhD at Cornell University, so traveling with the group isn’t possible for him during this tour. But Walker will make an exception for the Ithaca show.

Core members Jonny 5 (Jamie Laurie), KennyO (Kenny Ortiz) and Brer Rabbit (Stephen Brackett) drew comics together growing up in Denver, Colorado, before plunging into the local music scene — and the activist scene. Their creative interests evolved with their characters, and the members of the group sought to speak out against injustices.

Beginning in the 2000s, the music Flobots created stemmed from concerns within its community. The band’s first album, Fight with Tools, resists against the George W. Bush administration and the war in Iraq — topics of contention around the country, but also in Colorado.

While there have been loud voices in the music industry fighting against the current presidential administration, several of these musicians are just beginning to fight back — Flobots have been resisting since its inception.

“The reason we make music is to express what we’re hearing from our communities,” Jonny 5 said. “ … This most recent album, NOENEMIES, what we’re seeing with is people all around us at each other’s throats and feeling divided and feeling hopeless and feeling like Twitter battles are the only conversation happening. And we know

that’s not true.”

The conversation continues on NOENEMIES. A key inspiration for the album draws on the teachings and writings of Vincent Harding, who was an associate, friend and speech writer for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Harding lived in Denver and connected with Flobots members Jonny 5 and Brer Rabbit. Jonny 5 said Harding was a mentor to him and Brer Rabbit, and they also worked with him as facilitators and artists for youth programming in the area.

When Harding passed away in 2014, Denver was shaken. Jonny 5 said he and the group were left to “figure out what was the mission he left us with.” Since the band could no longer consult with him, Flobots crafted messages and songs that embodied his teachings while also drawing on what the community spoke out against. “[Harding] always wanted us to ask the people around us what was important to them and build a community together, and he wanted us to explore the power of collective voice — even literally,” Jonny 5 said.

“What does it sound like when we all sing together? … NOENEMIES is about singing out and crying out when we’re upset about something. Crying out together in joy, in frustration and trying to become one community, even when that can be really hard.”

Voices chant and harmonize together on tracks such as “Pray” and “Rattle the Cage,” which take old slave songs and repurpose them with modern voices. Flobots worked with Sacred Harp singers for these tracks on NOENEMIES. These singers don’t perform for an audience or rehearse beforehand — they sing just to sing, and to literally raise the collective voices around them.

The Sacred Harp singers on “Pray” were local singers in the Denver area Flobots recruited. The song not only continues the conversation on white supremacy, it begins the spiritual tradition of ridding that way

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film

Shrinking Expectations

‘Downsizing’ has intersting concept, poor execution

By Br yan VanC ampe n

The smal characters from “Downsizing” holding a regular-sized rose. (Photo provided)

Downsizing, co-written and directed by Alexander Payne, playing at Cinemapolis.

R

ecently at my day job, I told my boss that I had just filed my article on the worst films of the year.

He gave me a pained look and said, “I got one for you.”

I said, “Well, too late, but hit me.”

“Downsizing.”

Well, that stopped me in my tracks because I had also seen Downsizing and been disappointed by it, considered putting on my worst list, and decided against it, because whatever else you can say about Alexander Payne’s new film, you can’t criticize it for lack of ideas or ambition.

Downsizing starts with an amazing

scientific discovery — the ability to shrink people — that becomes another big corporate concern. Now people can “downsize” and live in miniature McMansion dollhouses for a fraction of their net worth at full size. The film stars Matt Damon as Paul Safranek, as another of Payne’s midwestern schlubs, a gifted physical therapist married to Audrey (Kristen Wiig), and like most Americans, teetering financially.

They decide to undergo the downsizing procedure, but Audrey gets cold feet, leaving Paul on his own in a strange miniscule world. He meets people like his capitalist party animal neighbor (Christophe Waltz) and an impoverished Vietnamese activist (Hong Chau), who lives in an outlying slum with the rest of the low-paid labor that keeps Damon’s tiny kingdom going.

Again, you can’t say that Alexander Payne’s movie doesn’t have a lot on its mind. This is his first attempt to graft science-fiction elements into his minimalist character studies, and unfortunately for a film so smart, Downsizing can’t help but collapse under the weight of everything it’s trying to say. And frankly, Payne and his co-writer Jim Taylor make some colossal mistakes in tone and language, particularly with Hong Chau’s character, who spends most of the movie berating Damon all the time — why does he never stand up for himself? — and a spectacularly ill-advised speech about the nature of their sexual encounters … eesh.

