January 2021

NEWS. ARTS. LIFE. | JANUARY 2021 | FREE | SINCE 1971 DINING

WINTRY MIX

PUBLIC LIVES

SOUL-WARMING SOUPS OF ROCHESTER

OUR VANISHING BACKYARD RINKS

MICHAEL MENDOZA, M.D. (THE M.D. IS FOR ‘MY DADDY’)

If Rochester is a “City of the Arts,” why don’t we invest in the arts? roccitynews.org

CITY 1

INBOX WANNA SAY SOMETHING? CITY wants to hear you rant and rave. Your feedback must . . . . . . be no more than 250 words . . . respond to CITY content . . . be engaging CITY reserves the right to edit for accuracy, length, and readability.

Send your rants and raves to: feedback@rochester-citynews.com

CITY, 280 State St., Rochester, NY 14614 (ATTN: Feedback) STAMP OUT THOSE SMOKES While fondly reading my December copy of CITY, sitting in my rocker close enough to inhale the aroma of my just-installed Christmas tree, I happened upon page 33, which appeared to be a full-page ad for Lucky cigarettes.

“This must be a joke or parody of some kind,” I said to myself, studying the page carefully. Yet everything looked like an authentic cigarette ad.

Am I missing something? Apart from the bizarre thought that a liberalleaning publication like CITY would accept ad money from Big Tobacco, I thought cigarette ads in magazines were illegal.

The pleasing pine aroma from my Christmas tree was unfortunately tainted by the imagined aroma of cigarette smoke.

Please explain.

Bob Pollard, Webster CITY: While cigarette advertisements on television and radio were banned 50 years ago, they are not prohibited in newspapers and magazines. A 1998 Big Tobacco lawsuit settlement, however, created broad restrictions on language and placement.

I was super disappointed to see a full page cigarette ad when this country is in the middle of a respiratory-related pandemic.

This is in very poor taste. Please consider the impacts of this ad on those who have lost loved ones to COVID-19.

Please consider posting an apology next month.

Lily Forgach, Rochester 2 CITY

JANUARY 2021

CITY: Holy smokes! The smoke is coming out of your ears and we hear you.

We know you’re disappointed that CITY continues to publish full-page tobacco ads, such as the one that ran on page 33 of the December issue, and the one on page 19 of this month’s edition.

What we don’t know is what took so long for the complaints to roll in. Perhaps we’re reaching new readers who are more conscious of the harms of tobacco, or maybe our new glossy format has made these ads pop off the page.

The fact is, though, accepting these ads has been a long-standing practice for CITY, and many other publications. Indeed, the exact same ad we carried in our November issue appeared in that month’s edition of Outside, a magazine devoted to fresh air and healthy pursuits. We’ve received only occasional complaints over the years, but we can’t ignore the recent spike in grievances from our readers.

Some of you wonder how CITY could in good conscience publish cigarette ads.

One of our letter writers today asked, “Does CITY’s existence depend on cigarette advertising?” To some extent it does, sadly. At least right now.

Like millions of smokers worldwide, we’re trying to wean ourselves off the junk.

The fact that we devoted this entire space to your letters trashing our advertiser shows how serious we are about shaking the habit.

All of us at CITY are well aware that tobacco is deadly. Indeed, we regularly publish a cancer awareness ad free of charge to counter paid tobacco ads. This month we have one on page 53.

We are also painfully aware that providing strong local journalism takes money.

At CITY, our revenue is derived mainly from advertising. Right now, many of our stalwart advertisers don’t have much of a marketing budget because they’re reeling from the economic fallout of the pandemic, just like us. For the time being, at least, cigarette ads are a source of revenue, and not an insignificant one.

Have you ever known a smoker who curses Big Tobacco every time he lights up? Of course you have. That’s CITY right now. We don’t endorse it. We don’t want it. At the moment, though, we sort of need it and wish we didn’t.

Thank you for reading and sharing your concerns. They mean a lot to us.

As a member of and contributor to WXXI Public Media (CITY’s parent), I thus received my first issue of your magazine in November. I can only wonder why you would run a fullpage ad from a cigarette manufacturer when you have such a wealth of far less damaging advertisers available in and around Rochester.

And forgive me if I was startled to see “made with organic tobacco” as the key selling point for this product. One can only smile at what I can only take as a gaffe, worthy of the monthly slipup page in Consumer Reports. Does one dare ask if organic tobacco slows the statistical onset of lung disease, or, on the other hand, contributes more efficiently to its progress?

Alan Littell, Alfred

Are you guys out of your minds having an ad for cigarettes? Honestly!!!

John Gummoe, Webster SICK BURN Wow! A full page Lucky Strike ad personalized for our city! (“ROCHESTER, MAKE IT LUCKIES!”) With such a large medical community here, Lucky Strike must be trying to counter the 1946 survey and ad campaign that said, “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.”

Peter Hasler, Rochester

NEWS. ARTS. LIFE. January, 2021 Vol 49 No 5 On the cover: Photo Illustration by Ryan Williamson 280 State Street Rochester, New York 14614 feedback@rochester-citynews.com phone (585) 244-3329 roccitynews.org PUBLISHER Rochester Area Media Partners LLC, Norm Silverstein, chairman FOUNDERS Bill and Mary Anna Towler EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT themail@rochester-citynews.com Editor: David Andreatta News editor: Jeremy Moule Staff writer: Gino Fanelli Arts editor: Daniel J. Kushner Life editor: Rebecca Rafferty Music writer: Frank De Blase Calendar editor: Kate Stathis Contributing writers: Roman Divezur, Quajay Donnell, Adam Lubitow, Vince Press, Chris Thompson CREATIVE DEPARTMENT artdept@rochester-citynews.com Creative director: Ryan Williamson Designer/Photographer: Jacob Walsh ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT ads@rochester-citynews.com Sales manager: Alison Zero Jones Advertising consultant/ Project mananger: David White OPERATIONS/CIRCULATION Operations manager: Ryan Williamson Circulation manager: Katherine Stathis kstathis@rochester-citynews.com CITY is available free of charge. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased by calling 585-784-3503. CITY may be distributed only by authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of CITY, take more than one copy of each monthly issue.

CITY (ISSN 1551-3262) is published monthly 12 times per year by Rochester Area Media Partners, a subsidiary of WXXI Public Broadcasting. Periodical postage paid at Rochester, NY (USPS 022-138). Address changes: CITY, 280 State Street, Rochester, NY 14614. Member of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and the New York Press Association.

Copyright by Rochester Area Media Partners LLC, 2021 - all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, photocopying, recording or by any information storage retrieval system without permission of the copyright owner.

@ROCCITYNEWS

IN THIS ISSUE OPENING SHOT

Highland Park on a winter morning. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

NEWS

5

WHAT FIRE DISTRICT?

You’ve probably never heard of a fire district, but here’s why they matter.

ARTS

LIFE

18

34

The sultry-voiced songstress is behind the mic of her own talk show.

BY GINO FANELLI

8

ON THE COVER

IF WE'RE A ‘CITY OF THE ARTS,’ WHY DON’T WE INVEST IN THE ARTS?

22

Photographing murals was a panacea during the pandemic.

10

24

How the RMSC came to monopolize public funding for the arts.

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

THE DELIGHTFULLY DETAILED WORK OF MATHISON RUST

His digital illustrations of Rochester icons are the cutest things you’ll ever see.

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

MIKE MENDOZA IS HAVING A MOMENT

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

44

BORED OF WINTER QUARANTINE?

Try a board game.

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

BY QUAJAY DONNELL

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

HOW PUBLIC ART KEPT ME SANE

PUBLIC LIVES:

No other health commissioner in history has been so visible.

BY FRANK DE BLASE

Monroe County’s public funding of the arts has amounted to crumbs for decades, and has caught up with us.

AND REBECCA RAFFERTY

AN “AFTERNOON COCKTAIL” WITH AMANDA ASHLEY

48

ROCHESTER’S VANISHING BACKYARD RINKS

Milder winters are melting our backyard rinks — but rink rats keep facing off with Mother Nature.

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

MORE NEWS, ARTS, AND LIFE INSIDE roccitynews.org

CITY 3

WELCOME

After a ‘lost year,’ hope springs eternal

Columbia Care Medical Marijuana Dispensary in Rochester now offering ground flower NEW PATIENT SPECIAL: Receive 20% off your first purchase

Home Delivery Available

Find us

www.col-care.com/location/rochester New York Medical Marijuana ID required to make a Medical Marijuana purchase.

A

nyone who goes to a gym regularly knows the whole “new year, new you” thing is a myth.

By the third week in January, half the new members lining up for the elliptical machines on New Year’s Day have vanished. Still more surrender by April.

By November, almost everyone has thrown in the towel, vowing to start fresh in the new year.

But that’s the thing about a new year. It comes with a feeling of hope. It’s a like a free side.

Okay, let me see here, what looks good. Ooh, hope! Is that any extra with the new year entrée?

No. Hope comes with it, sir.

There’s no rational reason to believe that Jan. 1 will be any different than Dec. 31. Yet, we do. It’s in our DNA. Experts in human behavior say our need to peg spells of hope and fear on periods of time like a calendar year is rooted to our attachment to routine.

In November, we eat too much. By December, we’re sluggish. Come January, we commit to becoming the person we were meant to be. We seem to never stop believing in ourselves.

There has been much talk of 2020 being a “lost year.” We lost family and friends to disease. We lost jobs. Kids lost school and time on playing fields and stages.

Everyone is mourning something.

But we also gained something from all those losses: perspective. The pandemic brought tectonic change to almost every facet of life — how we live, how we work, what we value, what it means to be a kid and a parent and a partner, and what’s important.

Combine that with our primal desire to hope, and humanity is poised for an awakening in 2021.

Over the course of the pandemic, many of us have gotten to know our public spaces and families better than ever before. See Quajay Donnell’s paean to Rochester’s public art (p. 22) and Daniel Kushner’s piece about the promise of board games to bring people closer (p. 44).

With so many people working from home, many of us have enjoyed cleaner air and taken more notice of nature. If that’s you, you’ll love Rebecca Rafferty’s homage to winter through the lens of writers and artists (p. 46).

The arrival of a vaccine means the light at the end of the long tunnel we’ve been slogging through since last March has never been brighter.

But even in our rush to reach the end, we’ve learned to slow down. That’s a good thing, too, because we couldn’t keep up the pace we were going.

Now we have a president to complement our more deliberate and measured approach to life. Whatever faults he has, he won’t be as erratic and exhausting as the one we’ve just endured.

Nobody knows what 2021 will bring. Will our festivals return? Will we see movies in the theater again? Will we stand shoulder to shoulder in a barroom listening to live music, or sit elbow to elbow taking in a play? When the Buffalo Bills win the Super Bowl, will there be anyone in the stadium to cheer them on? See what I did there?

Nobody knows. But we hope.

Many blessing to you and yours in the new year.

David Andreatta, Editor

Tell us what you're thinking at feedback@rochester-citynews.com 4 CITY

JANUARY 2021

NEWS

VOTER BURNOUT

A voter leaves the Mendon Fire District after casting a ballot for fire commissioner. PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

Overlooked fire district elections come with a price You’ve probably never heard of a fire district, but they tax Monroe County residents $79 million a year

BY GINO FANELLI

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@GINOFANELLI

n a Tuesday afternoon in December, Charlie Ennis donned a Vietnam Veteran baseball cap and a flannel shirt and made the short jaunt from his home off Latta Road in Greece to the firehouse down the street.

He went to vote for a pair of commissioners in the North Greece Fire District, an annual exercise in civic duty Ennis figured he had completed for the last 25 years.

Polls opened at 2 p.m., and when they closed seven hours later, Ennis was one of 361 people to cast a ballot

GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

in a race that included four candidates, according to the election results.

“Citizens in a fire district, or in any election, should take an interest in the society they live in,” Ennis said. “Whether it’s any election, when they can have a voice in the community, in society, hey, go for it.”

In Monroe County, few people go for it.

Each of the county’s 23 fire districts holds elections for commissioners on the second Tuesday of every December, and collectively they draw a fraction of 1

percent of registered voters. In most places, turnout can be counted in the double digits.

A contested race for a commissioner seat recently in the St. Paul Boulevard Fire District in Irondequoit, for instance, drew 30 voters. In the neighboring Ridge-Culver Fire District, also in Irondequoit, 77 voters cast a ballot for a recent contested commissioner race there. The election in the Mendon Fire District last month for a contested commissioner seat saw 239 voters.

Voters could be forgiven for overlooking a fire district election.

The annual races are held by statute during a busy holiday season and are, for the most part, poorly advertised. Notices for some elections are prominently displayed on firehouses’ exterior marquees, but most languish on bulletin boards inside firehouses or on district websites that few people visit.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

roccitynews.org

CITY 5

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The media, too, gives short shrift to fire district commissioner contests, in part because they aren’t sexy. Running for a commissioner seat requires a candidate compiling rd: $890 a mere 25 signatures to get on the ballot, and campaigns are typically word-of-mouth affairs. ton: $398 Interviews with voters and commissioners during what could port: $137glibly be called the campaign season in December suggested that most people who cast a ballot are either Fire District: $608 firefighters or family and friends of firefighters.

“It’s$856 kind of tough, it doesn’t get e Ridge Road: the publicity,” said Bill Lawrence, a veteran firefighter in the North Greece Mor-Walker:Fire$172 District. “It’s important that people know what the real issues are.” etta: $475 What is at issue in any given commissioner election is oversight of anywhere from hundreds of n-Parma: $213 thousands to several million tax dollars, depending on the size of the hore: $507fire district.

The tiny Mumford Fire District services Scottsville, for example, ton: $409that operates on an annual budget of about $350,000. By contrast, the on: $278 North Greece district levied $11.1 million in taxes this year.

WHAT THE AVERAGE HOMEOWNER PAYS

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ord: $390 WHAT’S A FIRE DISTRICT

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ANYWAY?

Greece: $518 Fire districts are autonomous units of

local government, independent of the and rural communities they serve. east Joint:towns $187 City dwellers might not have ever heard of one. Rochester, like most cities eld: $175 and even some large towns and villages, funds its fire department through its ord: $188 municipal budget. But outside the city limits, fire districts are how small communities get fire services. easant: $288 Districts are run by a board of five commissioners, each elected to serve either two- or five-year terms, -Culver: $656 that is authorized by state law to levy taxes and set budgets to pay for fire $220 protection.

There are 750 fire districts across eeze: $259New York that together levied $807 million in property taxes last year, according to state Comptroller’s Office cerport: $160 records. The 23 districts in Monroe County collectively taxed residents to ul: $350 the tune of $79.2 million.

A CITY analysis found that the tax burden in Monroe County varies Webster: $230 from district to district, in some cases drastically, depending on a variety of factors that include property values, 6 CITY

JANUARY 2021

$0 250

$250 500

$500 750

$750+

Fire protection district or municpal fire departments

A. Barnard: $890

I. Lakeshore: $507

Q. Pt. Pleasant: $288

B. Brighton: $398

J. Laurelton: $409

R. Ridge-Culver: $656

C. Brockport: $137

K. Mendon: $278

S. Rush: $220

D. Gates: $608

L. Mumford: $390

T. Seabreeze: $259

E. Ridge Road: $856

M. North Greece: $518

U. Spencerport: $160

F. Ham-Mor-Walker: $172

N. Northeast Joint: $187

V. St. Paul: $350

G. Henrietta: $475

O. Penfield: $175

W. West Webster: $230

H. Hilton-Parma: $213

P. Pittsford: $188

Median bills are based on each fire district’s tax rate per $1,000 of assessed value and median value of homes in each individual town.

All median home values are from the U.S. Census’s American Community Survey's five-year average, ending 2019.

Lake Shore Fire District advertised its commissioner elections. PHOTO BY DAVID ANDREATTA

the size of the service area, and whether districts are staffed with paid or volunteer firefighters.

For instance, the tax rate for services in the Barnard Fire District, which covers the south side of Greece with a staff of professionals and volunteers, is $6.57 per $1,000 of assessed property value, while the rate in the Pittsford Fire District, which is made up entirely of volunteers, is 68 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.

That translates to the average homeowner in Barnard paying roughly $890 per year in fire district taxes compared with $188 for the average homeowner in Pittsford.

But the number of volunteer firefighters is dwindling here and across the state.

John D’Alessandro, secretary of the Firemen’s Association of the State of New York, an advocacy

group for volunteer firefighters, estimated that the number of volunteers across the state has fallen over the last 20 years to about 85,000 from 120,000.

There are a variety of factors driving the decline, from volunteers opting for paid jobs to the dicey proposition of risking one’s life for no pay. In the end, D’Alessandro said, the taxpayer feels the difference.

“Volunteer departments save taxpayers money,” said D’Alessandro, who figured that volunteers save New York residents $5 billion annually.

TAX CAP? WHAT TAX CAP? Like other taxing entities in New York, fire districts are by law capped at how much they can raise taxes each year.

But commissioners can vote to override the tax cap, and they frequently do.

Bill Lawrence has been with the North Greece Fire Department for 30 years.

PHOTO BY GINO FANELLI

Consider the spike in taxes the Laurelton Fire District in Irondequoit collected last year. The district was limited to levying a little more than $1.3 million, but commissioners overrode the cap and took almost $1.7 million — nearly 28 percent in excess of the limit.

Commissioners in the RidgeCulver Fire District in Greece have voted to override their cap every year for the last 10 years, according to the state comptroller’s records. In 2012, the district’s tax levy was $2.6 million. In 2021, it will be almost $4.4 million — an increase of 66 percent over the decade.

Keeping fire district taxes in check in a region that already nearly tops the nation in its property tax burden compared to property values is what drives Joe Camiolo to keep running for a commissioner seat in his district of North Greece. A volunteer firefighter there since 1971, and a former commissioner, he lost the race last month but plans to run again next year.

North Greece commissioners overrode the cap for this year to bring its tax levy to $11.1 million. Ten years ago, the levy was $6.9 million — an increase of 61 percent.

“I am very concerned about tax increases,” Camiolo said. “The governor has a tax cap, and this year it’s vastly exceeded, and they won’t see it until their tax bill in January.”

WHO’S MINDING THE STORE? Firefighters and commissioners attributed the voter apathy to a general satisfaction with fire services: when there’s a fire, the fire department shows up.

But the lack of participation and insular electorate has not gone unnoticed in Albany, where some lawmakers are pushing legislation to modify the way fire district elections are conducted.

The elections are governed by the state’s Town Law and not subject to the same oversight as general elections, despite districts managing millions of tax dollars.

Polling hours typically span from 6 to 9 p.m. in most districts, and commissioners decide how polling sites are staffed and who will count the votes. Districts are permitted, but not required, to use voting systems compliant with state Election Law.

Most districts use paper ballots, and while state law bars commissioners from being ballot clerks, there have been instances in the past where relatives of commissioners were reportedly tapped to count ballots.

