CAROUSEL triple cities
august 2016
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vol. 4 issue 7
your local arts and culture rag.
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inside. music...6 art...16 events calendar...20 poetry...23 theatre...25 food and drink...27
film...31 books...32 travel...35 fun stuff...37 star stuff...38 business directory...39
“I was kind of a hippie and they were going to give me $10,000, which was a prince’s ransom to me. I was going to live in my office for a year and live for the rest of my life on the $10,000.” -Page 17
CAROUSEL triple cities
P.O. Box 2947 Binghamton, NY 13902 (607) 422-2043 carouselrag.com
PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Christopher Bodnarczuk MANAGING EDITOR Heather Merlis
LAYOUT/DESIGN Christopher Bodnarczuk PHOTOGRAPHY Stephen Schweitzer, Ty Whitbeck ADVERTISING SALES Christopher Bodnarczuk DISTRIBUTION: Joseph Alston FOR ADVERTISING: advertising@carouselrag.com
ASSISTANT EDITOR Ronnie Vuolo
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STAFF WRITERS Doctor B, John Donson, Ilana Lipowicz, Felicia Waynesboro, Phil Westcott
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CONTRIBUTORS Chris Arp, Lea Davis, Natassia Enright, Emily Jablon, Brian Lovesky, Maria Murphy, Paul O’Heron
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CALENDAR GURU Emmilie Urda
DEDICATED TO: Victor Timoner
Triple Cities Carousel is published monthly, 11 times a year (Dec/Jan edition is a double issue). Copyright © 2016 by Triple Cities Carousel. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent from the publisher. One copy of Triple Cities Carousel is free each month for regional residents and visitors. Anyone caught removing papers in bulk will be prosecuted on theft charges to the fullest extent of the law. Yearly subscription: $25. Back issues: $3. Queries and submissions should include a self addressed stamped envelope. Advertisers own/control all intellectual property rights to submitted advertisements and agree to hold Triple Cities Carousel, its agents, and assignees harmless from all liabilities, claims, losses or damage of any kind arising out of the publication of any ad submitted on behalf of the advertiser.
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Binghamton Porchfest Singing a sweet song to the West Side by John Donson 6 carouselrag.com
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HE STREETS ARE ALIVE with the sweet sound of music. The 2nd Annual Binghamton Porchfest invades the streets of Binghamton’s West Side neighborhood on Sunday, August 28th, and it’s all we can talk about back at Carousel HQ. That’s partly because it’s a super sweet quasi-anarchic music festival taking place right in our own front yard, and partly because Carousel Editor-in-Chief Chris Bodnarczuk is the festival coordinator, and he won’t shut up about it for five minutes. One morning, during one of his manic spells of festival planning, we decided to switch the recorder on and let him say what needed to be said: So let’s start by laying it out for the layman. What exactly is Binghamton Porchfest? That seems like as good a place to start as any. Binghamton Porchfest is a music festival, but it’s about as decentralized of a music festival as it gets. We ask a bunch of people in Binghamton’s West Side neighborhood to offer up their porches as de facto stages, we ask a bunch of local musicians to play on those porches, and then we ask the neighbors to come out and enjoy it all. This year, we’ve got something like 60 bands and solo acts on over 20 different porches. It’s free. Everybody that’s a part of it is a volunteer. It’s really just a beautiful day of music and community togetherness, I guess. It’s all just getting people out to meet their neighbors. That all sounds really great. Music. Neighbors. Great! Where’d the idea come from? All roads lead to Ithaca. Our hippie neighbors to the north started the first Porchfest, back in 2007. I’m not sure whose idea it was primarily. Ithaca’s known as a music town, and a lot of those musicians live in the same neighborhood. So they all got together to trade off on sets of music, and it grew. It’s huge these days, but the idea is still the same. It’s got a very organic, almost anarchic flow to it, which is very Ithaca. So the idea spread, and a whole bunch of people picked up on it. There’s over 50 Porchfests around the country now, and each one runs completely independently of another. The model changes - some of them have huge budgets and big sponsors and pay all the musicians a lot of money, some of them take place just at businesses, some of them charge admission. When I started Binghamton Porchfest last year, I decided to keep it on the more decentralized end. Organized chaos. I reached out to the Ithaca folks for their blessing, and they were great. They even sent me a whole packet of “Porchfest Starter FAQs.” Somehow, it managed to come together really well in 2015, and I’m hoping it’ll be even better this year. What made you bring it to Binghamton? I’ve spent most of my time in Binghamton as a cheerleader, shouting the city’s praises from the rooftops. Everybody always says Binghamton’s a dead town, but that’s not what I’ve encountered here. I moved here from the middle of a bunch of cornfields when I was 19, and I fell in love with it all. I started Carousel as a means to prove to the