It also doesn’t help that Downsizing is being marketed as a comedy. It has a few

then spill out into the halls. The Cornell Daily Sun did an article about it, talking about it as if it were a phenomenon of sorts. And it was. And it was that experience – not that it got me into music, but it brought me to understand that this folk music that I was singing, that I loved so much, was a vehicle for bringing people together to feel that sense of unanimity of spirit. And that spirit could be translated into the kind of activism that you saw in the civil rights movement that Peter, Paul and Mary were involved with. The reality is that this music played a very, very important role in terms of what we would call the greening of America, the greening of a new positive consciousness and sense of tolerance and unanimity. •

music

Back to Roots

Peter Yarrow returns to Ithaca at the Hangar

By Br yan VanC ampe n

F

ol k si nger, ac t iv ist a nd Cor nel l alumnus Peter Yarrow performs at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 13, at the Hangar Theatre. His songwriting spans not just his work with the legendary trio Peter, Paul & Mary, but also as a solo performer, and his tunes are frequently directed at using music to convey a message of humanity and caring: “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” “Day is Done,” “Light One Candle” and “The Great Mandala.”

As a member of the renowned musical trio, Yarrow has earned multiple gold and platinum albums, as well as numerous Grammys.

Peter Ya rrow spoke to t he Ithaca Times about the Cornell college class that changed the course of his life.

Peter Yarrow: Interestingly enough, when I was at Cornell, there was very little contact at the time between Cornellians and Ithacans, if that’s the right term. But in the years since, I’ve come to love Ithaca.

It’s such a wonderful, wonderful town. It’s so vibrant and so rich and so filled with 14 T

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creativity, and really a great spirit. Cornell was, for me, not an easy time. It was a very difficult period of time in history of Cornell, and of our country at the time. It was before the 1960s, it was a very prejudiced place; it was very elitist and it was something that I was very uncomfortable with. Then things began to change. I got involved with this course called “Romp and Stomp,” or English 355-356, and people would audit like crazy. I got the instructorship because I was a folk singer.

I was President of the Folk Song Club, and they had a tradition of having an undergraduate instructor – the only one at Cornell – and I took attendance, and in this case, sing songs to illustrate the songs that Professor Harold Thompson would speak about. What was unique about this course was that it was an easy A, and all the pre-meds were taking it, and second, on Saturdays, there was no class per se, there was a sing-a-long. I was considered a turkey, a geek, no positive connotations. But by the time I was a senior, I saw

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humorous moments, but it’s more preachy and didactic than funny. This is Matt Damon’s fourth film from last year, but he looks like he’s having a lot more fun in Zhang Yimou’s The Great Wall and as Fake Loki in Thor: Ragnarok.

It’s also odd that Payne casts most of the film with comedians like Wiig, Jason Sudeikis and Kerry Kinney, but, like Steve Soderbergh’s The Informant!, doesn’t ask them to be funny. And anyone who dismisses Kristen Wiig halfway through the movie didn’t learn anything from the Ghostbusters remake.

Having said all that, here’s what I did like about Payne’s movie. I liked the ways that he and Taylor illustrate the ripple effect from a European scientist shrinking a white mouse to cutting to 15 years later, and now the amazing scientific breakthrough is big business. There are commercials everywhere and a kind of corporate presence we all know when a new venture goes global.

There are people employed to sell the concept to customers, there’s the underpaid have-nots that keep the machine going, bizarre presentations hosted by shrunken versions of Neil Patrick Harris and Laura Dern… Even the nursing technicians are enacting goofy procedures that are treated as everyday and routine.

So even though Downsizing is kind of a mess, and I can’t really recommend it, there’s good stuff in there.

You just have to get small enough to be able to appreciate it. •

Peter Yarrow.

(Photo provided)

something in my fellow classmates, they were yearning for authenticity, the caring and the sharing that happened when I sang at these Saturday sing-a-longs was extraordinary. The feeling was so powerful that people began to come there. It was in Goldwin Smith Hall, which was the largest lecture hall at the time; it was about 300 seats, and it would fill up and

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PM, Tuesday, January 16, 18 | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | (Local jazz jams, improv)) Concerts

1/11 Thursday

The Verve Pipe | Thursday, January 11, 18 | Center For the Arts of

Music 1/10 Wednesday

Djug Django | 6:00 PM-9:00 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Lot 10 Lounge, 106 S Cayuga St, Ithaca | (Hot Club Jazz, Blues, Swing) Jesse Douglas Collins Quartet | 6:00 PM-9:00 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Monks on the Commons, 120 S Aurora St, Ithaca | (Jazz, Jazz-pop) Sacred Chanting with Damodar Das and Friends | 7:00 PM-9:00 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Varying Locations, , | Refer to Damodar Das Kirtan on Facebook for location schedule.