“Right now, we have fire districts running their own elections,” said Tom Abinanti, a Democratic member of the Assembly from Westchester County who has proposed legislation to have fire district elections overseen by county boards of elections and to move the date of the elections to coincide with school board elections.

“I think the public should rightfully be asking, ‘How can the people running for election run their own election?’”

Another member of the Assembly, William Barclay, a Republican from Syracuse, has introduced a bill to hold fire district elections on the same day as general elections.

For Abinati, measures like these are about transparency. As the system stands, the traditional checks and balances of most local government elections are not present in fire districts.

Abinati acknowledged that fire commissioner races will likely never draw the same interest as contests for mayors or county executives. But, he said, perhaps they should.

In the last five years, 126 fire districts were audited by the state Comptroller’s Office, and most of them were flagged for having inadequate controls over all matters of finances, from credit card use to purchasing and safeguarding assets.

One of them was the St. Paul Boulevard Fire District, which auditors found “did not adopt realistic budgets,” over-estimated expenditures by nearly $1 million over four years, and bought a new insurance policy from a company that employed a commissioner who sat on the board’s insurance committee.

“These people are in this 24 hours a day,” Abinati said of firefighters.

“They go to the firehouses at night after work, they hang out, they help each other out, they polish the equipment, God bless them, they do a great job.”

“But,” he added, “this is all they see, and there’s nobody saying, ‘Is there a better way to do this?’”

roccitynews.org

CITY 7

“You can’t call Rochester ‘The City of the Arts’ and not support the arts. That’s what’s going on.”

DAWN LIPSON, PATRON OF THE ARTS

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY RYAN WILLIAMSON

8 CITY

JANUARY 2021

If Rochester is a “City of the Arts,” why don’t we invest in the arts?

BY DAVID ANDREATTA & REBECCA RAFFERTY

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very year for as long as anyone can remember, and for as long as available records show, Monroe County adopts a budget that offers crumbs in the way of funding to arts and cultural organizations.

It happened again in December, when legislators approved a $1.2 billion spending plan for 2021 that set aside about one-tenth of a percent — roughly $1.4 million — for the arts.

To put that in perspective, consider that county spending on the arts topped $3 million more than 30 years ago, and that nearby Erie County is set to spend more than double that on arts and culture this year.

Although dozens of organizations make up Rochester’s arts and cultural scene, Monroe County legislators did what they have done for decades and allocated most of the largesse to a handful of stalwart groups.

The bulk — $900,000 — went to the Rochester Museum and Science Center, which has a longstanding agreement with the county to share expenses. Another $180,000 went to the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Most of the rest was split unevenly between seven other large institutions, like the Memorial Art Gallery and The Strong National Museum of Play, while a remaining $45,000 was sprinkled

among 11 smaller arts organizations.

This is what passes for arts funding from Monroe County year after year.

Amid a pandemic that has decimated the arts and a nationwide racial justice reckoning, large and small arts groups say the age-old funding formula has reached an inflection point on two fronts: the stagnant size of the county-funding pie and its inequitable distribution.

The formula is all too familiar to the dozens of small-fry arts groups that either get nothing from the pie or scrounge for leftovers after the cultural giants have been served their share.

“When I looked through the budget, I didn’t see anything different,” said Reenah Golden, founder of The Avenue BlackBox Theatre, a small performing arts company in northeast Rochester that was left out of the county budget. “The usual suspects are listed as approved or authorized agents, and there’s millions of dollars going into those organizations.”

What has evolved, the small groups say, is a two-tiered system of haves and have-nots. It is an art world version of class warfare that pits august institutions with well-heeled patrons against lessglamorous groups that lack political clout but serve more racially and economically diverse audiences.

Now those small groups are facing an existential crisis. Many are struggling and, in

some cases, teetering on the brink of insolvency.

At the same time, major arts institutions have experienced stunning financial losses as a result of the pandemic, accompanied in some cases by furloughs and layoffs. A concern among them is that reallocating funding would siphon off monies on which they have come to depend and that are now shoring up their depleted balance sheets.

Advocates for the arts say the answer isn’t robbing Peter to pay Paul, but rather devising a more reliable and equitable public funding stream that is resilient to the vagaries of budget negotiations, where the arts is often an easy target.

“Not only do they need to reevaluate it, they need to be proactive and put in place steps so that we have clear and concise guidelines that the arts have funding, that the process is open and transparent to all organizations,” said Dawn Lipson, a longtime patron of the arts who heads the moribund Arts and Cultural Council of Greater Rochester.

“You can’t call Rochester ‘The City of the Arts’ and not support the arts,” she said. “That’s what’s going on.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

roccitynews.org

CITY 9

RMSC is arts funding elephant in the room

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

When conversation among leaders of Rochester’s arts and cultural organizations turns to funding from Monroe County for operations like theirs, it is often done in hushed tones so as to not disturb the elephant in the room.

That would be the Rochester Museum and Science Center.

There isn’t much in the way of county funding for the arts in and around Rochester. But of what the county offers each year, more than two-thirds of it goes to RMSC. For years, that figure has been $900,000.

The museum’s outsized portion of the county’s arts funding has been a staple of county budgets for so many decades that even the longest-serving heads of cultural institutions around town don’t have a handle on why.

Now, amid a pandemic that has dealt a severe financial blow to arts and cultural groups across the board, some are asking why.

“I’m sure people say it when I’m not in the room,” said Hillary Olson, the president and chief executive officer of the museum.

“But when I am in the room, I’ve been very open about it,” Olson said. “I have to take the time to explain the fact that we are a quasi-public institution.”

Sort of. Kind of.

RMSC is a private, nonprofit educational institution chartered by the state Board of Regents and overseen by a board of trustees. The museum is public to the extent that all chartered museums are “public trusts” and hold their collections for the public benefit.

But the museum was once a public institution, like a library, whose expenses were shouldered entirely by the public.

Founded in 1912 as the Municipal Museum of Rochester, the museum was fully owned, operated, and funded by the city.

By the 1960s, though, that arrangement had become financially unfeasible for the city, which was spending about $350,000 a year on the museum, according to news reports of the day.

To save the museum, city and county officials in 1967 took what they called “a metropolitan approach” to the problem. They struck a deal to make the museum the nonprofit it is today and its costs “borne equitably throughout the county,” according to a county resolution adopted that year.

Under the agreement, and according to news reports, the museum would change its name to the Rochester Museum and Science Center and the county would foot the bill for two-thirds of the cost of operations and the city would pay for the remaining third.

Three years later, though, the city tapped out and the county agreed to assume all the costs associated with the museum that year, a figure that was reportedly $586,000.

What was not clear from news reports or County Legislature records was whether the county agreed to pay all the museum’s costs in perpetuity. The Legislature’s 10 CITY JANUARY 2021

Hillary Olson, president and chief executive officer of the Rochester Museum and Science Center. PROVIDED

resolution, passed in August 1970, only authorized the county to pay for the city’s share that year. The county even floated a bond to cover the extra expense.

Either way, the county’s annual contribution to the museum steadily climbed until it peaked at $1.8 million in 1989. From there, it declined to where it is now.

Olson said the museum’s archivist couldn’t locate any contract RMSC might have with the county, but noted that museum officials have understood the spirit of the deal to be that the county would bear the museum’s expenses.

“The county is responsible for the care of our collections,” Olson said.

Indeed, when the county proposed a fourth straight year of funding cuts to RMSC in 1993, the executive director at the time, Richard Shultz, wrote an essay accusing the county of “running away” from its obligation to the museum.

But his essay, published in the Democrat and Chronicle, never explicitly outlined the obligation.

The closest it came was in describing that the city and county had agreed to “share support of our expenses” and that the city had backed out in 1970.

“The collections of which the RMSC Board of Trustees is and staff are custodians,” Shultz wrote, “… are the property of the body politic — the general public — and this seems to suggest an established bond between the RMSC and the taxpayer.”

The county’s contribution to the museum bottomed out at $900,000 in 2004.

Today, that figure accounts for about 12 percent of RMSC’s expenses, according to the museum’s tax filings. The museum makes up the rest mostly through federal and state grants, program service revenue, and investment income, the tax filings show.

“We were essentially a city organization for so long and then that transferred to the county,” Olsen said.

“At some point, the county began backing down on its funding for us, and that’s been pretty painful.”

A VIBRANT ARTS COMMUNITY To say that Rochester has among the most robust and outsized arts and cultural scenes in the country isn’t puffery.

The city has made the National Center for Arts Research annual list of “The Top 40 Most Vibrant Arts Communities” three out of the last six years. Its most recent appearance was in 2018, when it ranked at No. 17 between Chicago and Austin.

The center calculates that arts and culture pump $93 million into the Monroe County economy annually, fueled by more than 1,500 full-time employees, 2,100 part-timers, and some 6,600 volunteers in the sector.

The Center for Governmental Research, a consulting outfit in Rochester, drew similar conclusions about the impact of the arts here in a 2019 study commissioned by legacy cultural groups.

But CGR researchers also identified shortcomings, particularly a lack of public funding and cohesion within the arts community.

“While strong support for the sector exists informally within the community, formal and structured support from the public sector is lacking,” the study read. “Nor does Rochester’s cultural sector have an organized long range planning process.”

BELLO COURTS THE ARTS It was against that backdrop that Monroe County Executive Adam Bello, who took office a year ago, set about courting the arts community during his campaign in 2019.

He met with the heads of big institutions and bit players, often tempering a sheepish acknowledgment that the arts were not his bailiwick with a promise to listen, and seizing an opportunity to preach to the choir.

“A city our size, our investments in art are well below the per capita numbers of our peer counties,” Bello told an audience of artists at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center in October 2019 to applause.

“Right now,” Bello went on, “the decisions about how we as a county are investing in the arts community happen behind closed doors and are announced when a budget is proposed.” There was more applause.

Yet a year later, Bello proposed his own budget that mimicked the archaic arts funding pattern that he eschewed on the campaign trail.

To what extent peer counties and cities fund their local arts groups is difficult to pinpoint. No national or state arts advocacy organizations aggregate such figures.

The best way to tally them is by poring over municipal budgets, a laborious endeavor that risks arriving at incomplete totals because many budgets don’t detail small line item allocations.

Even with those pitfalls in mind, though, the budgets of Erie and Onondaga counties, which encompass the cities of Buffalo and Syracuse, unequivocally show a greater and more diverse investment in the arts than in Monroe.

Erie County adopted a budget that included $6.6 million for 88 arts and cultural organizations, from giants like the Albright-Knox Art Gallery to the mid-sized Buffalo Inner City Ballet and the tiny Cheektowaga Community Chorus.

Onondaga County is about twothirds the size of Monroe in terms of population, but it set aside $1.3 million for 46 arts and cultural groups, including 32 that received grants of $10,000 or less. The county distributes those small grants through a nonprofit, CNY Arts, that it entrusts to identify deserving arts groups and individual artists.

By contrast, Monroe County gives more than three-quarters of its $1.4 million in arts funding to two organizations and a fifth of it to another seven. (One of those seven is CITY’s parent, WXXI Public Broadcasting, which receives $20,000 annually.)

Barely 3 percent of the funding — $45,000 — is reserved for “midsized arts groups,” which the county defines as those with budgets of between $100,000 and $1.5 million.

In recent years, the same 11 groups have split that share in grants of between $2,500 and $5,500.

The CGR study identified 64 arts and cultural organizations in Monroe County, although advocates for the arts estimated the number to be far higher.

“What we see in other progressive cities, the curve is completely flipped,” said Bleu Cease, the

“The usual suspects are listed as approved or authorized agents, and there’s millions of dollars going into those organizations.”

REENAH GOLDEN, FOUNDER OF THE AVENUE BLACKBOX THEATRE PHOTO BY RYAN WILLIAMSON

executive director of the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, who has been a vocal advocate for reevaluating how county arts funding is administered and establishing a unified coalition to lobby for the arts in local government.

“It’s not 90 percent to one big organization,” he said. “It’s 50 percent to a bunch of small organizations.

Other cities are rebalancing their really old models because small groups need that support.”

The 11 “mid-sized arts groups” that got money from Monroe County are not listed in the budget, but they included outfits like Blackfriars Theatre, Deep Arts, Garth Fagan Dance, and Rochester City Ballet.

Unlike in other municipalities that rely on an arts liaison to funnel small grants to deserving groups, Monroe County leaves its “midsized arts groups” support to the discretion of its budget director.

Under questioning by legislators last month, the budget director, Robert Franklin, explained how he determines who gets what.

“I have about seven factors that I look at,” he said, citing tax records and earned revenues as examples.

“Then I basically rate them on a scale of, like, they get one point for each criteria they meet and, I think there are eight criteria.”

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

roccitynews.org CITY 11

Bleu Cease, executive director of the Rochester Contemporary Art Center. PROVIDED

“For a city our size, with so many artists, to not have something like a commission or a council, it just boggles the mind.”

THOMAS WARFIELD, RIT THEATER & DANCE PROFESSOR

Franklin noted the recipients hardly change from year to year and said that his office fields few inquiries from arts groups about obtaining help. Representatives of arts groups have complained for years that they don’t know where in county government to turn for help.

The county declined to respond to several requests for specifics about the selection process and what groups were chosen.

CITY independently obtained lists from prior years, however.

Notably, those lists showed that the county has stopped short of allocating the entire $45,000 that was budgeted. Last year, it gave out $41,000. In 2018, it gave out just $37,500.

NO COMMISSION, NO COUNCIL, NO VOICE Nearly every American city and county the size of Rochester and Monroe County has some sort of arts commission that advises local government on cultural matters or a nonprofit that is the primary voice for arts groups and artists, like CNY Arts. Many places have both.

Rochester and Monroe County have neither. Indeed, neither the City Council nor the County Legislature has an arts and cultural committee.

For years, the Arts and Cultural Council of Greater Rochester, a nonprofit organization whose function was to help direct state arts grants and administer a group health insurance plan for artists, was a voice for the community.

But the council has barely been functional since financial pressures forced it to vacate its offices on Goodman Street in 2014, and it is now in the process of dissolving.

“We call ourselves a city of the arts, we use that as a kind of promotional thing,” said Thomas Warfield, a singer and theater and dance professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “For a city our size, with so many artists,

to not have something like a commission or a council, it just boggles the mind.”

Once upon a time, there was something called the Metropolitan Arts Resources Committee. Created by the county in 1967 to help prioritize public subsidies for the arts, it was funded with $15,000.

Lucien Morin, a former county executive who was a county legislator when the committee was established, called the investment at the time, “the first step toward opening the coffers for large-scale public support of the arts.”

Nine years later, in the midst of a nationwide fiscal crisis, the committee was fighting for survival.

James Breese, the late Henrietta supervisor and a Republican county legislator during the crisis, captured the zeitgeist in the cash-strapped county government when he proposed during budget negotiations in 1976 to “take a real meat ax” to arts and cultural groups.

“These people think they have a divine right to government money,” Breese said. “The more government gives, the less these institutions will try to support themselves.”

The Metropolitan Arts Resources Committee was dissolved five years later, and the amount of funding the county offered to arts and cultural groups climbed at a much slower clip.

Funding reached its zenith at $3.1 million in 1989 under the first and, until that time, only Democratic administration in that of County Executive Thomas Frey.

Republicans took control of the County Legislature the next year, and the executive branch soon after.

When it came to funding for the arts, austerity would be the mantra moving forward and the amount allocated to culture was gradually whittled down to its current $1.4 million.

Arts organizations had high hopes that would change when Bello was sworn in last year as the first Democratic executive in more than a generation. A month after he took office, he released a report by

Dawn Lipson, patron of the arts.

FILE PHOTO

12 CITY JANUARY 2021

his transition team that made two recommendations when it came to the arts.

The first was to “establish a body which effectively and accurately represents the arts community in Monroe County to provide guidance on issues relating to arts and culture, public art, and arts funding.”

The other was to evaluate the county’s arts policies to ensure it represents the diversity of the arts community.

A month later, the pandemic struck and acting on the recommendations was put on hold.

CITY EYES A ‘PERCENT FOR ART’ Advocates for the arts have described engaging in what they believed were fruitful talks prior to the pandemic with current county and city officials about re-thinking government’s role in funding cultural groups.

Mayor Lovely Warren is said to be on the cusp of unveiling what is known as a “percent for art” program that would set aside a small percentage of the cost of public works projects for arts funding.

Her administration’s Rochester 2034 Plan, a blueprint for the future of the city, references a “percent for art” ordinance, but none is on the books.

Mayoral spokesperson Justin Roj confirmed that the mayor and her lieutenants were deep into a reexamination of the city’s arts funding, but declined to provide details.

“Percent for art” programs have been around in the United States since Philadelphia adopted the first municipal ordinance in 1959. More than 100 city, county, and state governments have since launched such programs, according to the National Endowment for the Arts.

A Borinquen Dance Theatre rehearsal. FILE PHOTO

The programs generally set aside 1 percent of the total budget of a capital improvement project for public art. In most cases, a municipal arts council is responsible for administering the funds and the artwork.

The city does invest in arts programs and events, mostly through a $1 million budget for “special events” and its Department of Recreation and Human Services.

Not all of the special events budget goes to arts and culture, but it supports things like public Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concerts, the Fringe Festival, and the Jazz Festival, which gets the largest share of the pie. Last year, the Jazz Festival was awarded $243,000.

The Department of Recreation and Human Services furnished a list of music, dance, and visual art programs that are not delineated in the budget but collectively received about $200,000.

WHY NOT A TAX? It might be tempting for politicians to think that proposing a tax for the arts in times like these would get them laughed out of office. But they might be surprised.

Voters in Jersey City, New Jersey,

in November overwhelmingly supported a referendum that made the city the first municipality in the state to establish a tax to benefit the arts. The referendum is expected to be approved by the City Council.

The tax would charge residents 5 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value.

If the same formula were applied to Monroe County, where all taxable properties are collectively valued at $48.7 billion, such a tax would raise $2.4 million for the arts.

The plan in Jersey City borrows from those used in several municipalities across the country.

In three Michigan counties, residents pay a property tax that helps fund the Detroit Institute of Arts, which offers free admission to residents. In St. Louis, property taxes generate about $85 million for arts and cultural institutions.

Those examples were cited in a 2018 consultant’s study by AMS Planning & Research that Rochester commissioned that examined, among other things, new ways of funding the arts. Researchers also noted a rental car tax in Las Vegas and a tax on cigarette purchases in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland.

Money allocated to the arts in

Monroe County has for decades been derived from a hotel room occupancy tax that charges guests a 6 percent fee.

In recent years, the tax has generated close to $9 million annually. But most of that is spent unevenly on county parks, the convention center, BlueCross Arena, and the county’s tourism bureau, VisitRochester, whose $3.3 million slice is the biggest of the bunch.

Only a fraction of the money — $1.4 million — is set aside for arts and cultural institutions and almost all of it goes to nine organizations.