Synthetic Music Collective | 8:00 PM-11:00 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Sacred Root Kava Lounge & Tea Bar, 139 W State St, Ithaca | (Analogue, Electronic)

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The Crucial Reggae Social Club | 9:00 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | (Reggae)

1/11 Thursday

The Sweats | 5:00 PM-8:00 PM, Thursday, January 11, 18 | Grist Iron Brewing, 4880 State Route 414, Burdett | (Rock) Dr. K Paul Kempkes | 6:00 PM-9:00 AM, Thursday, January 11, 18 | A.T. Walley, 119 Genesee Street Auburn, Auburn | (Acoustic, Covers) Dino Losito, Brian Murphy, Terry Light | 6:00 PM-7:30 PM, Thursday, January 11, 18 | Collegetown Bagels, East Hill Plaza, Ithaca | (Jazz)

1/12 Friday

The Swampcats | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Americana Vineyards, 4367 E Covert Rd, Interlaken | Dr. K Paul Kempkes, Ted Bryant | 6:30 PM-9:30 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Creekside Tavern, 896 Ithaca Road, Willseyville | (Acoustic, Covers) Rebecca and the Soul Shakers | 7:00 PM-10:00 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Grist Iron Brewing, 4880 State Route 414, Burdett | (Rock, Roots, Soul) Ironwood | 8:00 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Silver Line Tap Room, 19 W Main St, Trumansburg | Horns and Ivory | 9:00 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | The Range, 119 E State St, Ithaca | (Jazz, Reggae) Dead Night at The Dock | 9:00 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | (Grateful Dead covers)

1/12 Friday

Cristina Cutts Dougherty | 7:30 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Ithaca High School, 1401 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca | Cristina Cutts Dougherty, a former Ithaca City School District Student, is returning to Ithaca to give a tuba recital. She will also teach lessons and give master

1/13 Saturday

A Fine Line | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM, Saturday, January 13, 18 | Americana Vineyards, 4367 E Covert Rd, Interlaken | Salsa Night Holiday Celebration at The Range | 7:00 PM-1:00 AM, Saturday, January 13, 18 | The Range, Ithaca Commons, Ithaca | Holiday season gift prizes on December 9. Raffle ticket free with admission. Arrive early for a crash course on Salsa and Latin dance, and more party time.

1/14 Sunday

Tru Bleu | 3:00 PM-7:00 PM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Americana Vineyards, 4367 E Covert Rd, Interlaken | Ithaca Jazz and Blues Jam | 4:00 PM-7:00 PM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Mix Kitchen and Bar, 205 Elmira Road, Ithaca | All jazz and blues instrumentalists and vocalists welcome. Hosted by Dennis Winge Trio.

1/16 Tuesday

Tuesday Bluesday with Dan Paolangeli & Friends | 6:00 PM-, Tuesday, January 16, 18 | The Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | (Blues, Rock, Every Tuesday) The Cool Club & The Lipker Sisters | 6:30 PM-9:30 PM, Tuesday, January 16, 18 | The Range, 119 E. State Street, ithaca | (Swing, Jazz) Irish Session with members of Traonach | 7:00 PM-9:30 PM, Tuesday, January 16, 18 | Argos Inn, 408 E State St, Ithaca | (Irish, Traditional) Professor Tuesday’s Jazz Quartet | 8:00 PM-10:00 PM,

Cristina Cutts Dougherty will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 12, at Ithaca High School. An Ithaca High School alumna, she’ll be teaching lessons and performing a tuba recital. (Photo provided)

Tuesday, January 16, 18 | Madeline’s Restaurant, 215 E State St, Ithaca | (Jazz) I-Town Jazz Jam | 9:00 PM-11:59

Ja n ua r y

Homer, 72 S Main St, Homer |

1 0 – 1 6 ,

2 0 1 8

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classes to students at the high school Boynton Middle School and DeWitt Middle School.

I t h a c a T i m e s 15

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Falling Waters Friday Faculty Concert | 7:30 PM-10:00 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | La Tourelle Resort & Spa, 1150 Danby Rd, Ithaca | The Friday show features a mini-set

by Richie & Rosie & friends and appearances by most of the camp faculty and friends including Dylan Foley, Steve Selin (performing Cajun fiddle with Rosie Newton), Claire Lynch, Bryan McDowell, Mark Schatz, Adam Hurt, Quinn Bachand, Tim Ball with Arise & Go, Nicholas Walker, Dave Davies and Paul Fairbanks.

Brahms’ dynamic and expressive Symphony No. 3.

Dar Williams | 8:00 PM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Hangar Theatre, 801 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca |

1/13 Saturday

The Shape of Water | In a 1960s research facility, Elisa, a mute janitor, forms a relationship with a mysterious aquatic creature. | 123 mins R Lady Bird | In the early 2000s, an artistically-inclined seventeen year-old comes of age in Sacramento, California. | 94 mins R I, Tonya | Competitive ice skater Tonya Harding rises amongst the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future in the activity is thrown into doubt when her ex-husband intervenes. | 120 mins R Darkest Hour | During the early days of World War II, the fate of Western Europe hangs on the newly-appointed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Hitler, or fight on against incredible odds. | 125 mins PG-13 Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri | A mother personally challenges the local authorities to solve her daughter’s murder when they fail to catch the culprit. | 115 mins R

The Ithaca Community Chorus and Chamber Singers’ Winter Concert | 7:30 PM-10:00 PM, Saturday, January 13, 18 | St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 402 N Aurora Street, Ithaca | The Ithaca Community Chorus and Chamber Singers, with orchestra, and directed

by Gerald Wolfe, will give a concert featuring works by three contemporary composers: Adam’s Lament and Magnificat by Arvo Part, Five Hebrew Love Songs, Sleep, and Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitaker, and Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen.Tickets and more information available on line at acithaca.org Peter Yarrow | 8:00 PM, Saturday, January 13, 18 | Hangar Theatre, 801 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | (Acoustic)

1/14 Sunday

Symphoria Casual Series: Brahms’ Third | 2:30 PM-4:30 PM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | St. Pauls Episcopal Church, 220 E. Fayette Street, Syracuse | This performance features members of Symphori’s Viola section in Telemann’s Double Viola Concerto, and concludes with

16 T

h e

Film Cinemapolis

Friday, 1/12 to Thursday, 1/18. Contact Cinemapolis for Showtimes and for Fantastik Film Screening times

I thaca Time s

/

Januar y

Regal Ithaca

Wednesday, 1/10 , to Tuesday, 1/16. Contact Regal Ithaca for Showtimes Paddington 2 | Paddington, now happily settled with the Brown family and a popular member of the local community, picks up a series of odd jobs to buy the perfect present for his Aunt Lucy’s 100th birthday, only for the gift to be stolen. | 103 mins PG All the Money in the World| The story of the kidnapping of 16-year-old John Paul Getty III and the desperate attempt by his devoted mother to convince his billionaire grandfather Jean Paul Getty to pay the ransom. | 132 mins R Father Figures | Upon learning that their mother has been lying to them for years about their allegedly deceased father, two fraternal twin brothers hit the road in order to find him. | 113 mins R Pitch Perfect 3| Following their win at the world championship, the now separated Bellas reunite for one last singing competition at an overseas USO tour, but face a group who uses both instruments and voices. | 93 mins PG-13 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle | Four teenagers are sucked into a magical video game, and the only way they can escape is to work together to finish the game. | 119 mins PG-13 The Greatest Showman | Inspired by the imagination of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that

10– 16 ,

2018

became a worldwide sensation. | 105 mins PG Ferdinand | After Ferdinand, a bull with a big heart, is mistaken for a dangerous beast, he is captured and torn from his home.

Determined to return to his family, he rallies a misfit team on the ultimate adventure. | 108 mins PG Star Wars: The Last Jedi | Rey develops her newly discovered abilities with the guidance of Luke Skywalker, who is unsettled by the strength of her powers.

Meanwhile, the Resistance prepares for battle with the First Order. | 152 mins PG-13 The Disaster Artist | When Greg Sestero, an aspiring film actor, meets the weird and mysterious Tommy Wiseau in an acting class, they form a unique friendship and travel to Hollywood to make their dreams come true. | 104 mins R Coco | Aspiring musician Miguel, confronted with his family’s ancestral ban on music, enters the Land of the Dead to find his greatgreat-grandfather, a legendary singer. | 105 mins PG Molly’s Game | The true story of Molly Bloom, an Olympic-class skier who ran the world’s most exclusive high-stakes poker game and became an FBI target. | 140 mins R Insidious: The Last Key | Parapsychologist Dr. Elise Rainier faces her most fearsome and personal haunting yet - in her own family home. | 103 mins PG-13

Stage ComedyFLOPs Presents: All You Can Eat Improv | 7:00 PM-9:00 PM, Thursday, January 11, 18 | The

Dock, 415 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | The FLOPs are partnering with The Dock to make Thursday the night for comedy in Ithaca. We are going to use donations to help pay our rehearsal space rent at Community School of Music and Arts.

Drag Show with Cassanova’s Royal Court | 9:00 PM-, Thursday, January 11, 18 | The Range, 119 E State St, Ithaca | Cassanova’s Royal Court’s bi-weekly drag show.

Boeing Boeing | Friday, January 12, 18 | Central New York Playhouse, Erie Blvd, Syracuse | From Jan. 12-17.

Pippin | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Cornell University, Ithaca | Running 2 Places performs Pippin with Circus Culture.

Comedian Judy Gold, Madelein Smith | Saturday, January 13, 18 | Auburn Public Theater, 8 Exchange St, Auburn | Comedian Judy Gold has had stand-up specials on HBO, Comedy Central and LOGO. She has also written and starred in two critically acclaimed, Off-Broadway hit shows.