Even if the pie were larger, though, many small arts groups are skeptical they could ever get a piece. Years of either being rejected or unable to get answers as to how to apply has left them resigned to the idea that accessing funding is all about who you know.

Nydia Padilla-Rodriguez, the founder and artistic director at Borinquen Dance Theatre, a Latin dance company, said she stopped applying for funding from the county after being turned down time and again.

“I just think the process needs to change,” Padilla-Rodriguez said. “I believe it’s clearly political.” roccitynews.org CITY 13

ARTS

NEW BEATS

Phillip Coleman, a.k.a. GodClouD, at work in his home studio in Rochester, combines live instruments with electronic musical elements. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

TINKERING WITH TRIP-HOP Rochester composers blend hip-hop beats and synthesizers

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

P

@DANIELJKUSHNER

hillip Coleman, the Rochester musician and producer known as GodclouD, stands over his digital audio workstation with a posture both casual and purposeful that says I’m working, but it’s cool.

An array of buttons and knobs on electronic devices linked to music production software on a computer are at his fingertips. His fingers ripple with the fluidity of a seasoned typist to create a drum solo that might make a prog rock drummer like the late Neil Peart proud.

“People tend to think that it’s easy,” Coleman says. “People think that it’s 14 CITY JANUARY 2021

DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

like I’m pushing a button and it’s all done for me already.”

But he’s not just pressing buttons to trigger a rhythmic loop and leaving it at that. He’s playing the drums live, albeit with a very different instrument — an MPD (Music Player Daemon) pad — rather than a conventional drum kit.

His is not necessarily the kind of music that you hear at a dance club.

Instead, you might hear it at a bar or at a dinner party as background music.

The ideal way to listen is through headphones. It’s chill-out music. This is trip-hop.

A genre that emerged in the ’90s with the success of bands such as Portishead and Massive Attack, triphop is best described as a blend of hip-hop’s rhythmic groove and the synthesizer-heavy sounds of electronic music. While trip-hop has some mainstream resonance — as it did on Lana Del Rey’s critically acclaimed 2012 album “Born to Die” — it’s largely a niche genre.

In Rochester, trip-hop’s presence is even less readily apparent. But that doesn’t mean musicians like GodclouD aren’t tinkering away trying to find a

groove to transport listeners.

“I like to put people in a unique spot in their minds,” says Coleman, who regularly posts his creations on his YouTube channel. “I try to paint a really abstract, somewhat beguiling picture of CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT PHOTO PROVIDED

RYAN FLYNN Rochester synth-pop musician Ryan Flynn was working on his newest single “Outside,” which led to asking himself a sensible question: Why not record it outside?

So he packed up his gear, and headed out to some national parks. Flynn plugged his synthesizer into his car’s auxiliary power and jammed with the earth and sky.

Inspired by the beautiful backdrops, Flynn came back with some soaring melodic confections that rivaled the vistas he used as a sounding board.

In addition to working on “Outside” in these parks, Flynn created impromptu music for a particularly in-the-moment and immediate feel. The majestic locations for these improv sessions included Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Bighorn and Shoshone national forests in Wyoming, Glacier National Park in Montana, and Vermillion National Monument Park in Arizona — which got an eerie snake charmer treatment, courtesy of Flynn’s theremin (pictured above).

The resulting YouTube videos — five grandiose nature vignettes in total — play like sci-fi westerns from the aliens’ point of view. Flynn has created music as grand as the landscapes themselves. — BY FRANK DE BLASE PHOTO PROVIDED

KIRE NAJDOVSKI Guitarist Kire Najdovski’s playing style is one of brute strength, speed, and melody.

His instrumental rock music is like a soundtrack to heading north on Route 5 in a Mustang at 110 miles per hour.

The Macedonian-born, Rochester-based musician is the driving force behind his namesake band, which just released its new album “Wish” in late November. But he’s also played guitar with the New Jersey-based group Al Chez and the Brothers of Funk Big Band for 10 years. Chez and his screaming trumpet had been a fixture on Late Night and The Late Show with David Letterman for over a quarter-century.

But that’s not the only prominent musical collaborator Najdovksi has had in recent years. Since 2017, he’s also played with bassist Billy Sheehan, drummer Mark Miller, and vocalist Phil Naro of the Buffalo-born hard rock band Talas.

Najdovski first began playing guitar at nine years old. His very first guitar — a knockoff version of the Fender Telecaster — is still at his mom’s house in Macedonia.

Today, Najdovski possesses a relentless slash-and-burn, prog-rock style, à la Steve Vai or Jeff Beck. Listening to “Wish” — which was written and completed since the pandemic started — is like riding a roller coaster in the dark. The journey is unpredictable.

Joined by bandmates Don Torpy on bass and Emmett Lentilucci on drums, Najdovksi keeps the groove machine running and relies heavily on improvisation.

Highlights included the high-powered opening track “Catch Me if You Can” and the Deep Purple-esque “Creative Distance.” — BY FRANK DE BLASE roccitynews.org CITY 15

sounds and sonics. I want people to feel like they’re somewhere else.”

While the beats he creates are rooted in hip-hop and dubstep, his music is otherwise borderless, moving freely between dance, funk, pop, rock, and even classical guitar. But if there is an umbrella genre for Coleman’s music, trip-hop would be it.

Chris Dubuq-Penney, 27, who has worked with many local hip-hop artists as the producer and engineer specializing in the genre at Wicked Squid Studios, sees trip-hop as a signifier for experimentation.

“If trip-hop is a stand-in term for hip-hop that is pushing the boundaries instrumentally or lyrically or any of that other stuff, I think there’s plenty of people doing that in Rochester,” he says.

For Dubuq-Penney, no matter what you call it, the key component is that the music borrows from existing recordings or emulates that sort of sampling with live instruments.

That emulation is present in the music of Brendon Caroselli, whose debut solo album, “Frequency Generations,” has its live-streamed release show on Jan. 9 via Greenstream.

The album was mixed by DubuqPenney, who also plays guitar in Caroselli’s progressive soul band Lost Wax Collective.

Caroselli admits that he leans on elements of trip-hop — the groovebased rhythms and repetitive drums and the use of synthesizers — but says he’s more likely to refer to his music simply as “electronic.”

“I don’t try to make hip-hop music or reggae music or dub music, but I love all of that music, and it has inevitably influenced what I create.

There is some accuracy to it,” he says of the trip-hop label.

The 30-year-old Pittsford native, a drummer-by-trade who got his master’s degree in classical percussion at Nazareth College and now teaches there, uses an acoustic drum kit, which he plays as if he were creating a drum loop.

“When I compose, I usually come up with short phrases and milk it as long as I can, and building atmospheres on that short repeated phrase,” he says.

For his melodies, Caroselli often uses synthesizers to conjure the right sound.

And while Caroselli cites drummer Mark Giuliana and his beat-heavy, triphop-leaning band Beat Music as his single biggest influence, the celebrated 16 CITY JANUARY 2021

jazz pianist Ahmad Jamal has had no less an impact on how Caroselli approaches his own music.

“He has this respect for space within his music that’s hard to find,” he says of Jamal. “It’s very unique, and he has a way of having an ear for what the whole thing sounds like. Even when it’s his solo, he’s still considering what is occurring in the whole band.”

“I try to bring that kind of tastefulness, or that consideration, to what I do,” Caroselli says.

(Top, bottom, and insert) For Chris Dubuq-Penney, an engineer and producer at Wicked Squid Studios, trip-hop is synonymous with boundary-pushing hip-hop.

(Middle) Composer-drummer Brendon Caroselli refers to his trip-hop-infused, groove-oriented music as “electronic.”

PHOTOS BY JACOB WALSH

NEW MUSIC REVIEWS

TRACK REVIEW: “FUTURE”

BY THE ABLE BODIES On its self-released new single, “Future,” Rochester duo The Able Bodies replaces its signature lighthearted themes with a message that the pair felt was too important to ignore.

Inspired by this summer’s protests for justice, the song includes an opening clip by local singer Danielle Ponder that engages the listener with a serious narrative while expressing hope for systemic social change.

Vocalist Eli Flynn contributed the words to the pop-infused backing track that was produced by guitarist and bandmate John Viviani. Using the vocoder effect, Flynn’s voice is like an instrument that drops a smooth, chunky melody line over the soulful, synthheavy beat. A funky bass line anchors the song, propelling it toward a couple of glitzy guitar solos that sound as if Viviani is levitating.

Speaking to the moment, “Future” matches sublime synth-pop with language that certainly resonates. A portion of the proceeds from this song benefits Black Lives Matter.

— BY ROMAN DIVEZUR

ALBUM REVIEW: “VOLUME FOR” BY COMFY Comfy is the brainchild of one Connor Benincasa, an indie pop musician from Utica, by way of Philadelphia, who has since settled here in Rochester. Comfy’s new album “Volume For” — to be released Jan. 15 on Dadstache Records —could be considered Benincasa’s introductory “Hello” to the local music scene.

In that respect, “Volume For” is a welcome greeting, a 14-track salutation of intelligent, tightly arranged poprock songs with lyrics that might come across as painfully self-aware if the music wasn’t so damn catchy.

Benincasa has a brilliant ability to take simple, mundane observations and spin them into concise yet sprawling gems with nearly symphonic ambition and broader emotional import. It’s this compositional sensibility — reminiscent of The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt — that comes through clearly on each song and makes an indelible impression.

Recorded in Benincasa’s home and at Headroom Studios in Philadelphia, the album has the lo-fi energy and earnestness of a bedroom recording, but with better production values. While the recording consists of a rotating lineup of musicians, the contribution of Scoops Dardaris — who co-produced and mixed “Volume For,” in addition to playing bass on several tracks — deserves mention here.

From the jangly pop of “Everyday” to the grungy distortion of “The End,” Benincasa’s smooth facility with inventive melodies, active alt-rock chord progressions, and chamber pop flourishes makes “Volume For” music that’ll make you feel comfy.

— BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

TRACK REVIEWS: “MY BABY LEFT ME” / “BAD SUBTRACTION” BY ANAMON On Dec. 12, the Rochester garagerock quartet Anamon delivered listeners a holiday gift of sorts — a pair of songs free to stream and download. Having not heard much from the band since before the pandemic began, “My Baby Left Me” and “Bad Subtraction” sounds like revisiting an old friend.

Both songs fly by at a brisk pace as they address feelings of loss and heartache, but the contrast between the two is what makes the pairing work as well as it does. Clocking in at a mere 91 seconds, “My Baby Left Me” is sludgy rock ‘n’ roll, with singer-guitarist Ana Monaco projecting cool indifference.

Whereas the brevity and loping swagger of the first song suggest the denial and dismissiveness of pain after a breakup, “Sad Subtraction” has a more emotive, “heart-on-the-sleeve” feeling about it, with its guitar overdrive and propulsive drums, and Monaco singing, “Is there less of me ‘cause you want more of me?”

All together, the music lasts only five minutes, but it’s more than enough to make you wonder what we’ll hear from Anamon next.

— BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

roccitynews.org CITY 17

ARTS

DIY TV

Amanday Ashley streams her arts and culture talk show, “Afternoon Cocktail,” live from her home in Webster. PHOTOS BY JACOB WALSH

COCKTAILS AND CONVERSATIONS Musician Amanda Ashley has found her voice — as a talk show host

BY FRANK DE BLASE

B

FRANK@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

efore the pandemic, Rochester singer-songwriter Amanda Ashley was a ubiquitous live performer with a sultry poprock voice, performing at bars and restaurants all around town.

Now she’s more likely to be found behind a talk show microphone than a piano or guitar.

Since the pandemic first squashed live music back in the spring, Ashley has reinvented moving into the digital media field and starting the podcast “Afternoon Cocktail.”

Each Monday, Wednesday, and 18 CITY JANUARY 2021

Friday at 1 p.m.,Ashley streams live from her Webster home, where she speaks to listeners and guests in a calming, conversational tone.

“Afternoon Cocktail” started in March 2020, one week after the quarantine began. Now with more than 70 episodes in the books, the talk show has completed three seasons, and began its fourth on Dec. 14.

“Each show’s theme is juxtaposed with current, relevant topics in an effort to lead a conversation that warrants an artistic and

entrepreneurial perspective,” Ashley says. “It is essentially a wellness show designed to entertain, educate, uplift, and inspire our audience.”

The talk show’s themes have included survival, positive affirmations, empowerment, and laughter. Experts on each topic weigh in to discuss its current societal relevance.

Ashley is a savvy self-promoter, but reserves the spotlight for her guests, who join her over Zoom.

“I find myself far less interesting than the people around me,” she

says. “Psychologically, I had been studying to get myself mentally on track. My main motivation in it all was to use the platform I had already created to project inspiration and positivity to those who needed it most.”

Ashley says she really believes during times like these, people need to focus on lifting one another up, and being mindful of how their actions touch those around them.

Ashley has a degree in fine arts from SUNY Fredonia, and has CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

GET IN OUR CORNER BECOME A CITY CHAMPION SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM

We don’t have to tell you that local journalism is on the ropes.

In the last 10 years, nearly half of all newsroom jobs nationwide were lost. Tech titans plundered newsrooms’ traditional revenue streams and did little to replace the local news coverage knocked out in the process.

At CITY, we believe that a community without journalism that aggressively questions authority, fights for its most vulnerable residents, and celebrates what makes it unique, can lose its way.

That’s why we’ve been fighting the good fight since 1971. But every fighter needs a team.

If you value CITY’s voice, we invite you to get in our corner and become a CITY Champion. CITY has always been free, and will continue to be, in print and online. But it isn’t free to produce.

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roccitynews.org CITY 19

always been interested in writing and journalism. She structures “Afternoon Cocktail” with opening and closing monologues that bookend guest interviews and performances. Her life partner, Beau Ryan handles the productions sound and lighting.

Most often, Ashley features two guests — a singer-songwriter and an entrepreneur — plus a particular cause or not-for-profit organization.

Guests have included local comedian Cindy Zicari Arena, Buffalo singer-songwriter Sara Rogers, Salvatore’s Pizza impresario “SoccerSam” Fantauzzo, and Rochester musician-made-good and Daughtry band member Elvio Fernandes, who was a guest on the show with one of his ROC Star Academy students, Cooper Scotti.

“It was great,” Fernandes says.

“She’s extremely professional and kind, which made both Cooper and I very comfortable. She’s a talented artist in her own right, so her questions were very relevant. You can tell that she takes a lot of pride in the production quality and it has the feel of a next-level show.”

Ashley says “Afternoon Cocktail” inspires her to put herself in the shoes of her guests.

“These are very real times that we are going through, and I find it important to acknowledge the human factor in it all,” Ashley says “Keeping it real is really important to me.”

Ashley says she experienced a few waves of emotions throughout the pandemic.“Keeping the show frequent has kept me focused,” she says. “Motivated, hopeful, and mentally in check.”

“In a time of isolation, I truly feel more connected to the universe than ever,” she says. “I’m grateful to be able to bring my focus back to writing.”

The amount of journalistic writing she has been doing, putting pen to paper, has been good for her soul, she says.

“I think if this pandemic has brought anything in to focus, it’s that life can change in an instant,” Ashley says. “And that we have to take care of ourselves and those around us first.”

20 CITY JANUARY 2021

With "Afternoon Cocktail," Ashley mixes guests performances from musical guests, interviews with local entrepreneurs, and themes about improving emotional well-being. PHOTOS BY JACOB WALSH

MUSIC //

With evolving NYS guidelines for live music, events are highly subject to change or cancellation. It’s wise to check with individual venues to confirm performances and protocols.

ACOUSTIC/FOLK

Eastman@Washington Square. Eastman

Annie Wells. Virtual Little Cafe, Online.

thelittle.org/music. Sat., Jan. 23, 7:30 p.m.

Benny Bleu, featuring Max Flansburg.

Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org/ music. Sun., Jan. 17, 6 p.m.

The Brothers Blue. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org/music. Sun., Jan. 31, 6 p.m.

Maria Gillard. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org/music. Sat., Jan. 9, 7 p.m.

Very Hairy January with Tyler Westcott.

Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org/ music. Fri., Jan. 1, 7 p.m.

Virtual Sing Around. Golden Link Folk Singing Society, Online. goldenlink.org.

Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m.

AMERICANA

Very Hairy January with Tyler Westcott: Folkfaces. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org/music. Fri., Jan. 22, 7 p.m.

Very Hairy January with Tyler Westcott: The Observers. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org/music. Fri., Jan. 15, 7 p.m.

CLASSICAL

Bonita Boyd, Steven Doane, Barry Snyder: Aquarelles. Eastman School of

Music, Online. esm.rochester.edu/live.

Fri., Jan. 22, 7 p.m.

Classical Guitar Night. Virtual Little Cafe, Online. thelittle.org. First Sunday of every month, 7 p.m.

Student Lecture Recital: Brant Blackbird, precussion. Eastman School

of Music, Online. esm.rochester.edu/live.

Tue., Jan. 12, 3 p.m.

JAZZ

Laura Dubin & Antonio Guerrero.

Livestream, Online. Ongoing, 8:30 p.m.

Live on FB. Very Hairy January with Tyler Westcott: Banjo Juice Jazz Band. Virtual Little Cafe,

Online. thelittle.org/music. Fri., Jan. 8, 7 p.m.

Very Hairy January with Tyler Westcott: The Paper Roses. Virtual Little Cafe,

Online. thelittle.org/music. Fri., Jan. 29, 7 p.m.

Wine Down Wednesdays. The Penthouse, 1 East Ave, 11th floor. 7752013. Wednesdays, 6 p.m. Includes a Bites Box of choice by The Hideaway. Jan 6: Uptown Groove. Jan 13: Trio East. Jan 20:: Jimmie Highsmith. Jan 27: Paradigm Shift. $20.

POP/ROCK

Amanda Ashley: Afternoon Cocktail.

Livestream, Online. Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, 1 p.m. Live on FB.

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EDITOR'S CHOICE

School of Music, Online. esm.rochester. edu/community/washingtonsquare.

Thursdays, 12:15-12:45 p.m.

ECMS Russian Family Concert. Eastman School of Music, Online. esm.rochester. edu/live. Thu., Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m.

Stay in our corner this year.

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Rochester Oratorio Society: Live Encore of Brahms’ Schicksalslied and Nänie.

Livestream, Online. Fri., Jan. 22, 7 p.m. Live choral concerts have been hard to come by during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for good reason. But on Jan. 22, fans of choir music will have reason to bend their ears again when the Rochester Oratorio Society presents a Live Encore broadcast via Facebook Live. The concert will feature two vocal works — “Schicksalslied” and “Nänie” — by Romantic-period composer Johannes Brahms, whose skill with harmonic development and rich, luxurious textures makes his music particularly appealing. “Schicksalslied,” or “Song of Destiny,” has the kind of potency and gravitas rivaled only by such choral-orchestral compositions as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and the works of Gustav Mahler. The earnest “Nänie,” meaning “funeral song,” may have the more beautiful writing for voices, however. No matter which work you prefer, both will remind you why Brahms is so celebrated. facebook.com/RochesterOratorioSociety.

— BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

Learn more about becoming a CITY Champion at roccitynews.org

roccitynews.org CITY 21

ARTS

STATE OF MIND

PUBLIC ART SAVED MY SANITY IN 2020

BY QUAJAY DONNELL

O

@QUAJAY

ne afternoon last spring, during what appeared then to be the darkest and loneliest days of the pandemic, when nearly everything was closed and the infection rate was climbing quickly, I took a drive to the old Fedder Industrial Park on the east side of the city and just parked.

The exterior of the complex, a former factory on East Main Street that has become a repurposed refuge for artists, craftsmen, and creatives, is a canvas for some of the best street art in the city, if not the country.

I had come to see “Avery,” the towering spray-painted mural of a young woman that graces a brick silo on the site. She was created by the Canadian artist Jarus six years earlier, and her quiet confidence and beguiling beauty has yet to fade.

Being with her that day, 22 CITY JANUARY 2021

admiring her against the backdrop of a soft blue sky and a silent city sheltered in place, a calm I hadn’t known for weeks washed over me.

I was an “essential worker” and plodding to my workplace day in and day out in the midst of what was proving to be an insidiously intractable virus had taken a physical and mental toll on me.

I grabbed my camera, which was nearby, and fired off a few frames of “Avery.” It was then that I realized what I was doing, photographing public art, was my way of staying sane — and I don’t use that term lightly.

Since March, we’ve lived in a cosmos of uncertainty. While some people baked bread, knitted, read, exercised, and binge-watched TV to get by, I leaned into photographing the vibrant art in the public space around us. Later, sharing my

PHOTOS BY QUAJAY DONNELL

photography with my community on social media became a way for me to offer others the light and hope that “Avery” had offered me that dreary afternoon.

I would come to call this ongoing exercise “social distancing photography.”

Whether you call it graffiti, street art, or public art, one thing is for sure: Rochester has a lot of it to appreciate. We have a robust scene, with some incredibly talented artists creating here year round, and visiting artists who parachute in and weave in work that becomes part of the fabric of our city.

Have you ever really looked at our city through the lens of public art? Cobbs Hill offers some of the best views, not just because of its elevation but because of the hidden gem in the woods just beyond the reservoir. Venture into Washington Grove sometime and you’ll see. My 12-year-old son and I walked what he called “the path” on dozens of occasions, each time greeted by new

gifts from street artists and writers at the abandoned water towers at the top of the hill. I value every second of the extra time I get to spend with him up there, exploring and enjoying it together. Those trips provide the perfect trifecta of fresh air, exercise, and the experience of art.

During the last nine months, I’ve been fortunate to have had a front row seat from which I was able to document some of the most beautiful and powerful murals as they were coming to life in Rochester.

This Summer, I captured the WALL\THERAPY work of Athesia Benjamin and Lucy Ray. After the death of George Floyd, I spent time with Shawn Dunwoody as he completed the “Enough” mural, led the charge for the Black Lives Matter street mural on Court Street, and worked alongside a team of volunteers for “The Empire Strikes Black” in the amphitheater of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park.

I also chronicled Sarah Rutherford as she completed the

installation of “Stories of Strength” on Exchange Street in partnership with Willow Domestic Violence Center. In October, there was the FUA Krew’s Daniel Prude dedication mural.

Closing out the year, I spent a week with Darius Dennis, Daniel Harrington, Jared Diaz, and Ephraim Gebre — the crew behind the inspiring, 3,000-square-foot “I Am Speaking” mural on State Street of the late Rep. John Lewis, based on a 1963 photograph by civil rights chronicler Danny Lyon.

I am so grateful to the artists who invited me into their spaces and gave me access to their work. I have also greatly appreciated the positive feedback and encouragement from people who follow what I do.

Photography is about spreading awareness and sharing these important stories.

In a year of hardship, darkness, stress, and anxiety, photography kept me active and hopeful. But the public art saved me.

roccitynews.org CITY 23

ARTS

REVEL IN THE DETAILS

Self-taught artist Mathison Rust creates digital illustrations of iconic Rochester buildings and businesses. PHOTOS PROVIDED

WELCOME TO TINY TOWN Mathison Rust’s digital illustrations of Rochester landmarks reveal the power of pixels

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

T

@RSRAFFERTY

he first time I saw images of Mathison Rust’s replicas of iconic Rochester buildings like The Little Theatre and the Kodak Building on Instagram, I didn’t recognize them as detailed digital illustrations and mistook them for physically-constructed miniatures.

I wasn’t the only one. Rust says it’s common for people who stumble on his Instagram page to think his work are dioramas. That’s in no small part due to the subtle details — the variations of color in bricks, the just-so lighting and shadows, 24 CITY JANUARY 2021

BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

and the perfectly matched Peptopink of The Cinema Theatre.

“I’ve actually been dinged a couple times by people who are interested in the work, and then disappointed that they weren’t actual models,” Rust says.

But the work that goes into his digital creations is no less impressive.

His first illustration was his depiction of Nick Tahou Hots, home of the Garbage Plate and a former railway terminal on West Main Street. He drove by the imposing, castle-like structure often

and saw in it a textural depth. His meticulous illustration depicts the building isolated, sidewalk and all, in a vacuum of midnight black.

Lights from within beckon weary travelers with the promise of a greasy indulgence.

Rust breaks the illusion of realism in some of his illustrations with animation, including a “revolving” image of the First Federal Plaza (the downtown building with what looks like a UFO on top), and the water flowing through Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park. The protester holding a “WE CAN’T BREATHE”

sign in the latter is a nod to the demonstrations that took place there last year.

Not all of Rust’s scenes are of landmark buildings. His depiction of Brown’s Race, a street that runs parallel to the river at High Falls, truly captures the mood of the space at night — the sparkling promise and potential energy of an all but abandoned strip, simultaneously vibrant and desolate. His treatments of each spot he illustrates are infused with a blend of true-to-life grittiness and spatial ambiguity, like a magical realism film set.

“That’s really what I’m going for — everything is imbued with a pretty deep affection,” he says.

“What makes Rochester such a special place to me is that deep history and in every single crack and weathering of the facades, which I think is worth capturing in this particular medium.”

And for Rust, his toy-scale digital models harken back to childhood.

“When we’re children using toys, we’re natural storytellers,” he says.

“We have very limited worlds, so we set up these tiny doll houses and we make sense of the world around us

with our imaginations. But we tend to lose that once our world grows and we become the main character ourselves.

“So, I really want to create these scenes of these places where we’re used to being the main character,” he goes on. “And then suddenly giving people this bird’s eye view, because I think it takes that and it reconnects us to that childhood curiosity that we used to have.”

Perhaps what is most impressive about his work is that Rust is a selftaught artist. He grew up in Western New York and studied music and anthropology at SUNY Geneseo

before moving to Rochester in 2005. Art has always been a crucial element of his life, Rust says, and he avidly draws, paints, and creates in ceramics, wood, and other materials.

“I got into computer graphics about four years ago,” he says. “I was dabbling in some game development, just for fun, and I really wanted to develop my own resources and assets,” he says, referring to the environments and objects of the “worlds” in video games.

In early 2019, Rust decided to make prints of his illustrations and show them at some local art

festivals, to gauge public interest in what he was making.

“And I got a really nice reception there,” he says. “So I started the Instagram page shortly after that.”

He’s since taken commissions for digital illustrations, mostly of house portraits, including one of the childhood home of another local artist.

“I think that same magic applies when people see their childhood home or their first house or first apartment, things like that,” Rust says. “I want to enable people to have access to that.” roccitynews.org CITY 25

VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS

OPEN Show your support for local business’s and support local journalism by purchasing a print or digital ad for your go-to restaurant, retail shop or non-profit.

[ Opening ]

International Art Acquisitions, 3300 Monroe Ave. Marcella Gillenwater:

EDITOR'S CHOICE

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

KEEP LOCAL BUSINESSES

Along The Way. Jan. 1-31. 264-1440.

Pat Rini Rohrer Gallery, 71 S Main St. Canandaigua. Emerging Artists and

their Mentors 2021. Jan. 16-Feb. 27. prrgallery.com.

Studio 402, 250 N Goodman St.

Unmasked: Self-Portraits 2021. Jan. 1-Feb. 12. Open First Fridays 6-9pm & by appointment. 269-9823.

Visual Studies Workshop, 31 Prince St. vsw.org. Nancy Bernardo: Ephemeral Chance. Jan. 4-31.

[ Continuing ] Art Exhibits

ArtSpace36, 36 Main St. Canandaigua. FLCC Student Portfolio

Show & Auction. Through Jan. 29. flcc. edu/artspace36.

AsIs Gallery, Sage Art Center, 835 Wilson Blvd. Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge

& Megan Metté: Float. Through Jan. 23. 273-5995. mirabopress.com/float.

Bertha VB Lederer Online Gallery, SUNY Geneseo. The Misogyny Papers:

Apology by Victor Davson. Through April 1. geneseo.edu/galleries.

The Black House, 215 Tremont St., Door 3, Suite 300. The Black House

Narratives: Ode to Black Joy. Through Feb. 1. Reservation required; events will also be accessible online. FB: BlackHouseROC. 235-2767.

Make One, Take One. Wed., Jan. 6, 7 p.m. Rochester Contemporary Art Center, rochestercontemporary.org Founded in 1930, the Print Club of Rochester just celebrated its 90th anniversary last year. It’s kicking off its 91st with a virtual symposium-style event, “Make One, Take One,” which will educate viewers about diverse approaches to contemporary printmaking, and the function of printmaking exchange portfolios as a means of fostering cultural exchange, artist support networks, and innovation. The program features five short illustrated presentations by Karen Kunc of Constellation Studios, Rajesh Pullarwar of International Print Exchange Programme, India; Gregory Santos of Mixed Grit, Mizin Shin of Mirabo Press, and Tenekeya Word of Black Women of Print. The program, which is presented by the Print Club of Rochester, Mirabo Press, and artist Nick Ruth, is free and will be presented over Zoom. Registration required. — BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

Geneva Historical Society, 543 S Main St. Geneva. An Educated

Citizenry: Education in Geneva.

Through April 30. $3 suggested. genevahistoricalsociety.com.

George Eastman Museum, 900 East Ave. eastman.org. William Kentridge:

Second-hand Reading (2013).

Wednesdays-Sundays. $7-$18.

Livestream, Online. RIT College of Art & Design Virtual Visual Exhibition: Graduate Student Showcase. Ongoing. rit.edu/artdesign/visual-exhibition.

Main Street Arts, 20 W Main St. Clifton Springs. Heavy Metal.

Tuesdays-Saturdays. Honoring the 95th birthday of the late Robert Ernst Marx. Appointments encouraged. mainstreetartscs.org.

Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave. 276-8900. Season of Warhol.

Through March 28.

NTID Dyer Arts Center, 52 Lomb Memorial Dr. Palettes of Nature.

Inquire for details and special rate information ADS@ROCHESTERCITYNEWS.COM 585-730-2666

26 CITY JANUARY 2021

Rochester Museum & Science Center, 657 East Ave. (rmsc.org). The

Changemakers: Rochester Women Who Changed the World. Through May 16. W/ museum admission: $14/$16. rmsc.org/changemakers.

Virtual Genesee Country Village & Museum, Online. Mumford. Explore

the Collection. Ongoing. gcv.org/ explore/online-collection.

Virtual George Eastman Museum, Online. Eastman Museum at Home.

Ongoing. eastman.org.

Virtual Memorial Art Gallery, mag. rochester.edu. Explore the Collection.

Ongoing.

Yates County History Center, 107 Chapel St. Penn Yan. A Dangerous

Freedom: The Abolitionists, Freedom Seekers, & Underground Railroad Sites of Yates County. TuesdaysFridays. By appointment only. yatespast.org.

Ongoing. A collaborative exhibit with deafgreenthumbs. rit.edu/ntid/ dyerarts-center.; Black is Black: Blackity AF. Ongoing. rit.edu/ntid/ dyerarts-center.

Film

RIT City Art Space, 280 East Main St. Beyond Addiction: Reframing

Screenings. Ongoing.

Recovery | Felix Gonzalez-Torres: “Untitled” (L.A.). Thursdays-Sundays. cityartspace.rit.edu.

Rochester Contemporary Art Center, 137 East Ave. 30th Annual Members Exhibition | A Voice to a Voice. Wednesdays-Saturdays. $2. rochestercontemporary.org.

Virtual Cinema Theater, cinemarochester.com. Daily Virtual Virtual Dryden Theatre, eastman.org.

Daily Virtual Screenings. Ongoing.

Virtual Little Theatre, thelittle.org.

Daily Virtual Screenings. Ongoing.

Visual Studies Workshop, 31 Prince St. vsw.org. A History of Police Brutality & Accountability Initiatives in Rochester from the Portable Channel Archive. Ongoing. An online playlist of digitized videos produced

by Rochester-based media activists Portable Channel between 1971-75.

Art Events

Days the Artists Spoke. Fri., Jan. 8, 6-9 p.m. Rochester Contemporary Art Center, rochestercontemporary. org Back-to-back 10-min talks from artists participating in the 30th Annual Members Exhibition, live on FB. ExhiBits: Women Running Rochester.

Tuesdays Livestream, Online A weekly tour & chat about UR Dept of Rare Books, Special Collections, & Preservation’s online exhibition, “We Want More and We Will Have It: Women Running Rochester” Registration required JLF@rochester. edu.

MAGsocial DeTOUR: It’s Lit(erature).

Thu., Jan. 14, 6 p.m. Memorial Art Gallery, 500 University Ave. 276-8900 .

Theater

The Matzo Ball Diaries: Stories of Food and Family. Jan. 16-31. JCC

CenterStage Theatre, online $20 & up jccrochester.org/centerstage.

Social Distancing: A Monologue Play.

Ongoing. JCC Hart Theatre, 1200 Edgewood Ave. 461-2000.

roccitynews.org CITY 27

Celebrating people with differing abilities Dialogue on Disability, an initiative founded by WXXI and Al Sigl Community of Agencies in 2003, celebrates people with differing abilities and promotes a more inclusive community. Presenting a week’s worth of TV and radio specials, news reports, and interviews on WXXI’s daily talk show, Connections with Evan Dawson, the initiative is designed to encourage community discussion about the perspectives and abilities of people with physical and intellectual disabilities.

Dialogue on Disability runs January 25-31. For a complete list of programs and other offerings, visit WXXI.org/dod.

Dialogue on Disability is a partnership between WXXI and Al Sigl Community of Agencies - in conjunction with the Herman and Margaret Schwartz Community Series. The initiative is supported by the Fred L. Emerson Foundation with additional support from The Golisano Foundation.

Extraordinary: The Bill Atkinson Story Monday, January 25 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV Learn about the inspiring life of Father Bill Atkinson (1946-2006), who was paralyzed as a teenager and went on to become the first quadriplegic priest in the U.S.

Connections with Evan Dawson

Musicians of All Abilities

The Week of January 25, 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. on AM 1370 AND WRUR-FM WXXI’s daily talk show, hosted

by Evan Dawson, will have several guests from member agencies and affiliates from Al Sigl Community of Agencies throughout the week.

The Week of January 25 throughout the day on WXXI Classical 91.5 FM WXXI Classical 91.5 FM will present music by composers and musicians with differing abilities.

PBS Kids Specials

The Grown-Ups

The Week of January 25, times vary on WXXI-TV & WXXI-KIDS 24/7 All week long, WXXI-TV and WXXI-Kids 24/7 will air special PBS Kids programming that deals with disability issues, including episodes from Arthur, Peg + Cat, and Dinosaur Train.

Saturday, January 30 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV In a school for individuals with Down Syndrome, four middleaged friends yearn for a life of greater autonomy in a society that marginalizes them as disabled.

WXXI News Reports from The Inclusion Desk The Week of January 25 on AM 1370, WRUR-FM and WXXINews.org The Inclusion Desk is a multi-platform reporting effort designed to inform and transform attitudes and behavior about inclusion.

Throughout the week, WXXI News will be producing several stories in support of this initiative.

28 CITY JANUARY 2021

Hearts of Glass Sunday, January 31 at 1 p.m. on WXXI-TV Learn more about Vertical Harvest, an innovative experiment in growing crops and providing meaningful employment for people with disabilities.

WXXI-TV • THIS MONTH

(Credit: Courtesy of PBS/RadicalMedia)

(Credit: Courtesy of ©Playground Television UK Ltd & all3media international)

PBS American Portrait

All Creatures Great and Small on Masterpiece

Tuesdays, January 5-26 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV

Sundays, January 10-February 21 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV

What does it really mean to be an American today? That’s the question PBS has asked communities across the country as part of its national storytelling project launched last year. To answer this question, PBS and its partners collected photos, videos, and text submissions from across America – capturing the state and spirit of our nation. PBS shares what’s been submitted over the last 12-months in this four-part series.

James Herriot’s adventures as a veterinarian in 1930s Yorkshire get a glorious new adaptation in All Creatures Great and Small, a sevenpart series based on his beloved books. Exciting newcomer Nicholas Ralph will make his television debut as the iconic vet who became renowned for his inspiring humor, compassion, and love of life.

Let’s Learn!

Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. throughout January on WXXI-TV

(Nina Simone. Credit: Courtesy of Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

American Masters: How it Feels to be Free Monday, January 18 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV Explore the lives and trailblazing careers of six iconic African American entertainers—Lena Horne, Abbey Lincoln, Nina Simone, Diahann Carroll, Cicely Tyson and Pam Grier—who changed American culture through their films, fashion, music, and politics.

Looking for ways to supplement your child’s remote learning?

WXXI’s education team is pleased to bring families a new television series that weaves fun and learning together. Designed for children 3-8 years of age, Let’s Learn! presents instruction by educators, STEM specialists, teaching artists, and others in literacy, math, science, social studies, and the arts. It also supports social-emotional learning and brings viewers on virtual field trips to see dance performances, meet animals, visit botanical gardens, and more. In addition to the series, Let’s Learn! provides interactive lessons, story times, and hands-on activities that align with national education standards. Visit WXXI.org/education to learn more.

roccitynews.org CITY 29

TURN TO WXXI CLASSICAL FOR MUSIC PERFECTLY TUNED TO YOUR DAY Performance Upstate Mondays at 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. on WXXI Classical 91.5 FM Host Brenda Tremblay takes you into concert halls, sacred spaces, and festivals across Western and Central New York. You’ll hear a diverse and colorful array of pieces interpreted by passionate and skillful musicians from Rochester and beyond, along with some of the stories behind the music. Coming up this month: 1/4 Musica Spei, Skaneateles Piano Festival, Selections from “Nevertheless She Persisted” with Pegasus Early Music, Madrigalia and the Roberts Wesleyan College Wind Ensemble 1/11 Café Music from the Skaneateles Festival, “Women Composers Across the Ages” from the Geneva Music Festival, and more “women” from Pegasus Early Music 1/18 The Rochester Early Music Festival, Roberts Wesleyan College Wind Ensemble, Geneva Music Festival and First Inversion

Five Things of Note about Brenda Tremblay

1/25 The Rochester Early Music Festival, First Inversion, Geneva Music Festival, Pegasus and Madrigalia presents “Earthkeeping,” a concert of music about the earth, with pianist Kevin Nitsch

WXXI Classical Morning Host 1. Where did you grow up?

In the beautiful village of Albion, New York. The architecture in the heart of town is stunning and the cemetery - a mirror of Mt. Hope Cemetery in Rochester - is one of my favorite places on earth.

There’s a Victorian-era stone tower at Mt. Albion you can climb for a view of Lake Ontario on a clear day.

2. What’s your favorite part of your job?

Programming. I love the advance planning that goes into sending classical music into listeners’ lives.

3. What was your first job in radio?

In 1991, I ran operations for the new NPR service in Rochester, WXXI-AM 1370. Basically, that meant getting paper and people to the right places for daily broadcasts. Back in those days, our reporters were typing stories on actual typewriters - on yellow paper with yellow liquid paper for corrections - and then producing them on reel-to-reel tapes.

4. Who is your favorite composer?

Johann Sebastian Bach, of course

(Il Barbieri di Siviglia Photo: Ken Howard / Met Opera)

5. What is your wish for the New Year?

The freedom to hug the people we love

Saturdays at 1 p.m. on WXXI Classical 91.5 FM

Support public media.

Become a WXXI Member!

Whether it’s television, radio, online, or on screen, WXXI is there with the programs, news, and information – where you want it and when you want it. If you value PBS, NPR, PBS Kids, WXXI News, WXXI Classical and so much more, consider becoming a member.

Visit WXXI.org/support to choose the membership that works for you. There are many membership levels with their own special benefits, including becoming a sustaining member.

30 CITY JANUARY 2021

The Metropolitan Opera Launched in 1931, the Met’s Saturday Matinee Broadcasts are the longest-running classical radio series in American broadcast history. That rich tradition continues unbroken in the 2020–21 season with an expanded schedule of encore broadcasts.

Remarkable moments from recent and past seasons include the radio broadcast debuts of Anna Netrebko, Leontyne Price, and Franco Corelli, as well as Renée Fleming’s final bow as Strauss’s Marschallin. Host Mary Jo Heath and commentator Ira Siff provide insightful commentary and intermission features, including interviews with Met stars. This month enjoy: 1/2 Glass: Satyagraha (performed on 11/19/11) 1/9 Rossini: Il Barbieri di Siviglia (performed on 4/26/07) 1/16 Verdi: La Traviata (performed on 1/18/20) 1/23 Verdi: Il Trovatore (performed on 1/27/1961) 1/30 Gounod: Faust (performed on 12/10/11)

AM 1370, YOUR NPR NEWS STATION + WRUR-FM 88.5, DIFFERENT RADIO

America Are We Ready to Reconcile?

Wednesday, January 6 at 8 p.m. on AM 1370 Join Brian Lehrer, guests, and callers for the latest news and a participatory conversation about moving forward as a country, and what it would take to really be united.

Mountain Stage Sundays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on WRUR-FM 88.5

Selected Shorts: Celebrating James Baldwin Sunday, January 10 at 9 p.m. on AM 1370 Guest host LeVar Burton presents a program celebrating the author he calls “potent and polemical.” Christopher Jackson reads an excerpt from Baldwin’s famous letter “The Fire Next Time” in My Dungeon Shook, where he addresses internalized racism.

Next, Anthony Rapp performs an excerpt from Giovanni’s Room, in which an expat comes to terms with his sexuality and loneliness in Paris. And Baldwin contemplates “The Great Migration” in his novel Go Tell It on the Mountain. We hear an excerpt performed

by Charlayne Woodard.

Intelligence Squared US: Are Identity Politics a Way to Win? Sunday, January 17 at 9 p.m. on AM 1370 The public and pundits alike are still processing the most recent election, but this much we know: 2020 marks the most diverse Congress in American history, and President Trump garnered more minority voters in 2020 than in 2016. As Georgia faces two runoff elections, which will determine which party controls the Senate, former Georgia state house minority leader Stacey Abrams and other voting-rights advocates have focused on identity politics as a way to prevail in the electoral process. Is it a winning strategy? Two experts on race and identity in America sit with Intelligence Squared host and moderator John Donvan (pictured above) to debate.

Recorded live from the Culture Center Theater on the grounds of the West Virginia State Capitol complex, Mountain Stage with Larry Groce features performances from seasoned legends and emerging stars in genres ranging from folk, blues, and country; to indie rock, synth pop, world music, alternative, and beyond.

FIVE FACTS ABOUT JUAN VAZQUEZ 1. Your role in the newsroom: I am in charge of the WXXI News digital channels and strategy. I also do reporting and help anchor Morning Edition and All Things Considered when the regular hosts are off.

2. Favorite podcast: As a life-long pro wrestling fan, I enjoy listening to podcasts with Jim Cornette, who was a manager I hated when I was younger. I now realize he was a genius and gives me insight into how that industry works.

3. College + Degree: I have a communications degree from SUNY Fredonia, and I have an MBA from SUNY Empire State.

4. Favorite place in Rochester: The Playhouse//Swillburger 5. Your hope for the New Year: More civility. Everything else falls into place if we just have more civility.

roccitynews.org CITY 31

2

Reasons Why The Virtual Little Is Your Go-To for Movies

The Reason I Jump

Renting a film through The Virtual Little helps to support The Little. It’s that simple. A portion of each ticket (usually it’s a 50-50 split or something close to it) goes to The Little. In a time where we haven’t screened a movie indoors for nine months and counting, any and all support is extremely valuable.

These movies are really good! These are the hidden gems that you’d normally find at The Little — the films that take risks, explore vital topics, or just flat-out blow us away. We’ll often hear from people who would just visit The Little on a certain day with no particular movie in mind.

They’d just show up, and pick something that sounded intriguing. This is amazing, and also a solid reason to do the same with our virtual picks.

In this case we can carry even more films than normal which provides us a lot of programming flexibility. Anyone who is a movie fan will find at least one virtual offering they adore, we promise.

How to do it? Simply go to thelittle.org/virtuallittle. Click your movie title then the “watch now” icon. This will take you to the film page where you can rent the film. The page includes guides on where and how to watch, accessibility options, and more.

Screening at The Virtual Little throughout January (watch at thelittle.org) Based on the book by Naoki Higashida this immersive documentary explores the experiences of nonspeaking autistic people around the world.

Rent The Little For Your Own Private Screening!

The Little Experience returns! The newly renovated Little Theatre 1 is now available for private movie screenings, for you and up to 5 additional guests!

1. RESERVE YOUR DATE To start your reservation, visit shopthelittle.org, click on the date and time you wish to book and add it to your cart! If it says “SOLD OUT”, please select a different date, as that time slot is no longer available. In your shopping cart, fill in your contact information, billing information, and complete the checkout process. You’ll receive an email confirmation verifying your reservation.

If you don’t see any available dates, then we’re sold out for the moment. The good news? More spots will be added in the near future. Note: There is no wait list for reservations.

2. WE’LL CONTACT YOU FOR MORE DETAILS Once you’ve completed your checkout, we’ll contact you to arrange final details for your choice of movie, and to pre-order popcorn and other concessions (concession orders end 24 hours before your reservation). Additional film fees may apply; concessions are available for an additional fee.

3. MASK POLICY Masks are required at all times, except when eating or drinking in your theater seat. Masks must be worn in lobbies, aisles, and hallways at all times, and no one will be admitted in the building without a mask. No eating or drinking in the lobby or hallways.

4. ENJOY YOUR SCREENING! The theater and lobby will be open for you and your guests 30 minutes before the time of your booking. Any pre-ordered concessions will be available for contact-less pickup at that time. (All concessions must be pre-ordered; in-person purchases will not be available).

Choose any seat you’d like, and enjoy!

32 CITY JANUARY 2021

Additional notes and policies available at thelittle.org and shopthelittle.org.

LIFE

WHAT ALES ME

Jeff Fairbrother, head distiller at Black Button Distilling, sampling a new batch of spirits. PHOTO JACOB WALSH

DISTILLERIES STARED DOWN THE BARREL OF A BIG TAX HIKE

BY GINO FANELLI

D

@GINOFANELLI

istilleries here and across the nation became unlikely heroes in the early months of the pandemic last year when they converted their production of potable booze to hand sanitizer.

Black Button Distilling in Rochester, for instance, temporarily shifted all of its distilling operations to sanitizer. Fairport’s Iron Smoke soon followed suit. Both outfits sold bottles directly to consumers, but they also donated massive quantities of sanitizer to healthcare facilities, nursing homes, first responders, and other essential workers.

Their thanks from the federal government came at the eleventh hour of 2020 when Congress passed and the president signed a bill making permanent a temporary — and necessary — tax cut that had been on the verge of expiring.

“We had really just been hoping for a one year or two year reprieve, but we actually get the most benefit from it

GFANELLI@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

being permanent,” said Black Button owner Jason Barrett, who estimated that he would have paid anywhere from $250,000 to $300,000 in additional taxes this year had the relief not come through.

The relief in question was a break on excise tax that Congress first granted alcohol producers in 2017 as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The measure was a boon for small breweries and wineries, too, but distilleries benefited the most.

The taxes distilleries paid on the first 100,000 proof gallons they produced — meaning a gallon of spirit at 50 percent alcohol — fell to $2.70 from $13.50 per gallon. That meant that a distillery that was originally paying $2.16 in excise tax on a standard 750 ml bottle of 80-proof liquor was now paying just 43 cents.

In other words, if Congress had not acted, distilleries would have been looking at a 400-percent hike in federal

excise tax. These excise taxes are paid on top of normal corporate taxes, as well as state taxes.

The tax cut was originally set to expire last year, but was extended through 2020 at the last minute. While any tax relief is welcome, yearly extensions of temporary breaks come with uncertainty in an industry whose product sometimes has to sit and age for several years before hitting the market.

“Now we get to make long-term plans,” Barrett said. “The whiskey’s got to age for five or six years, it’s hard to lay down extra product when you don’t know what the tax situation will be when that product goes to be sold.”

This tax relief wasn’t just about making giant liquor conglomerates more comfortable, although it certainly will have that effect. The relief was necessary for small craft distilleries that have brought so much variety to the liquor

market in recent years to survive.

For craft distilleries like Black Button and Iron Smoke, for instance, that first 100,000 proof gallons covered by the tax measure exceeded their entire annual production. Unlike the giants that produce millions of gallons a year, the Black Buttons and Iron Smokes of the world don’t produce the volume necessary to recoup what they would have lost had the tax taken effect.

“The Jack Daniels of the world, they wouldn’t get hurt, they’re making so much that (100,000 proof gallons) is a blip on the radar,” said Dave Ferguson, chief operating officer at Iron Smoke.

The tax break was made permanent by the passage of the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act a few days before Christmas.

Congressman Joseph Morelle had been in close talks with local booze producers, particularly Black Button, on the need for tax reform. He believes the bill serves a critical need for the local industry.

“This is an important win for the growing craft beverage industry, particularly in upstate New York,” Morelle said. “I’m proud to have worked with craft brewers in the state legislature and now in Congress.”

The bill had broad support in the House and Senate, with nearly two thirds of representatives and senators having signed on as co-sponsors. Dozens of state distillers’ guilds penned letters advocating for the bill’s passage.

“If Congress does not pass the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act by the end of this year, many of us will be forced to furlough or lay off even more employees, or close our doors permanently,” read a Dec. 4 letter to Congress from the New York State Distillers Guild.

New York is home to 160 distilleries, the second most of any state, according to the guild. Many of them have suffered sudden and steep declines in sales, fueled in part by the closing of stores, travelrelated outlets, bars and restaurants, and tasting rooms, according to the guild.

“The distilleries are not asking to not pay their fair share,” Barrett told me a few days before the measure passed, as he and other distillers sat on pins and needles with fingers crossed. “We’re just asking to not pay an obscene amount.”

I’ll drink to that. roccitynews.org CITY 33

LIFE

Monroe County Public Health Commissioner Michael Mendoza's office has become a familiar backdrop for his frequent television appearances.

PHOTO BY MAX SCHULTE

34 CITY JANUARY 2021

PUBLIC LIVES

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

Michael Mendoza’s moment under the microscope

A

mong the assortment of citations crowding the walls of Dr. Michael Mendoza’s office, there isn’t one for his bedside manner.

But to hear him speak, it isn’t a stretch to imagine his temperament received some recognition at some point in his career.

Even when he’s inundated, which is often these days, his voice rarely registers above the calming pitch you might hear on a smooth jazz radio station in the middle of the night — deadpan but reassuring.

That voice has come in handy in his role as the Monroe County health commissioner and de facto local public face of scientific guidance on the pandemic, a duty that requires an around-the-clock availability and vigilance.

“You know,” he said flatly, “I was thinking as I was walking down here that it’s already been a long week.” It was just after 9 o’clock on a Monday morning.

Mendoza was shoe-horning in a socially-distanced interview with me between a call with county leaders and employee evaluations he had yet to conduct, the latter a stark reminder that the mundanity of management persists even in a pandemic.

The previous weekend had seen almost 1,200 new cases of COVID-19 in the county. The next day, Mendoza would introduce the logistics of the state’s plan to administer the first 50,000 doses of a vaccine locally, an effort that he called “the largest public health undertaking of our generation.”

He sat masked in a colorless conference room a few paces from his office on the ninth floor of the county Health Department building on Westfall Road against a backdrop of portraits of his predecessors, who, despite their contributions to public health, few people could name.

A modicum of anonymity usually accompanies public service work, even the relatively prominent role of health commissioner. With the exception of police chiefs, the heads of local government agencies tend to be largely invisible to the public, trotted out for the occasional news conference while

doing most of their business behind closed doors.

But Mendoza, 46, has been omnipresent during the health crisis, cutting a high and sometimes contentious profile, earning himself both high praise and scorn for his handling of the situation.

For a few months, the Finger Lakes region was hailed statewide for its vigilance in stopping the spread of the virus. The National Association of City and County Health Officials recognized the county Health Department as a “Promising Practice” of 2020. Donuts Delite put Mendoza’s face on a doughnut and couldn’t keep up with demand.

When Mendoza sat down in that conference room, the region had the dubious distinction of having the highest positivity rate in the state. A few days later, the county would hit a new record high of daily cases, followed by another record the next day.

Asked whether he was living a dream or a nightmare, Mendoza replied, “Neither. It’s my job.”

That job has morphed into something distinct from anything anyone in his position experienced before.

His office, for instance, has become a makeshift television studio, equipped with LED lighting to enhance the video news briefings he conducts almost daily.

Behind the door, a giant white board on the wall is a Cartesian coordinate graph that Mendoza drew early in the pandemic to map the spread of the virus. With “Contact Intensity = Distance x Duration” on the X axis and “Risk = Number x Demographic” on the Y, car washes pose the lowest risk of contraction.

A Dr. Anthony Fauci bobble-head doll stands sentry on his desk. “There’s a Michael Mendoza bobble-head doll on the way,” he said in all seriousness.

What other Monroe County health commissioner has been a bobble-head?

To some extent, every local health commissioner in the country fell into their newfound role of pandemic posterchild. Few have experience with pandemics.

More so than most, though,

Mendoza fell into his.

He had half-heartedly applied for the position when he was appointed by County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo on an interim basis in 2016. As he recalled, he wrote two words in the section of the online application reserved for a cover letter: “Call me.”

“I was very neutral about the job,” Mendoza said. “I wasn’t looking for a job. I wasn’t unhappy with my job.”

At the time, Mendoza was the medical director of Highland Family Medicine, one of the largest family medicine practices in the country, and the commissioner position had become something of a revolving door.

Mendoza became the second interim commissioner in as many years. The previous permanent commissioner, a posting that is to be a six-year term, lasted two years before taking a similar job out of town. The situation got to the point that the state chastised the county for being unable to hold on to a full-time commissioner. County officials claimed no one wanted the job.

He was encouraged to apply by Dr. Jeremy Cushman, who preceded Mendoza as interim commissioner.

As Cushman saw it, Mendoza had the pedigree — he holds master’s degrees in public health and business administration — and the temperament.

Mendoza agreed to a full-term appointment in 2017 on the condition that he could continue seeing patients, which he does two days a week. His term expires in early 2023 and he said he intends to serve it out and get reappointed.

“Let’s face it, Dr. Mendoza is a very effective communicator,” Cushman said.

“And yes, he’s a great physician and a great leader of that department. But he is an extremely effective communicator and that’s what we need right now.”

Two days after we talked, Mendoza tweeted a photo of himself being administered the vaccine at Highland Hospital. Then he took the time to answer replies from followers, including a vaccine skeptic.

One regret Mendoza has about his handling of the pandemic is being

slow to promote the widespread use of masks. Recall that early in the pandemic the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent the mixed message that masks do not slow the spread of the virus but should be conserved for healthcare workers.

“I think I had the same feeling that most people had, which was, ‘Shouldn’t any mask be better than no mask?’”

Mendoza said. “I wish I had had the confidence in my role to go against the CDC. That’s what it would’ve been at that time. And certainly I would have caught heat for that.”

Mendoza grew up one of two children in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grove. His parents, Filipino immigrants, divorced as he was finishing the third grade and he and his sister were raised by their mother.

She worked at Argonne National Laboratory operated by the University of Chicago, which made Mendoza eligible for a scholarship to the school.

He studied environmental science as an undergraduate and attended medical school there.

He completed his residency at the University of California–San Francisco and spent four years practicing family medicine in Chicago before moving to Rochester in 2009. He and his wife, Dr. Lisa Vargas, and their two children, ages 15 and 12, live in Brighton.

There are many casualties of the pandemic, but one of them for Mendoza is the time he has lost with his children.

“I’ve always said, ‘I wanted to be the father I never had,’” Mendoza said.

“The casualty of this job for me is that I will probably have missed a good year of time with my kids. I’ve got 12-to14-hour days every day, I mean, I’m barely there.

“That’s time you never get back,” he added. “That’s the hardest part.”

Back in his office, as I scoured the citations on his wall, he pointed to the one he said was most important to him.

“Did you see my ‘M.D.’?” he asked.

It was a framed poem from his children titled, “My Daddy, MD.”

roccitynews.org CITY 35

LIFE

NOW PLAYING

(NOT AT THEATER NEAR YOU)

Stephen Spielberg's adaptation of "West Side Story" will hit theaters on Dec. 10, 2021. COURTESY 20TH CENTURY FOX

KEEPING UP WITH THE (MOVIE) TIMES Film studios are adopting new strategies to save their biggest releases

BY ADAM LUBITOW

L

@ADAMLUBITOW

ast year was a hard one for movie theaters across the nation, but in December the already beleaguered industry was dealt what was arguably its biggest blow yet.