Notices Ithaca Sociable Singles | 6:00 PM-, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Sunset Grill, 823 Danby Road, Ithaca | RSVP: lpd4@cornell.edu Wednesday Night Ithaca Women’s Basketball Association | 7:00 PM-9:00 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Lehman Alternative Community School, 111 Chestnut St, Ithaca | The league is non-competitive and fun and involves pick-up style playing. Check out the league’s website for more information: https://ithacawomensbasketball.wordpress.com/ Salsa Night at Agava | 10:00 PM-1:00 AM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Agava, 381 Pine Tree Road, Ithaca | Join an awesome dance crowd at Ithaca’s signature Latin dance party. Arrive early, 10pm, for introductory Salsa dance lesson and workshops.

Beginner Bird Walks | 8:30 AM-, Saturday, January 13, 18 | Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd, Ithaca | Guided bird walks every Saturday and Sunday morning, starting at 8:30 a.m., sponsored by the Cayuga Bird Club. Targeted toward beginners, but appropriate for all. Binoculars available for loan.

Meet at the front of the building. http://www.cayugabirdclub.org/ calendar Newfield Lioness Chicken and Biscuit Dinner | 5:00 PM-7:00 PM, Saturday, January 13, 18 | Newfield Fire Hall, 77 Main St. , Newfield | Serving: Chicken and gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetable, assorted homemade desserts and beverages.

Beginner Bird Walks | 8:30 AM-, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Cornell

Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd, Ithaca | Guided bird walks every Saturday and Sunday morning, starting at 8:30 a.m., sponsored by the Cayuga Bird Club. Targeted toward beginners, but appropriate for all. Binoculars available for loan.

Meet at the front of the building. http://www.cayugabirdclub.org/ calendar Teen-Only Gaming Sessions | 4:00 PM-6:00 PM, Monday, January 15, 18 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E Green St, Ithaca | Middle and high school-aged students (and homeschooled equivalents) are invited to participate in after school gaming sessions. Use our space to play your favorite board games, tabletop RPGs and collectible card games.

Special Events Annual MLK Breakfast | 9:00 AM-11:00 AM, Saturday, January 13, 18 | Beverly J. Martin Elementary School, 302 W Buffalo St, Ithaca | Included with the meal will be performances and presentations from GIAC participants and staff. Also from the downtown community, Dr. Shirley Collado, President of Ithaca College as the featured Guest Speaker and Father Augustine Chumo, Pastor of Immaculate Conception Church to shared a blessing.

Black Sheep Handspinners’ Roc Day | 10:00 AM-4:00 PM, Saturday, January 13, 18 | All Saints Church, 347 Ridge Road, Lansing | The event includes spinning demonstrations, vendors, competitions and spinning circle. Free and open to the public.

Come enjoy fellowship, food and fun with other handspinners and fiber artists.

Brews, Blues, BBQ | 12:00 PM-11:00 PM, Saturday, January 13, 18 | Grist Iron Brewing, 4880 State Route 414, Burdett | A day full of live blues music from traditional Delta to hardstompin’ to a mix of country blues and roots rock, along with house-smoked BBQ food specials

Online Calendar Check out all of these events and

so much more over at ithaca.com/

calendar. Never miss an event

again.

and lots of great craft brews. To keep you warm, we’ll have a giant bonfire outside. Bring your old Christmas tree to burn (drop off the week or day of) and score a free pint on us! Featuring the sounds of: Gerard Burke, Gabe Stillman and The Billtown Giants, and Nick Kody and the Creek Road Band Winter Chill 5K Series | 11:00 AM-12:00 PM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Cass Park Rink & Pool, 701 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | The Winter Chill 5K series is an excuse to get out of the house every Sunday in January and run with fellow FLRC members in weather that can range from downright balmy to wonderfully wintry. Every race will have a costume theme and those dressing up will be eligible for raffle prizes at each race. Everyone is invited to join us for brunch after the fourth and final race.

Science Member Night: Sonic Sensation | 6:00 PM-8:00 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Sciencenter, 601 1st St, Ithaca | Members get a sneak peek at our new featured exhibition, Sonic Sensation, before it opens to the public on Jan. 13. This also features a special presentation with Mike Titlebaum, Associate Professor and Director of Jazz Studies at the Ithaca College School of Music.

Discovery Sundays | 1:00 PM-2:00 PM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Cayuga Nature Center, 1420 Taughannock Blvd, Ithaca | Learn about exoskeletons, butterflies, “skin and skulls,” whooping cranes and much more. Visit www.cayuganaturecenter.org for details.

Health Sacred Sunday Community at Yoga Farm | 9:00 AM-11:15 AM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Yoga Farm, 404 Conlon Rd, Lansing | Sacred Sundays Community at Yoga Farm. All are Welcome.Discover Your Self & Awaken Your Kindest HumanityPray. Move. Sit. Connect.

Got Submissions?

Send your events items – band

gigs, benefits, meet-ups, whatever

– to arts@ithacatimes.com.

Heads Up Local Roundup

by Christie Citranglo

N

ow that it’s the second week of January, settling into the usual grind after the holidays is becoming more routine. Local music venues have reopened, making them the ideal spaces for staying warm during the frigid nights. Stages will light up and artists will get the crowds pumped for the new year.