On Dec. 3, WarnerMedia dropped the bombshell that throughout 2021 it will be releasing its entire slate of films for the year, each on its respective release date, simultaneously in theaters and on its streaming service HBO Max. That announcement felt like the signal of a seismic shift in the current 36 CITY JANUARY 2021

model for film distribution. And while it can be seen as a win for audiences that simply wish to see movies in the most convenient way possible, reaction within the industry was, to put it mildly, mixed. Director Christopher Nolan has been very vocal in the press about his disapproval, and Variety reported last month that Legendary Entertainment — the production company behind “Dune” and “Godzilla vs. Kong” — was even considering legal action against WarnerMedia.

Among the 17 features included in the WarnerMedia announcement are some of the biggest films coming out this year. Aside from “Wonder Woman 1984,” which came out on Christmas Day, there’s “The Suicide Squad,” “Matrix 4,” “Mortal Kombat,” “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” “Space Jam: A New Legacy,” “In the Heights,” and the potential Oscar-contender “Judas and the Black Messiah.”

Many of these are true tentpoles for the studio, the kind of films that

have traditionally relied on ticket sales generated by a successful run in theaters to recoup their astronomical budgets.

Dropping them on a streaming platform indicates WarnerMedia is betting that, even with a vaccine rollout on the horizon, audiences won’t be flocking back to theaters anytime soon, and it will still be some time before things return to a semblance of normalcy.

Some have speculated that the decision was more about luring subscribers to the underperforming HBO

Max streaming service than anything else. But after a year of jerking audiences around with its constantly shifting release dates for Nolan’s “Tenet,” the studio may have been ready for the stability that committing to a strategy would provide.

At this point, movie studios seem ready to try anything. The overstuffed schedule of films competing for audiences’ attention in 2021 is going to be chaotic to say the least. All the more so considering the Oscar eligibility period has been extended through the end of February (nominations are set to be announced on March 15, and the ceremony itself won’t take place until April 25).

With all the delays from last year, studios will basically be releasing two years worth of films in 2021, whether in theaters, on a streaming platform, or through video on-demand (VOD).

Keep in mind, releases will continue to be in flux, but as of now here’s an idea of when and where to see some of the coming year’s major releases: “Minari” Isaac Lee Chung’s lovely family drama starring Steven Yeun is a definite Oscar contender, and distributor A24 has set a theatrical (and possibly streaming) release for Feb. 12.

“Raya and the Last Dragon” During the studio’s Investor Day webcast in December, Disney announced that this animated adventure about a warrior’s quest to find the world’s last dragon would, like “Mulan” last year, be released simultaneously in theaters and on Disney Plus with “Premier Access” (requiring an additional fee of $30) on Mar. 5.

“No Time to Die” James Bond’s latest adventure was the first major studio film to be affected by the pandemic. MGM announced back in March that its release would be delayed until November 2020. Obviously that didn’t happen, and after further delays, 007 is currently set to crash into theaters on April 2.

“A Quiet Place 2” Originally set for a release in spring 2020, Paramount now has this horror sequel scheduled for a theatrical release on April 23. Though since the studio is launching its Paramount Plus streaming platform early this year, that may very well change.

“Dune.” COURTESY WARNER BROS.

“Black Widow” Despite shuffling releases like “Mulan” and “Soul” to its streaming service, Disney has been sticking to its guns with this Marvel Studios film, delaying its release multiple times before landing on May 7 in theaters.

“Fast and Furious 9” Universal Pictures wasted little time protecting its biggest franchise. Early on in the pandemic, the studio decided to bump the theatrical release from May 2020 to May 28 of the coming year.

“Dune” “Arrival” director Denis Vellineuve’s mega-budget adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel will be opening in theaters and on HBO Max Oct. 1.

“In the Heights” Fresh off “Crazy Rich Asians,” director John Chu’s adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s splashy NYC-set musical was originally set to heat up theaters in summer 2020, but now it’ll be hitting theaters and HBO Max Jun. 18.

“Mission: Impossible 7” Considering Tom Cruise’s vocal adamance about preserving the theatrical experience, it seems certain Paramount will be saving the newest installment of their action franchise for theaters, when it hits Nov. 19.

“Candyman” There’d been some speculation last year that Nia DaCosta’s highly-anticipated horror reimagining might debut on VOD after getting delayed from summer and then fall 2020 release dates. But Universal still seems eager to get this one into theaters, setting a date of Aug. 27.

“West Side Story” Steven Spielberg’s high-profile adaptation of one of the most beloved musicals of all time was supposed to be a Christmas present for 2020, but is now set for a release in theaters on Dec. 10. Although, Disney has admittedly been coy about its release strategy for titles produced under their 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures banners.

“Ghostbusters: Afterlife” Paramount’s latest attempt to reboot the Ghostbusters franchise is currently set to hit theaters on June 11, nearly a year after it was to appear on screen in July 2020.

“Godzilla vs. Kong” One of the biggest surprises in WarnerMedia’s announcement was the inclusion of this blockbuster behemoth, since you’d think the studio would want it to be seen on the biggest screens possible. But it is scheduled to be released on May 21 in theaters and on HBO Max for the first 30 days.

“Raya and the Last Dragon.” COURTESY WALT DISNEY STUDIOS

“Spider-Man 3” Expectations are high for the third film in Marvel and Sony’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home” series, which based on casting announcements seems like it’ll be dipping a toe into the extended SpiderVerse. It’s currently set to hit theaters on Dec. 17.

“Nightmare Alley” Partially filmed in Buffalo, the starstudded noir crime-thriller from filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro wrapped completely in December, but 20th Century Studios doesn’t have it hitting theaters until Dec. 2021. roccitynews.org CITY 37

LIFE

MORE THAN MALL FOOD

FLAVORS OF SOUTHEAST ASIA, SOUTHEAST OF EASTVIEW Okonomiyaki. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH

BY CHRIS THOMPSON

@CHRONSOFNON

SWEET BASIL CAFE

2 EAST MAIN STREET, SUITE A, VICTOR TUESDAY - SATURDAY, 11:30 A.M. TO 9:30 P.M.; SUNDAY, NOON TO 8 P.M. 869-5009; SWEETBASILCAFEMENU.COM

D

id you know that Victor doesn’t end at the Eastview Mall? If you’re a city dweller who thinks the food court is the extent of the town’s culinary offerings and that Interstate 490 becomes a cosmic wormhole after Exit 28, you need to push your limits. Especially if you have an appetite.

38 CITY JANUARY 2021

For years, I frequented India House and Lucca Wood Fired Bistro in the cluster of eateries in the village of Victor, but now there are more gastronomic pleasures to explore there with the recent addition of the family-owned, pan-Asian restaurant Sweet Basil Cafe.

With plates inspired by Vietnamese, Thai, and Cambodian fare, Sweet Basil’s menu takes a flavorful trip through Southeast Asia that’s worth the trek past Eastview.

The name “Sweet Basil” is a reference to the herb that garnishes and flavors many Thai dishes. Head chef Jay Chhunwick and his wife, Clarissa Chhunwick, opened on East Main

Street in October in a cobblestone building with a history as colorful as their menu. Before they made the space their own, it was a fancy bed linen store, a tattoo parlor, and, according to lore, housed a brothel around the time Victor was settled in the early 19th century.

Jay Chhunwick is a 15-year veteran of the Rochester area’s restaurant industry, having started in his teens. He honed his skills at Plum House on Monroe Avenue, Char Steak & Lounge, Papaya, Sakura Home, and Richardson Canal House. In 2019, he and his wife began planning to open their own restaurant. Jay had been aiming to do it by the time he was 30.

He got there at 31.

On my recent first trip to Sweet Basil, I went straight for the seafood.

That was my go-to when I schlepped through Cambodia, Korea, and Vietnam in my 20s, and I am a sucker for nostalgia.

Sweet Basil’s customizable vermicelli bowl spoke to me. It’s perfect for anyone who loves Vietnamese noodles but isn’t in the mood for the filling broth that comes with a bowl of phở (though phở is also on the menu).

The noodles are topped with pickled carrots, mint, bean sprouts, and daikon radish. You also have your choice of sauce and protein. Though I chose seafood with sweet and spicy

Left, fried shrimp spring roll and below, pork ramen with soy broth. PHOTOS BY JACOB WALSH

Korean sauce (reminiscent of Thai chili sauce) ($17.50), you can also get beef ($14.50), chicken ($13), or veggie ($11.50).

No matter your choice, you’ll get a mountain of food tightly stuffed into a bowl. My dish was topped with a slab of pollock as big as my hand accompanied by scallops and so many clams and mussels nestled on a bed of sprouts, greens, and vegetables that I wondered if Chhunwick forgot the noodles — until I dug in.

The portions are like what you’d get at the house of a friend whose mother complains you’re “wasting away.” I ate the whole bowl in one sitting and finished with some Vietnamese coffee, lightened with caramel and sweet condensed milk ($3.50).

Besides expanding Victor’s culinary palate, the Chhunwicks want to offer an education on the varied foods of Southeast Asia. Jay is a fan of Asian Fusion, but for now is sticking with the ripe selections of flavors derived from his Vietnamese, Thai, and Cambodian roots.

Clarissa told me a few people came in, glanced at the menu, and dismissively said they had already recently had Chinese take-out. That’s disappointing. Besides the fact that Sweet Basil doesn’t serve Chinese food, the cuisine from across Southeast Asia is

Rose tea

as diverse as that of the different regions of China. An outsider may see soups and rice or noodle dishes with similar ingredients and think they’re all the same. Look closer, and you’ll see that what each region does with those base ingredients is what makes them unique.

“Give two people palettes with the same colors of paint on them, and they’ll create something different,” Clarissa said.

“We wouldn’t say that a van Gogh is identical to a Dali, after all.”

Sweet Basil Cafe’s dining room is currently closed, but the restaurant is open for take-out and pickup through DoorDash and Grubhub. That means anyone in the Rochester area can enjoy the restaurant, even if they can’t easily get to Victor or still fear the cosmic wormhole.

Seafood vermicelli noodle bowl. PHOTO BY JACOB WALSH roccitynews.org CITY 39

ABOUT TOWN Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Remembrance

Education, Civil Rights & Equality: Cornerstones For Our Future. Thu., Jan.

28, noon. Livestream, online Speaker Bakari Sellers at RIT’s 39th annual Expressions of King’s Legacy. Registration required rit.edu/events/expressions21.

Joshua Rashaad McFadden: A Moment in a Movement. Mon., Jan. 18, 11

a.m. Livestream, online Part of RIT’s 4th annual Let Freedom Ring. ASL interpreted. Registration required rit.edu/ events/LFR21.

MLK Skate to Commemorate. Mon., Jan. 18, 12, 1:50 & 3:40 p.m. MLK Jr. Memorial Park, 1 Manhattan Sq. Admission fee waived with a donation of 2 new, non-perishable hygiene, cleaning, or household items $2. cityofrochester.gov/mlkparkicerink.

Stand Up, Step Up: 14th Annual MLK Jr Celebration for the Henrietta & Rush Communities. Thu., Jan. 14, 7 p.m.

Livestream, online rhnet.org/rushumc.

Activism

Energy Democracy 101. Thu., Jan. 14, 6 p.m. Livestream, online Hosted by Metro Justice’s Rochester for Energy Democracy. Registration required metrojustice.org.

Responding to Racist Remarks.

Wed., Jan. 20, 6:30 p.m. Livestream, online $5-$10 suggested. surjroc.org/ workshops.

40 CITY JANUARY 2021

Black History

Black Veganism. Thu., Jan. 21, 7

p.m. Livestream, online Live on FB: 540WMain $30. 420-8439.

Introduction to Gentrification. Thu., Jan. 14, 7 p.m. Livestream, online Live on FB: 540WMain $30. 420-8439.

Lectures

City Roots Community Land Trust: Development Without Displacement.

Thu., Jan. 21, 6 p.m. Virtual Central Library, online. calendar.libraryweb.org.

Faces of Civil War Nurses. Tue., Jan. 19, 7 p.m. Livestream, online Presented by author Ronald S. Coddington. Registration is required perintonhistoricalsociety.org/ events.

Fishers: Cousins of the Weasel. Tue., Jan. 26, 7:30 p.m. Livestream, online Presented by Genesee Valley Audubon Society. Registration required by Jan 24 gvaudubon.org/activities.

Highlights of the Hudson Valley. Wed., Jan. 27, 7 p.m. Livestream, online Presented by Penfield Public Library.

Registration required penfield.libraryweb. org.

Honeoye Falls-Mendon Historical Society: Chris Carosa. Thu., Jan. 7, 7:30 p.m. Livestream, online 624-5655.

Lillian D. Wald: Rochester’s Renaissance Woman. Sat., Jan. 9,

10:30 a.m. Virtual Central Library, online.

Presented by Patricia Corcoran, president of Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery.

Part of Central Library’s Mourning in the Morning series. Registration required calendar.libraryweb.org.

Living with Black Bears in New York State. Thu., Jan. 14, 6 p.m. Virtual Central Library, online. Registration required calendar.libraryweb.org.

Literary Events & Discussions

Brighton Memorial Library Adult Zoom Book Discussion. Tue., Jan. 19, 1:30

p.m. Livestream, online Jude Hyzen’s “The Happiness Project” Registration required brightonlibrary.org/events.

Brighton Memorial Library Teen Zoom Book Discussion. Wed., Jan. 27, 6:30

p.m. Livestream, online Ibi Zoboi’s “Pride: A Pride and Prejudice Remix” Registration required brightonlibrary.org/ events.

Brownbag Book Discussion. Wed., Jan. 27, noon. Virtual Central Library, online.

Charlie Jane Anders’ “All the Birds in the Sky” calendar.libraryweb.org.

Pages with Purpose: Virtual Book Group. Thu., Jan. 28, 7 p.m. Livestream,

online “The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature”

by J. Drew Lanham. Registration required senecaparkzoo.org/events.

Penfield Public Library Book Discussion.

Thu., Jan. 21, 2 p.m. Livestream, online Lisa See’s “The Tea Girl of Hummingbird

Lane” Registration requred penfield. libraryweb.org.

The Savvy Ally: A Guide for Becoming a Skilled LGBTQ+ Advocate. Tue., Jan.

12, 7 p.m. Livestream, online A talk with author Jeannie Gainsburg, presented by Pittsford Community Library calendar. libraryweb.org.

Tuesdays with BOA. Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m Virtual Writers & Books, wab.org Jan 5: Matt Morton, “Improvisation Without Accompaniment” Jan 12: Mark Polanzak, “The OK End of Funny Town” Jan 19: Kathryn Nuernberger, “Rue” Jan 23: Dante Micheaux, “Circus”.

Kids Events

Book & Beast at Home. Fourth

Wednesday of every month, 11 a.m.noon. Livestream, online Jan 27: “One Wolf Howls” by Scotti Cohn. Registration required senecaparkzoo.org/events.

Frozen Adventures. Sat., Jan. 9, 11 a.m.2 p.m. Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. (museumofplay.org) $16.

Sensory-Friendly Sunday. Sun., Jan. 17, 4:30-7:30 p.m. Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. (museumofplay. org) Space is limited and tickets must be purchased online in advance. Includes entry to Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden $13/$18.

Storytime Club: Family Festivities.

Mon., Jan. 4, 10:30 a.m., Mon., Jan. 11, 10:30 a.m. and Mon., Jan. 25, 10:30

EDITOR'S CHOICE /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// a.m. January theme: Winter fun. Strong National Museum of Play, 1 Manhattan Sq. (museumofplay.org) W/ museum admission ($16).

Web of Life Winter StoryWalk. Sundays, 10 a.m.-4 p.m Genesee Country Nature Center, 1410 Flint Hill Rd Mumford gcv. org/explore/nature-center/nature-walks.

Recreation

Adult & Teen Guided Snowshoe. Sun.,

Jan. 31, 3:30-4:30 p.m. Helmer Nature Center, 154 Pinegrove Ave Includes snowshoe rental. Registration required $5/$8. 336-3035.

Family Guided Snowshoe. Sat., Jan. 9, 3:30-4:30 p.m. and Sun., Jan. 24, 3:304:30 p.m. Helmer Nature Center, 154 Pinegrove Ave Includes snowshoe rental.

Registration required $5/$8. 336-3035.

Guided Nature Hike. Sat., Jan. 30, 10-11:30 a.m. Thousand Acre Swamp Sanctuary, 1581 Jackson Rd Penfield Registration required senecaparkzoo.org/event.

Guided Snowshoeing. Sat., Jan. 9, 8-11 a.m. Keuka Lake State Park, 3560 Pepper Rd Keuka Park $10-$15. fingerlakesmuseum.org/programs-events.

Workshops

Business First Wednesday. First Wednesday of every month, 10-11:30 a.m Jan 6: Start Your Year off Right for Small Business. Virtual Central Library, online. roccitylibrary.org.

Animal Encounters. Wednesdays, Jan. 13, 20, and 27 at 11 a.m Virtual Strong National Museum of Play, museumofplay.org. Through a

series of three family-friendly virtual presentations, Strong Museum biologist and supervisor of live collections, Anna Simpson, will take viewers of all ages through a life cycle of human-animal interaction. The first installment, “Playing with Pets,” prepares participants with the tools needed when considering pet ownership – from how to care for them to how to play with them – with live animal demonstrations.

“Butterflies” tours the museum’s Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden for up-close glimpses of its tropical inhabitants, lessons on their care, and a themed craft to try at home. The final installment, “Preserving the Past,” explores the techniques used by museums to preserve dead plants and animals — from butterflies and arthropods to birds and mammals. A live Q & A will follow each presentation. Tickets for the series are $25 for members and $30 for non-members, available through the museum website. — BY KATE STATHIS.

STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION

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S R P U O S N D S G U E T E E L E S L R P A T T A V I A D E R L A S E L G S Y I S O T L O A I R A D V E R I E O U R E A M P R S A

A L T O S

S N O U T

H A L L S

1. PUBLICATION TITLE: CITY. 2. PUBLICATION NO.: 022-138. 3. FILING DATE: December 23, 2020. 4. Issue Frequency: Monthly 5. Number of issues published annually: 12. 6. Annual subscription price: $50. 7. MAILING ADDRESS OF KNOWN OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: 280 State St., PO Box 30021, Rochester, NY 14603-3021. 8.

MAILING ADDRESS OF HEADQUARTERS OR GENERAL BUSINESS OFFICE OF PUBLISHER: 280 State St., PO Box 30021, Rochester, NY 14603-3021. 9. FULL NAMES AND COMPLETE MAILING ADDRESSES OF PUBLISHER, EDITOR, and MANAGING EDITOR: PUBLISHER: Norm Silverstein, 280 State St., Rochester, NY 14614; EDITOR: David Andreatta, 280 State St., PO Box 30021, Rochester, NY 14603-3021. 10. OWNER: Rochester Area Media Partners, LLC., 280 State St., Rochester, NY 14614. STOCKHOLDERS OWNING OR HOLDING 1% OR MORE OF THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF STOCK: None. 13. KNOWN BONDHOLDERS, MORTGAGEES, AND OTHER SECURITY HOLDERS OWNING OR HOLDING 1% OR MORE OF TOTAL AMOUNT OF BONDS, MORTGAGES, OR OTHER SECURITIES: None.