The Ithaca Times has put together the top-three highlights for this week’s local music scene.

Falling Waters Music Camp Faculty Concerts: For two nights this week, the Falling Waters Music Camp faculty will put on concerts at La Tourelle. The first will be at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 12, and the second will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 13. The instructors of the camp teach master classes in a weekend of jamming and instructing.

The instructors specialize in different genres such as bluegrass, traditional Irish, swing, contradance, cajun, folk and more.

Open Meditation | 10:30 AM-12:00 PM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Foundation of Light, 391 Turkey Hill Road, Ithaca | All are welcome to meditate according to their own practice. It begins with 20 minutes of silent meditation, after which we read and discuss related texts. It ends with 15 or 20 minutes of silent or guided meditation. Beginners are welcome and instruction in basic meditation will be provided.

There are chairs and cushions in our meditation room, but you are welcome to bring your own. Sessions are an hour and a half from 10:30 to noon.

16 Useful Plants and Formulas for the Practicing Herbalist | 3:30 PM-5:30 PM, Sunday, January 14, 18 | Sacred Root Kava Lounge & Tea Bar, 139 W State St, Ithaca | This event is free and open to everyone, though it will not cover introductory herbal information. This class will cover practical and clinically useful plants and formulas for a range of ailments. We will look at some of the more commonly used plants such as Calamus, Lobelia, and Gotu kola, as well as some less commonly used plants.

Overeaters Anonymous 12-Step meeting | 7:00 PM-8:00 PM, Monday, January 15, 18 | Just Be Cause Center, 1013 W State St, Ithaca | Open “Big Book” OA 12-Step meeting. Contact Leigh 379-4858.

No matter what your problem with food compulsive overeating, undereating, food addiction, anorexia, bulimia, binge eating, or overexer-

Cristina Cutts Dougherty: An Ithaca native, Cristina Cutts Dougherty returns to Ithaca High School for a tuba recital 7:30 p.m.

Friday, Jan. 12. Cutts Dougherty began playing the tuba when she was 9 years old, and now she’s back in town to show Ithaca what she has learned since she left. Cutts Dougherty has studied and lived in several places around the world including South Africa, New Mexico, New York and England, all places that have inspired her music. She was also the the 2016 Young Artist winner of the International Tuba Euphonium Competition. Cutts Dougherty will be accompanied by pianist Mary Ann Erikson.

Horns and Ivory: Formerly known as Who Let the Cats Out, Horns and Ivory is a group of musicians from Ithaca and beyond from all different skill backgrounds. The group’s music can be described as jazz, latin, reggae, rap and more all lumped into one — the sounds of every musician on stage shining.

This performance will feature guest artists Neil Payne on bass and guitar, Brian Murphy on vibes and bass, Terry Light on flugelhorn and Alejandro Bernard Papachryssanthou on piano.

The group will perform at 9 p.m.

Thursday, Jan. 12, at The Range. •

cising we have a solution. No dues, fees, weigh-ins.

Food in the Foyer: Vegan Soup | 12:00 PM-1:30 PM, Tuesday, January 16, 18 | GreenStar Cooperative Market, 700 W Buffalo St, Ithaca | Professional Chef Anita Devine will show you how to make split pea and white bean soup with diced celery, carrot and burdock. Recipe and samples provided.

Kids K-2 Acting Classes | 9:30 AM-10:30 AM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Cortland Repertory Theatre, Dwyer Memorial Park Pavilion, Preble | Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig! We’ll work together to tell this funny take on a famous story. We’ll present this funny tale to family and friends on the final day of class!

Third to Sixth Grade Acting Lessons | 11:00 AM-12:30 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Cortland Repertory Theatre, Dwyer Memorial Park Pavilion, Preble | Cinderella Bigfoot: Cinderella is special in so many ways. We’ll work on actor training through games and scenework, and we will use music to tell our story. With added songs, this musical theatre experience will be presented to family and friends on the final day of class!

7th to 12th Grade Acting Lessons | 1:00 PM-2:30 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Cortland Repertory Theatre, Dwyer Memorial Park Pavilion, Preble | We will work

One of the classes from the Falling Waters Music Camp. (Photo provided)

on acting through song. Through musical duets and scenes, we will explore just how great characterizations on musical theatre can be.

No vocal training needed! We will present the numbers on the final day of class!

Science Together Using Tools | 3:00 PM, Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Sciencenter, 601 1st St, Ithaca | Experiment with kinetic sand using a variety of tools. Engage with your toddlers and preschoolers as you investigate how to make observations through hands-on activities.

Robert Danberg Poetry Workshop for Kids | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E Green St, Ithaca | These fun-filled programs for children in kindergarten through third grade will offer an opportunity for young poets to connect with each other and their senses to create poetry.

Baby Storytime | 10:30 AM-11:00 AM, Friday, January 12, 18 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E Green St, Ithaca | Caregivers and babies up to 24 months old are invited to Baby Storytime. Join us for books, music, movement and rhyming, along with early literacy tips for babies and their caregivers.

Robert Danberg: Interactive Poetry Workshop for Children | 3:00 PM-, Friday, January 12, 18 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E Green St, Ithaca | This free, fun-filled program for children in second through fifth grade will offer Ja n ua r y

an opportunity for young poets to connect with each other and their senses to create poetry. Danberg is the coordinator of campus-wide writing support at Binghamton University and has led poetry and writing workshops for students at Belle Sherman Elementary School.

Showtime! Dog Behavior | 2:00 PM-, Saturday, January 13, 18 | Sciencenter, 601 1st St, Ithaca | Discover why dogs behave the way they do with the 4-H TailWaggers and their well-trained dogs.

Sit! Stay! Read! | 3:00 PM-4:00 PM, Tuesday, January 16, 18 | Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E Green St, Ithaca | Children are invited to practice their reading skills by sharing a story with a truly non-judgmental listener — a dog! Attend six sessions and earn a free book of your choice. The program is co-sponsored by Cornell Companions.

—from 15th-century witch hunting manuals to 20th-century movie posters — and it examines themes such as gendered stereotypes, belief in night flying, shapeshifting, demonic pacts, and the witch epidemics that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands.

Member’s Show, Part I | Friday, January 12, 18 | Works of art by half of the gallery members. On exhibition will be paintings, works in pastel, sculpture, photography and more. Reception for the artists on Friday, Jan. 5, 5-8 p.m.

June Silberman | Friday, January 12, 18 | Local artist exhibition featuring the work of June Silberman.

Something to hold on to | Monday, January 15, 18 | Featuring submitted work from local artists.

Art Tompkins County Public Library Art Exhibitions | Wednesday, January 10, 18 | Various exhibitions from local artists. On exhibition through Feb. 14.

John Lyon Paul | Thursday, January 11, 18 | John Lyon Paul’s latest artworks will be on exhibition.

The World Bewitch’d: Visions of Witchcraft from the Cornell Collections | -, Friday, January 12, 18 | The exhibition features rare and unique books and documents 1 0 – 1 6 ,

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Upgrade your event for the online calendar for only $15 a day.

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I t h a c a T i m e s 17

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PIANOS

• Rebuilt • Reconditioned • Bought• Sold • Moved • Tuned • Rented

Complete rebuilding services.

No job too big or too small.

Call us.

Ithaca Piano Rebuilders (607) 272-6547 950 Danby Rd., Suite 26

South Hill Business Campus, Ithaca, NY

Town & Country

Classifieds

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10 Newspapers

277-7000

MERCHANDISE UNDER $100

MERCHANDISE $100 - $500

Fax and Mail orders only

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Services

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Four Seasons Landscaping Inc.

| 59,200 Readers

Internet: www.ithaca.com Mail: Ithaca Times Classified Dept

PO Box 27 Ithaca NY 14850 In Person: Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm

109 North Cayuga Street

Phone: Mon.-Fri. 9am-5pm Fax: 277-1012 (24 Hrs Daily)

Special Rates:

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services

SERVICE DIRECTORY

GARAGE SALES

19.

$

15

19.

25 words

00

$

Real Estate

$

00

per week / 13 week minimum

Real Estate

Real Estate

Handy Man

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!

Stone Walls, Walks, Repointing, Gardens, Weeds, Carpentry, George: 793-4312 - Save Number!

Vocalist/Musician

I am looking to join or start a band. I am

Interior Painter

Pressure Washing, Deck Staining, Gutter Cleaning, Debris Removal. Free quotes.

Cheap pricing. Courteous. Reliable.

Quality Work. Call (607)280-6509

DONATE YOUR CAR

Wheels For Wishes Benefiting

Make-A-Wish Central New York

an experienced singer in mostly Country and Rock & Roll! I live in Ithaca. Please contact me at 607-262-1818 or even text me. Butch Perfetti

1040/Land for Sale GOT LAND

900/Personals I Fell in Love

with a Beautiful, Beautiful, Ithaca Woman. She has a Heart of Gold and a Voice to Match. She Deserves Better. My heart is broken What is a poor boy to do?

Our Hunters will Pay Top $$$$ To hunt your land. Call for a Free info packet & Quote. 1-866-309-1507. www.BaseCampLeasing.com (NYSCAN)

You Can PLACE

Your ads ONLINE at Ithaca.com

®

*Free Vehicle/Boat Pickup ANYWHERE *We Accept All Vehicles Running or Not *Fully Tax Deductible

WheelsForWishes.org

Call: (315) 400-0797

* Car Donation Foundation d/b/a Wheels For Wishes. To learn more about our programs or financial information, visit www.wheelsforwishes.org.