13. Publication Title 15.

A N I T A

N Y L O N

G U A R D

R I A I N T O S E R O Y A L

S P E L L

E A S E S

a.

14. Issue Date for Circulation Data Below

CITY

September 2020

Extent and Nature of Circulation

Average No. Copies Each Issue During Preceding 12 Months

(1)

No. Copies of Single Issue Published Nearest to Filing Date

34,885

Total Number of Copies (Net press run) Paid/Requested Outside-County Mail Subscriptions Stated on Form 3541. (Include advertiser's proof and exchange copies)

Paid In-County Subscriptions Stated on Form 3541 b. Paid and/or (2) (Include advertiser's proof and exchange copies) Requested Circulation (3) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, Street Vendors, Counter Sales, and Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution

35,000

15 18 37

(4) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation [Sum of 15b. (1), (2),(3),and (4)]

33

d.

Free Distribution

by Mail (Samples, compliment ary, and other free)

(1) Outside-County as Stated on Form 3541

16

(2) In-County as Stated on Form 3541

11

37

27

(3) Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS

e. Free Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means)

30,853

26,023

f.

Total Free Distribution (Sum of 15d. and 15e.)

30,880

26,050

Total Distribution (Sum of 15c. and 15f)

30,913

26,087

3,972

8,913

34,885

35,000

.10675

.14183

g. h. i.

Copies not Distributed To tal (Sum of 15g. and h.)

j. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation (15c. divided by 15g. times 100) 16. Publication of Statement of Ownership

January 2021

Publication required. Will be printed in the _________________________ issue of this publication.

Publication not required.

roccitynews.org CITY 41

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YES, SOUP FOR YOU!

SOUL-WARMING SOUPS FOR THE DEAD OF WINTER

PHOTOS BY VINCE PRESS

BY VINCE PRESS

D

@VLPRESS

epending on your age, soup conjures up different images.

Tomato soup with grilled cheese resonates with baby boomers, while Pho or Ramen tops the trendy charts of Gen Z. For Gen Xers, none forget Yev Kassem, the “Soup Nazi” of “Seinfeld,” and his to-die-for Mulligatawny, Crab Bisque, Split Pea, French Onion, and Mushroom Barley selections.

I vividly recall reading as a kid Martha Brown’s “Stone Soup,” the European folk tale (told many times over) about hungry soldiers and travelers who convince the townspeople to donate ingredients for their mysterious cauldron of soup. In the end, what started as merely water and stones, was cunningly transformed into a delicious meal and a lesson in sharing and friendmaking over food.

January happens to be National Soup Month and the stone soup story really reflects its origin. Not surprisingly, many food historians date soup making back 20,000 years ago or more. Steeping meats and ingredients in water for long periods of time naturally retained and enhanced flavor while also tenderizing the proteins, resulting in a one-pot, nutritious meal.

The word soup is derived from the French term soupe (broth) and the Latin word suppa — meaning bread soaked in broth. To this day, soups across the world are still served with bread, be it a silver dollar roll thrown into a to-go bag, oyster crackers with chowder, or a toasted baguette slice floating atop a bowl of onion soup.

If there is one local name synonymous with soup, it would be Rose Reynolds, co-owner of the American Hotel in Lima, Livingston County. She also holds the titles and responsibilities of chief soup maker, storyteller, and, in my book, one of the friendliest people one could ever have the pleasure to meet.

The restaurant has been in her family for 100 years, but Rose and her brother Pat have been at the helm since the late 1970s. For decades, so the story goes, their mother, Aretha, offered four staple soups — chicken noodle, split pea, vegetable beef, and navy bean. But when tougher drunken driving laws in 42 CITY JANUARY 2021

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the 1980s cut into liquor sales, the brother and sister turned their focus to the menu to shore up their revenue stream.

Bowl by bowl, Rose expanded the repertoire of soups over the decades to what is now a rotation of an astonishing 400 soups. The restaurant offers between six and 10 fresh options daily. Rose has invented concoctions from leftovers and whatever happens to be in the fridge, and poached a few recipes from her travels along the way.

“The beauty of soup is flexibility,” Rose said. “You can put anything you like into it, and call it anything you want to.”

Her bestsellers are split pea and cheeseburger chowder, but you can’t go wrong taking a chance on whatever is on the day’s menu. There are variations on the favorites, too, like the Aruba Pea, which Rose brought back from a trip to, well, Aruba. She simply adds sweet Italian sausage, and probably a few other items she purposely didn’t mention.

A seasonal delight is the Drunken Pumpkin, which combines pureed pumpkin, maple syrup, apples, celery, onion, sour cream, and Jack Daniels. That recipe, too, was inspired by a dish that Rose sampled at the InterContinental hotel in Chicago. It has such a following that when canned pumpkin was hard to come by last fall, a loyal customer so eager for bowl brought her own stash of the stuff for Rose to use.

Regulars rave about the creamy smashed potato soup (sour cream, bacon, scallions, onions, and chicken stock) as well as the salty clam and sausage soup (clam juice, sausage, diced tomato, thyme, garlic, and mirepoix).

The samples I enjoyed over a drink at the American Hotel’s beautifully patinated and homey bar justified the raving.

Many of Rose’s recipes can be found in her three spiral-bound cookbooks on sale at the restaurant for $24 apiece. The books, whose colorful titles like “Never Enough Thyme” and “Hold the Chicken, and Make It Pea!” reveal the author’s sense humor, weave history and vivid narratives to complement the recipes.

We are in prime soup season, when dethawing and eating foods with therapeutic properties are high priorities. So, here are a few more stellar soups, with global flare, from restaurants in and around Rochester to warm your soul and carry you though the winter. All are available for takeout. Even Yev would approve. Yes, soup for you!

BAKED ONION JACK GRATINEE

AT BERNARD’S GROVE

bernardsgrove.com Tons of sautéed Spanish onions and shallots swim in a complex broth made from homemade beef and lamb stock covered by a blanket of Monterey Jack cheese.

You’ll taste the sweet sherry immediately. This is a must for any French Onion soup fan.

MISH MOSH BOWL AT FOX’S DELI

foxsdeli.com Everyone knows about their Matzo Ball soup, but the Mish Mosh doubles down to include kreplach (beef filled Jewish wonton), noodles, and rice. The restaurant describes it as Rosh Hashanah and Passover in one bowl! The Matzo dumplings are light and airy soaked in chicken broth goodness.

MULLIGATAWNY SOUP AT AMAYA INDIAN CUISINE

amayaIndiancuisine.com This classic Indian soup marries slightly sweet and savory flavors with a thicker profile. Amaya’s version is vegan and made with a yellow lentil base along with other spices like salt, pepper, and turmeric.

Make sure to try the outstanding thin, crispy papadum flatbread too.

SOUP DU JOUR AT BODEGA

bodegaonpark.com You can bank on anything Mark Cupolo (of Rocco and Rella fame) does being high level and done right. His new gourmet micro-market on Park Avenue carries everything from intriguing snacks, to IPAs, breakfast sammies and soup. Drop by to see what it might be that day, but know it will always be crazy good. roccitynews.org CITY 43

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Matt Vercant, co-owner of Just Games Rochester. PHOTOS BY JACOB WALSH

BORED OF WINTER QUARANTINE?

TRY A BOARD GAME.

BY DANIEL J. KUSHNER

@DANIELJKUSHNER

DKUSHNER@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

T

he bitter cold is setting in and a new surge of COVID-19 cases is making the outside world even more inhospitable. It’s an excellent time to stay at home.

But if you’re tired of bingewatching TV and staring at your phone for the latest social media updates, playing board games may be the change of pace you need to get through another quarantine.

There are the classics like “Monopoly” and “Clue,” of course. But the world of board games has changed a lot since the Reading Railroad tracked through your living room, and hopping 44 CITY JANUARY 2021

off that train can be as intimidating as hitting the ballroom with Miss Scarlett without the right guide.

At Just Games Rochester on Penfield Road, there are 1,700 titles in stock in the board game category alone.

But the store’s co-owner Matt Vercant says the volume of choices doesn't have to be overwhelming.

“If there’s something you’re really into, almost definitely there is a game that matches those interests,” Vercant says. “It’s just a question of figuring out what it is for you.”

When it comes to sheer name recognition, few games have as much notoriety as “Catan,” also known as “The Settlers of Catan.” First released in 1995 and recommended for players

ages 10 and up, the civilizationbuilding game has since sold more than 32 million copies.

“If you want competition, you can’t go wrong with ‘Settlers of Catan,’” Vercant says. “It’s everywhere, it’s had five editions of the game; it’s incredibly popular. You can learn it in five minutes, but there’s a real depth of strategy to it.”

For the cutthroat competitor, there are games in which blatant trickery and sabotage are built-in, like “Coup.”

There, players must bribe, deceive, and manipulate one another if they hope to win.

“This one is if you hate your family already and want to hate them more,” says Lana Smith, who was Just Games’ events manager before the pandemic put in-store events on hold.

PUMMEL THE ‘PANDEMIC’ If the health crisis weighs on your mind, you can fight hypothetical viral diseases from the comfort of home without wearing masks or physically distancing. The game “Pandemic” allows players to work cooperatively to find the cures to four different diseases that have broken out in various regions of the world. “‘Pandemic’ is absolutely still a go-to title,” Vercant says. “This year, everybody’s like, ‘I do want to beat the disease, thank you,’ and so ‘Pandemic’ is just a great play experience.

Someone who’s never played it before can usually pick the mechanics up pretty fast, and then they’ve learned about 50 other titles.”

There are also co-op games that blur the line between being a team player and acting out of selfpreservation. In “Dead of Winter,” players work together to stay alive in a kind of zombie apocalypse, but

they can also hoard resources they need to survive.

“A lot of these games, really what they do is they make these soft, little moral quandaries in your heart,” Vercant says. “Do I help my friend, or do I eat all the food that would keep their character healthy? And that’s the fun of it, right?”

For would-be gamers looking for a more casual playing experience, Vercant recommends “Ice Cool,” which is appropriate for anyone 6 years of age or older.

A game of dexterity, “Ice Cool” has a simple premise. There are penguins in school that are trying to ditch class to go catch fish. In order to help them, players must fling the Weeble-shaped penguins across the board safely without being intercepted by a buzz-killing hall monitor penguin looking to take away their hall passes.

ARE YOU A CARD OR DICE PLAYER? THERE ARE BOARD GAMES FOR THAT. “The Fox in the Forest,” for example, plays like a two-player version of the trick-taking card game Euchre, but with vulpine themes and fairy characters that can affect gameplay elements such as trump suits.

“Maybe you played Euchre

because you’re from the Rochester area and everyone kind of gets suckered into Euchre at some point,” says Vercant. “That’s a really familiar game, then. You just don’t know it’s familiar yet.”

If you enjoy playing “Yahtzee,” the quintessential example of what Vercant refers to as “roll-and-write” games, “ClipCut Parks” might be the right fit.

Its objective is to develop city parks with a hand of three different blueprints dealt face up to each player. In order to complete these blueprints, you can only cut shapes from your score card and place them on the blueprint based on how you roll the dice.

Those who may be curious about role-playing games, or RPGs, don’t have to start with “Dungeons & Dragons.”

“Adventure Games: The Volcanic Island” is an RPG with a “choose your own adventure” card-playing element.

And if you and your housemates were interested in playing D&D, but no one wants to be stuck as the dungeon master, “Gloomhaven” may be worth checking out.

If being stuck at home has you craving something more heady or conceptual in your game play, there’s “Dialect: a Game about Language and How It Dies.”

“You’re not making a character,” Vercant explains. “You’re making the character of the language you’re constructing through play — super nerdy.”

The game’s creators, Kathryn Hymes and Hakan Seyalıoğlu of Thorny Games, have also produced “Sign: a Game About Being Understood,” in which players essentially create a new sign language.

No matter how you like to play, board games and card games can provide the kind of diversion you need. Your turn!

roccitynews.org CITY 45

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Part of the Memorial Art Gallery’s collection, Ralph Avery’s immensely cheerful watercolor, “Atlas/Rockefeller Center, Winter,” is packed with the activity of skaters twirling below the iconic statue, surrounded by city buildings and bundled-up passersby. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MEMORIAL ART GALLERY

WINTER (DOESN’T SUCK, YOU’VE JUST LOST YOUR SENSE OF) WONDERLAND WRITERS AND ARTISTS CELEBRATE WHILE OTHERS HIBERNATE

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

I

f you’re one of those people who thinks winter is just awful and you’re immovable on the point, I’ve got news for you: you’re boring.

Somehow, you became one of those head-down, rushing-around, easily inconvenienced bags of aches and complaints that Mary Poppins warned about. A living, breathing, cautionary tale of soul death.

Okay, that’s harsh. But remember how you once felt waking up to a world transformed by a pristine 46 CITY JANUARY 2021

@RSRAFFERTY

BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

blanket of sound-dampening snow (and perhaps a snow day!)?

Remember trekking through the imagination-piquing alien terrain, looking for the perfect place to lay down and leave an angelic imprint, tongue poked out to catch snowflakes falling from the ether? I recall a huge grin and peaceful abandon.

Then you grew up and became consumed with accidentally rolling in buried dog droppings.

It’s not like I can’t at all relate to

folks who lament the season. I too notice a marked improvement in my mood when the sun peeks through the endless weeks of overcast skies.

But don’t you find yourself occasionally lost in the mesmerizing dance of snow coming down outside your window? Or smiling as you drink in the prettiness of a fresh coat of powder on everything, before it gets stirred into dirty slush?

I do, and I’m not alone. I owe my enduring love of winter in part to

certain writers and artists who opened my eyes to the loveliness of the season, and the unique ways it awakes in us a sense of tranquility and goodness.

In “Through the Looking Glass,” Lewis Carroll describes a sense of wonder through the eyes of his everlastingly curious heroine, Alice (who always anthropomorphizes everything): “I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently?

And then it covers them up snug, you

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crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snowcrust — Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.”

Harold Weston’s 1922 painting, “Three Trees, Winter.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MEMORIAL ART GALLERY

know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’”

Rarely the subject of praise, winter is overly used in literature as a device to signify danger or disaster. But occasionally it makes an appearance as a simple backdrop to human activity.

Take, for example, the thoughts of one of my favorite writers, Annie Dillard, a deep thinker whose science and philosophy-blending work is rife with the sense of wonder that too many of us forget to nurture. In her 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning collection of essays, “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek,” the piece “Footfalls in a Blue Ridge Winter” includes a mundane yet relatable exploration of the way shared images of winter moments unite us and breed nostalgia: “The winter pictures that come in over the wire from every spot on the continent are getting to be as familiar as my own hearth. I wait for the annual aerial photograph of an enterprising fellow who has stamped in the snow a giant valentine for his girl.

Here’s the annual chickadee-trying-todrink-from-a-frozen-birdbath picture, captioned, ‘Sorry, Wait Till Spring,’ and the shot of an utterly bundled child crying piteously on a sled at the top of a snowy hill, labeled, ‘Needs a Push.’

How can an old world be so innocent?”

Then there’s that Robert Frost poem. No, not that one. While it would make sense to mention “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” in a story about winter literature and art, that simplyrhymed, sing-song piece doesn’t quite paint the world of winter the way Frost does in one of my favorite works of his: “Birches.”

“Birches” isn’t about winter per se — it actually rambles through the seasons, and decades, in its reveriefilled, rich descriptions of a set of weathered trees that captivated the poet and set him on a tear that touches on a meditation of mortality.

The part that bears mentioning in our blustery context here, is an image to which Rochesterians who recall the Ice Storm of ‘91 can relate. Of the trees, he writes: “Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn manycolored As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.

Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed

That vision — of a world transformed into a crystalline environment, then sun throwing rainbows through prismatic branches onto the white canvas of the world, and the slow, strange clicking of ice-coated branches swaying in the cold air — has stuck with me since middle school.

As much as the sensual experience of spring and summer are praised, one thing you can’t get from those seasons is coziness: the urge to envelope yourself in warmth and softness and pierce the darkness with small pools of flickering lights instead of flooding it with fluorescents.

Charles Baudelaire understood this well, and wrote of it in his poem, “Landscape”: “The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass; And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass, I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight, And build me stately palaces by candlelight.”

Two winter landscape watercolors by Rochester artist M. Louise Stowell, who lived in Corn Hill in the early 20th century

It’s tempting to hide indoors as much as possible, but that’s no way to capture the essence of winter on a canvas. Jessica Marten, Curator of American art at the Memorial Art Gallery, tells CITY of one of her favorite winter works in the MAG’s collection: Harold Weston’s 1922 painting, “Three Trees, Winter.”

Weston lived in a one room studio cabin in the Adirondacks, and having suffered from polio, walked with a cane. That didn’t stop him, Marten says, from trekking out into the snowy woods for inspiration for his art.

“Weston is trying to understand the natural world and the forces within the natural world,” she says. “And, and so you kind of see this glow around the trees, there’s this movement in the trees with a very simple landscape that he’s

able to capture this sort of rhythm and sense of a power, something that he really could respect.”

The painting is incredibly colorful for a depiction of a white landscape at night. Shadows crisscross the snow drifts and there’s an unexpected sense of life. Reverence is there, too, which was evident in Weston’s writing the same year he made this painting: “I stopped beside a big hemlock tree and reached around the great trunk to feel its vigor, its reality, its life existing essence. My ear, laid against the wet bark, seemed to hear the pulse, the flow of life-creating sap. …[R]oots plunged into the soil, made it one with the earth and gave it life. As a primitive pagan I bowed before the mystery of that world spirit that giveth life to nature and to man.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MEMORIAL ART GALLERY

roccitynews.org CITY 47

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BACKYARD RINKS MAY BE MORE POPULAR THAN EVER, BUT SKATING DAYS ARE DWINDLING

Hockey players and figure skaters on ‘Mos Iceley,’ the backyard rink of Joseph Climek and Melody King in Webster. PROVIDED

ROCHESTER’S VANISHING BACKYARD RINKS

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

T

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

here is a fraternity of families around Rochester who tend patches of natural ice in their yards for their children to live out their dreams.

For the last 10 years, Scott Vadney has been a member, painstakingly building a rink in his backyard in Perinton each winter. He erects boards fashioned out of 2-by-10 pieces of lumber. He lays down a plastic liner inside the perimeter, then floods the basin with a garden hose like he’s filling a bathtub.

48 CITY JANUARY 2021

DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

When it freezes, he shovels the surface after each snowfall. When a leaf lands on the ice, he hustles to brush it off. They create pockmarks, you know.