Ithaca WebsIte DesIgn

Do you have a business? are you starting a business?

Let Us help You!

We have been in business since 1980 specializing in streaming audio and video. Our team of experts can build you a website with features such as search engine optimization, tracking web site visitors, listing on Facebook. Check us out on www.ithacawebsitedesign.com Call us at 607-272-9175 we are open Monday to Friday 9am. to answer your questions.

Ithaca’s only

hometown electrical distributor Your one Stop Shop

WANTED!!

Since 1984 802 W. Seneca St. Ithaca 607-272-1711 fax: 607-272-3102 www.fingerlakeselectric.com

Old Motorcycles, Parts and Memorabilia Top Dollar Paid!

607-564-1808

Ja n ua r y

1 0 – 1 6 ,

2 0 1 8

/ Th e

I t h a c a T i m e s 19

BackPage

For rates and information contact Cyndi Brong at cbrong @ ithactimes.com

277-7000 p h o n e 277-1012 f a x

FURNITURE & DECOR

Tokyo

24/7 CLEANING Services

MIGHTY YOGA

607-227-3025

Voted Best of Ithaca Visit www.mightyyoga.com 272-0682

PEACEFUL SPIRIT TAI CHI Please join us for traditional

430 W. State St. (607)882-9038 Open Every

Funeral Consumers Alliance

Day!

of the Finger Lakes

at our new location and time

www.fingerlakesfunerals.org 273-8316

Centerlne Fitness and Martial Arts 335 Elmira Road

info@fingerlakesfunerals.org

(same building as Spicey Asian)

LPs 45s 78s ROCK JAZZ BLUES

Love dogs?

FRIDAYS 7:30 - 8:30 PM

PUNK REGGAE ETC

Check out Cayuga Dog Rescue!

ALL LEVELS WELCOME

Angry Mom Records

Adopt! Foster! Volunteer! Donate for vet care!

admin@peacefulspiritacupuncture.com

115 The Commons Basement

www.cayugadogrescue.org

319-4953 angrymomrecords@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/CayugaDogRescue

4 Seasons Landscaping Inc. 607-272-1504 lawn maintenance

Choose self-care for 2018

Yang Style Tai Ji Quan (Tai Chi)

* BUYING RECORDS *

spring + fall clean up + gutter cleaning

UNLIMITED Yoga for $30!

High Dusting * Windows/Awnings

and price comparisons from

722 S. Meadow (near Tops) 607-277-8888

Start with 30 days of

Janitorial Service * Floor/Carpet

Get unbiased funeral planning information

MIMI’S ATTIC

With Greenback Coupon at

PEACE & WELLNESS

RESIDENTIAL & COMMERCIAL

It’s Your Funeral Will it be What You Want?

Buy, Sell & Consign Previously-enjoyed 10% off Total Check

Independence Cleaners Corp

patios, retaining walls, + walkways landscape design + installation drainage

Luna offers $5.00 OFF

Caregivers

(minimum order $20.) with

HHA, PCA, CNA

Greenback Coupon

snow removal

Companions

dumpster rentals

Full-time - Part-time all shifts

Find us on Facebook!

607-277-1342

Protect Your Home with a Camera Surveillance System Latest Technology. Affordable

Les - 607-272-9175

310 Stewart Ave / 113 N. Aurora

Save 10%

256-5862, 269-6139

on Total Check with

Men’s and Women’s Alterations for over 20 years

Greenback Coupon at

$5.00 off any purchase

Fur & Leather repair, zipper repair.

308 E. Seneca / 206B Dryden Rd.

with Greenback Coupon at

“CLEAR IT OUT”

Same Day Service Available

DiBella’s Subs

Basements, Barns, Garages & etc.

John’s Tailor Shop

YOGA FARM

222 Elmira Rd.

Reliable and Affordable

John Serferlis - Tailor

$1/day annual membership

Classen Home Health

254-2432

Richard F. Vogt Call 387-4190 water1945@live.com

AAM

Poke`land

102 The Commons

for 2018 through 1/31

273-3192

20+ classes every week Make 2018 YOUR YEAR

MINDFULNESS

ALL ABOUT MACS

Crystal Energy Therapy

Macintosh Consulting

The Spa at Gothic Eves

http://www.allaboutmacs.com

(607)387-6033

(607) 280-4729

fingerlakesnyspa.com

STRESS REDUCTION

to Nourish, Cherish & Restore

at Island Health & Fitness

Your Self with high-quality Self Care!

in partnership with Cayuga Medical Center

www.YogaFarm.us/607280-2010

New Sessions Start in Early January nickboyar.com

{NEW CONTENT EVERY DAY} ITHACA.COM News | Arts | Entertainment | Restaurants Blogs | Searchable Events Listings Ithaca and Beyond.

Finger Lakes Community Newspapers 20 T

h e

I thaca Time s

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Januar y

10– 16 ,

2018

IthacaTimes