There was a time when a rink like his would have stayed solid enough for skating for much of December through early March. But as the new year neared, Vadney had a tub of slush.

“When it works, it’s wonderful, it’s magical,” said Vadney, a 52-year-old father of three. “But it’s frustrating because I can’t count on when it’s going to work. … It’s been good more often

than not, but recently, anecdotally, it’s not staying as sustained cold.”

Science backs up his observations and those of countless other Rochester backyard rink rats.

Researchers in Canada recently reconstructed the viability of outdoor skating seasons over eight decades, and the takeaway was clear: milder winters are cutting into the number of days cold enough to maintain a homemade rink.

The researchers extracted mean daily winter temperatures from the National Weather Service and

Environment Canada in each of the so-called “Original Six” National Hockey League cities — Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Montreal, New

York, and Toronto — from 1942 onward and found a steady decline in the number of days when the weather was cold enough to make ice and sustain it for skating.

Toronto, the closest of those cities to Rochester, saw the sharpest drop in skating days, defined as those where the temperature averaged 22 degrees Fahrenheit once a suitable ice surface had been established.

In the winter of 1942-43, the start of the Original Six era, there were 55 skating days in Toronto. Last year, there were 20, according to the study.

Applying the same criteria to Rochester, which is snowier and warmer than Toronto, there were 34 skating days at the outset of the study and 10 last year, according to the National Weather Service. Over the last decade, Rochester averaged 27 skating days a year, buoyed by huge spikes in 2014 and 2015, compared with 33 throughout the 1940s.

“That period in winter when it gets cold enough to build a backyard rink is falling later and later in the calendar year,” said Robert McLeman, an environmental scientist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, and one of the authors of the study. “On average, it occurs somewhere between Christmas and New Year’s. But in many years, it’s occurring sometime in January and spring is coming earlier.”

The study, published in The Canadian Geographer in July, also found greater swings in temperature from year to year. Rising global temperatures don’t mean an end to cold winters, but they do mean erratic freezing weather, which makes maintaining natural ice challenging.

“Back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, winters were just cold and you could count on them getting cold sort of midDecember and staying cold well into March in the Great Lakes region,” McLeman said. “We don’t see that consistency anymore. It’s much more variable, like a yo-yo.”

Vadney has experienced the trend firsthand.

“There’s been years when it’s been a

The former Deerbone II backyard rink in Perinton was the envy of rink rats county wide. PROVIDED

total washout,” Vadney said. “Last year, for example, we didn’t get to skate on it but one time. In 2014-15, we were on it probably 30 times.”

The fluctuations are what keep Anthony Carter from investing in a backyard rink. The 35-year-old father of three and beer-league hockey goalie set aside money to build one when he and his family moved into their Henrietta home two years ago. He has yet to pull the trigger.

“The more we looked at weather patterns and almanacs and past dates, we were like, there really aren’t that

many days of winter,” Carter said.

“Rochester is cold, and some people would say miserable, but it wasn’t acceptable to having a rink.”

For eight years, the authors of the study have been collecting data from outdoor rink owners for their website RinkWatch, which monitors winter weather conditions and the long-term impacts of climate change through the lens of the backyard rink mystique.

Joseph Climek and Melody King of Webster, who have two baby girls, are volunteer contributors. Fans of “Star Wars,” they named their 40-by-60-foot rink “Mos Iceley” after the Tattooine spaceport Mos Eisley, and their hockey team “The Tusken Raiders.”

The couple was admittedly spoiled by their first rink-making experience during the consistently frigid winters of 2014 and 2015. Since then, their data show, the days conducive to skating have been outnumbered by the

unfavorable ones.

They had 21 “skating days,” as defined by RinkWatch, in one year and 17 in another. One year they had none because they dismantled their rink after waiting through January for weather consistently cold enough to freeze water solid.

“It’s not something I want to lose out on,” said Climek, 35. “But I know plenty of guys who play hockey with me every week who thought about doing a rink or used to and who have thought to themselves, the winters are getting milder, and is it really worth it?”

Yet Climek and King persevere, like all families in the fraternity. They universally describe the experience of skating on and maintaining their own rink as transcendental.

“There’s so much work put into it before you can actually enjoy it,” CONTINUED ON PAGE 50

roccitynews.org CITY 49

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Climek said. “Then, once you can finally get that first skate in, you just completely forget that you had to do so much work. It’s amazing.�

In his book, “Home Ice: Reflections on Backyard Rinks and Frozen Ponds,� the late noted hockey writer Jack Falla wrote of resurfacing a backyard rink as being “as easy and pleasant a job as I know.� “The water spreads like liquid wax, covering skate blade marks, flushing and sealing gouges and leaving the ice smooth, gray and inviting,� he wrote. “I took pride in being rink architect, engineer, and chief executive ice maker.�

Vadney can relate. “I say I do it for the kids, but honestly, there are times when I’m doing it for me,� he confessed. “There are times when its 11 o’clock at night, it’s still, it’s cold but there’s no wind, it’s quiet, the sky is full of stars and I’m out there with a homemade Zamboni watering and smoothing out the rink trying to get it as perfect as possible,� Vadney said. “It’s almost a Zen garden for me.�

‘Mos Iceley’ is home to the ragtag Tusken Raiders hockey team. PROVIDED

Volunteers needed: E-cigarette users

Earn $100 by participating in our study!

Two visits ($50 per visit).

The second visit will be 6 months after the first. There will be lung function test and blood draw (two tablespoons), saliva, breath condensate and urine collection at each visit.

Call our Research Coordinator at 585-224-6308 if you are interested or if you have questions. Thank you!

50 CITY JANUARY 2021

HOW TO BUILD YOUR OWN BACKYARD RINK ON THE CHEAP

BY DAVID ANDREATTA

@DAVID_ANDREATTA

T

here’s more than one way to build a backyard rink. But this four-step process is the simplest and easiest on the wallet.

Whatever you do, steer clear of the elaborate rink-building kits that retail for anywhere from $800 to $2,500.

They’re unnecessary.

Wayne Gretzky’s father, Walter Gretzky, who engineered the most consequential backyard rink ever built, got by with a sprinkler and a snow shovel. Mother Nature has intervened since “Wally Coliseum” was in its heyday, so you’ll need more tools. But not much more.

There are four essential ingredients: wooden boards, wooden stakes, a big plastic sheet, and water. What you’re doing is basically building a tub in your yard and filling it up. When it thaws, it’ll be a giant birdbath.

For a simple, small rink of, say, 20-by-40-feet, you’re looking at spending no more than $400 your first time. After that, you’ll shell out much less because you can reuse most, if not all, of your materials.

Not to rain on your rink before you get started, but don’t even try building one unless your yard is relatively flat. If you’re like me, you’ll eyeball your yard, tilt your head this way and that, and say, “Looks flat to me,” and then open the spigot.

But few yards are truly flat, and you won’t really know how sloped yours is until you start flooding it.

Gravity will let you know. Hold a glass half full of water and tilt it from side to side. The water stays level in the glass, and it will do the same inside the basin of your rink.

DANDREATTA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

1

FRAMING YOUR RINK:

Fashion your boards in the shape of a square or rectangle, then hammer the stakes into the ground on the outside of them. They’ll act as the braces for the boards. I like to screw the stakes into the boards for extra support. But it’s not entirely necessary. When the water starts filling the basin, the pressure of it will push the boards against the stakes.

2 BUILDING THE TUB: Carefully drape the plastic sheet over the frame.

Be sure that it extends over the edges, then gingerly “tuck it in” to line the ground and the boards. Whatever you do, don’t step on the sheet.

One tiny imperceptible tear and you’ll have a slow leak that’ll slowly drive you crazy. Sometimes, this process is beset by wind that catches the plastic like a parachute. You can avoid that by clamping the sheet to the boards or by using something heavy, like a brick, to act as a paperweight on the excess plastic draping over the boards.

3

FILL THE TUB:

This step is self-explanatory. Get a garden hose, turn on the spigot, and let the water flow. All you really need to skate is for a couple of inches of water to freeze solid. But if your backyard is sloped, one end of your tub will be deeper than the other. The best time to fill the tub is during a three- to four-day cold snap. But if your ground is level you might get by with two days.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED PRESSURE-TREATED LUMBER 2 IN. X 10 IN. X 10 FT. (X12) = $264 SPRING CLAMPS (X12) = $12 12-PACK WOOD STAKES 1 IN. X 2 IN. X 1-1/2 FT. (X2) = $8 2-PACK ZINC-PLATED, DOUBLE-WIDE CORNER (X2) = $8 PLASTIC SHEET 6ML CLEAR 24 FT. X 100 FT. = $92 TOTAL = $384

LACE UP THE BLADES AND SKATE FOR THE STANLEY CUP!

4 roccitynews.org CITY 51

WINTRY MIX

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

HOW TO WIN A SNOWBALL FIGHT FIVE TIPS TO TAKE INTO BATTLE

BY REBECCA RAFFERTY

W

inter blues and the pandemic got you down?

Take it out on your friends!

A good way to get together with friends for some physically-distanced winter recreation, while working off those quarantine calories, is an oldfashioned snowball fight. But don’t embarrass yourself — take this advice to bring your coldest game.

2 4

@RSRAFFERTY

BECCA@ROCHESTER-CITYNEWS.COM

1

LIMBER UP!

We know we sound like your mother here, but we’re not kidding.

Stretching helps with balance and prevents pulling those muscles you’re going to need to shovel the driveway. Plus, you’ll be more prepared to dodge the punch of your bestie’s arm cannon.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

Waging war on a flat, open battlefield went out of style with horseback cavalry. Guerilla warfare is the way to go for a snowball fight. You want obstacles, lots of them, to provide cover. Nothing is more satisfying during a snowball fight than the sound of your frenemy’s best shot smacking that tree you’re hiding behind. If you’re really ambitious, show up early to build forts and stockpile some ammo.

52 CITY JANUARY 2021

LAYER UP!

Don’t freeze yourself out of the fight before the opening salvo.

Wear snow or ski pants to keep warm and dry when you’re crawling around in the snow like rebel soldiers on Hoth. If you don’t have those, layering with long underwear and wrapping your feet in plastic bags under your boots is an option. A long-sleeved shirt and sweatshirt under your coat will keep your core warm, and for the love of your fingers and ears, wear waterproof gloves and a winter hat. An unexpected benefit of a face mask is that it keeps your face warm without the weight of a scarf.

3

KNOW YOUR SNOW

Once you have a decent snowfall, pick a day when the temperature is just below freezing and scout spots for good accumulation. If it’s too cold, the powder won’t stick together, and if it’s too warm, you’ll have a wet, slushy mess on your hands. You could use body heat to warm up snow for packing by removing your gloves, but you’re risking frozen fingers.

While there are snowball-making products on the market, using a soup ladle works well enough. It can also double as a homemade catapult!

5

BE A GOOD SPORT An old-fashioned snowball fight will take you back to your childhood. But you don’t have to act like a child.

roccitynews.org CITY 53

LIFE

ANATOMY OF A COMPOSITION

Across

Answers to this puzzle can be found on page 41

Dai

PUZZLE BY S.J. AUSTIN & J. REYNOLDS

Puzz

1. Wild guess 5. Venomous snake

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

10. Noble acts 15. Consequence of contact with poison ivy 19. Minor in astronomy?

20. Standoffish 21. Like The Kind at Three Heads Brewing

20

19 23

24

27

28

32

25. Keen!

25 29

36 40

26. Acronym for a small-runway plane

50

27. ____ glance

56

41

37

42

38

43

44

51 57

30

34

33

22. It connects the elbow to the pinky finger 23. Radiohead song with the lyric “My brain says I’m receiving pain”

21

45

52

53

59

58

39

60

28. Stay behind 29. Hoagy Carmichael song usually performed without lyrics 32. Share a secret 34. ____ the bone

64 69

70

65

66

71

74

67

68

72

73

75

76

35. Invitees 36. Buffalo-born folk singer DiFranco

77

37. Condition causing patchy fur

85

78 86

79

87

80

88

38. Alloy used in wall framing 40. Foreigner song with the lyric “If you wanna win you gotta learn how to play” 44. First name in fragrance

91

92 99

46. “Lowkey” or “weird flex”, e.g.

104

50. ____ Tai

112

105

94

93

95

100

101

106

96 102

107 113

108 115

114

51. Wanderers 53. Org. that no longer requires its members to be retired 55. Alma mater for Robert Mueller, Rudy Giuliani & Lady Gaga 56. Guitarist’s accessory

Across 1. Word that 15 follows 16 the start of each starred answer 5. On the 22 ocean 10. "...hear ___ drop" 26 14. Pound of poetry 15. Tips 16.

31Russo of "Outbreak" 17. Chop ___ 35 18. *** Edward Teach, familiarly 20. Asia's ___ Sea 21. Dark time for 46poets 47 22. Lets up 23. Many four-doors 54 25. Billionaire Bill 55 28. The Braves, on scoreboards 61 30.

62Middle 63of many German names 31. "Go on ..."

34. March 17 honoree, for short 38. Close to closed 40. Mine, in Marseiille 41. *** Cold comfort 81Ones born before 82 44.

Virgos 89 45. Jessica of "Dark 90 Angel" 46. "___ Johnny!"

47. areas 97Hosp.98 48. ___ Jeanne d'Arc 49. Stimpy's cartoon 103 pal 51. Some college students 109 53. Greets nonverbally 58. Popular typeface 116 61. Gallery display

14

117

118

119

120

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

1

2

17 14

3

4

18

18

20

21

23

24 28

34

81. War-torn Mediterranean nation

108. Harmful in effect

61. Ruler of the Huns

85. 2010 NCAA Frozen Four participant

64. Tailor (to)

86. Ornate fabric on some garments

112. Irving Berlin song with the lyric “I love to climb a mountain and reach the highest peak”

66. Canadian gasoline brand

88. Emergency

68. Howard Hughes, or a movie about him

90. QB’s error

35

36

69. John Mayer song with the lyric “Discover me discovering you” - or the theme to this puzzle 74. Hemingway, Shackleton & others 75. Water source for 11 countries 76. Painter’s stand 77. Sony Music subsidiary that signed Whitney Houston & The Grateful Dead

91. Nasty smile 94. Freshwater fish with vertical stripes 96. Kenny Loggins song with the lyric “Please, Louise, pull me up off of my knees” 99. Company that went bankrupt in 2018 after 126 years 101. Like Cheerios 103. Voice, as grievances

78. TV journalist Curry

104. Brie, as compared to cheddar

79. Shake or break follower

107. Regarding

54 CITY JANUARY 2021

117. Sufficiently skilled 118. “____ Andy Warhol,” 1996 film

29

37

38

41

42

44

45

47

48 51

48

58

59

60 49

64

65

68

69

71

72

63. Rough breathing 64. *** Place for miscellaneous stuff 67. Baja's opposite 68. "If all ___ fails ..."

69. Vow taker 70. Farm sounds 83Beliefs 84 71.

72. Common thing?

73. "Green Gables" girl Down 1. Tablelands 2. Blue shade 3. "___ you loud and clear" 4. Eric Clapton love 110 song 111 5. Optimally 6. Mah-jongg piece

121

127. How a student might be marked in Spanish class 128. Lascivious looks 129. Shakespeare title starter

115. Cleveland’s lake 116. German grandpa

6

15

17

59. Horseplay?

60. Co. awarded over 9,000 patents in 2019

5

Down 1. Shrub or tree related to the cashew 2. Have a go at

119. Peter Gabriel song with the lyric “I see the doorway to a thousand churches”

3. Ethnicity of 23 million Americans

122. Extendable arm for a microphone

5. Like one side of Niagara Falls

123. 10 Commandments helping verb

6. Simple skateboard trick

124. California NFLer before 1994, or after 2016

7. Boxing or wrestling match

4. Prevent

125. Fall far short (in comparison)

8. Housemate of Harry, Neville & Seamus

126. Thesaurus entries: Abbr.

9. Crocheted blanket

66

7. Wh 8. Ab 9. Inq 10. Fi 11. Po 12. A 13. B 19. "_ 24. D 26. Pe 27. A 29. Se 31. M 32. __ 33. Pa 34. Pr ev 35. B 36. M 37. C 39. Tr 40. "W bu

10. Gives blood

87. Fig. for a mortgage

11. Month following Diciembre

88. Rub the wrong way

12. Coup d’___

89. Wembley and Arrowhead

13. Picard’s Lieutenant Commander

92. Holds in high regard

14. Subject of critique on “The Great British Baking Show”

93. Stink

15. Westbrook who twice led the NBA in scoring

97. Detoxifying organ

16. Horns for Cannonball Adderly and Charlie Parker, familiarly

100. Caravaggio, e.g.

95. Orphan in “Les Misérables” 98. Prospector’s find

18. Ludens competitor

102. Infinitive found in titles by Lee and Grisham

24. Indebted

104. Picket line crossers

30. They can thin as a result of tight hairstyles

105. “Yippee!”

17. Prominent nose

31. Club fees

106. Person convicted of a serious crime

33. Fidget spinner or Silly Band

107. “Get ____ of yourself!”

34. ____ metabolism

108. Like crowds in 89-Down

37. Recollection

109. George Brett or Alex Gordon, e.g.

38. Line on a baseball

110. Be in a bee

39. Thrice, in prescriptions

111. Lets (up)

40. Royal naval inits.

113. Org. established under President Nixon

41. Put away some groceries 42. Broadcast 43. Scooter-bicycle hybrids 45. Verboten

114. Blacken 115. Brontë heroine 120. Scottish denial 121. MPG ratings organization

47. Rita’s role in “West Side Story” 48. Material for tents and ropes

FIND PEACE

49. Position for 15-Down 52. Whacks 54. Prepares (the way)

Lead a rich and compelling life.

Develop a deeper understanding of yourself.

57. Forty ___ and a mule (broken promise of Reconstruction)

How?

58. Blue ribbon winning brewer Frederick

Self-Inquiry and Daily Practice

60. No foolin’!

62. E-bikes often have fat ones

A TEN WEEK COURSE IN

63. Running score

PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY

65. Sum up

Interactive, Experimental, and Informal

67. “Blueberries for ____” (1949 Caldecott winner)

SAVE THE DATE!

68. Musical notation meaning “slowly with expression”

Beginning January 13th | Wednesdays 7-9pm

69. Fractions of decades

Introductory Course: $10 | Returning Students: $100

70. Former colleague of Kirsten & Kamala

Classes will be held online

71. “Workers of the world, ____!”

72. Word with child or tube 73. Schiffer’s romancer in “Love Actually” 78. Versatile blackjack cards 80. One waiting for retirement 82. 2011 animated feature starting Anne Hathaway and Jamie Foxx 83. Connections 84. Consumed

JANUARY SALE 15% OFF

A zoom link will be sent upon registration

Register at: www.practical-philosophy.org 585.288.6430 Foundation for Practical Philosophy Non Profit 501c

roccitynews.org CITY 55

56 CITY JANUARY 2021