won’t make the mistake of trying to play a set this year, although I’ve been learning my way around this beat up old accordion. I might have to make a guest appearance somewhere. What’s new in 2016? Well, we’ve got more porches and a lot more bands than last year. Other than that, we’ve got a great new website, and my buddy Paul Koanui has been experimenting with live streaming video to the web. Essentially, setting up cameras in the front yards of hosts so that the long lost Binghamtonian anywhere in the world can also experience Porchfest. I’m not sure how much of the festival we’re going to be able to stream, but there’ll be something, for sure. Also, thanks to the generosity of our amazing sponsors, we’ll be scattering a few porta-potties around the neighborhood. There’ll be a list of those and of businesses that are happy to let you pee, on the website real soon. Also, I’m pretty sure we have an African drum troupe and a mind-reader somewhere on the roster. So that’s pretty neat. Oh, and the races! We’re sharing a weekend with the Chris Thater Memorial Races, so we’re excited to welcome a bunch of out of town bikers and runners to the festival, too! They wrap up right around when we start, so it should be a hoot for everybody.
Opposite:The Muprigs play Porchfest 2015 on Bennett Ave. This Page: Festival organizer Chris Bodnarczuk plays some tunes with Joe Weil at Porchfest 2015. Photos by Joshua B, courtesy of Bingpop. naysayers that there really is a thriving cultural scene in this town, and Binghamton Porchfest is kind of just a natural extension of that. The local musicians—they’re my friends; they’re my neighbors, and they’re all incredibly talented. I wanted to be able to share as much of their music as possible with as much of the community as possible. So here’s this festival model that manages to do all that with very few needed resources. The West Side neighborhood’s a natural fit: it’s full of beautiful old houses, it’s walkable, there’s a great cross section of students and locals. And for more selfish reasons, it’s been my home for most of the last eight years, and I didn’t feel like commuting. What are some of the biggest hurdles of organizing a festival like Binghamton Porchfest? I know it looks kind of daunting, but it’s actually a pretty easy thing to get going. City Hall has been nothing but supportive, and the neighbors have shown nothing but love. Mostly, I just have to piece together a huge spreadsheet. All the hosts and bands seek us out. For a control freak like me, the hardest part I guess is letting things be what they’ll be. I don’t consider this my festival. I don’t consider this Carousel’s festival. We’re just here to set up some groundwork. What the festival is, and what it can be, is completely at the hands of the residents of the West Side. Want to have your big yearly garage sale on the same day as Porchfest? Want to set your kids up with a lemonade stand? Want to put some big crazy art installation in your front yard? Do it! I’m just here to make sure everybody knows where to show up.
What’s the schedule looking like this year? To be completely honest, I’m still working on it. We’ll be releasing the final schedule and list of porches sometime during the second week of August. That’ll be up on Facebook, and online at binghamtonporchfest.com. I guess I should throw out that we’re still happily accepting bands until the 10th of August. Signups are online at the website. Oh, oh, and churches - we’d love to get some of the neighborhood churches and synagogues on board! What I can say about the schedule is we’ve got a whole slew of houses onboard this year. The border of the festival is, roughly: Main, Front, Riverside, and Beethoven Streets, but we’ve got an outlier or two - I’m looking forward to checking out some sets at the Unitarian Church, myself. And the music - we’re up over 60 acts so far. East Coast Bigfoot, Dirt Farm, the Scott Freeman Band, The Muprigs, Rosetree, Peaches and Crime, Alpha Brass, Diamonds in the Rough, the John Truth Experience… there’s too many to list! It’s the full spectrum though: folk, hip hop, classical, rock, bassoon music, world beat, funk, blues. You played a set last year, right? Ugh. I tried. I rode around on a bicycle all afternoon, and then tried picking up a guitar to play some tunes. Every muscle in my body cramped. Thank god I was splitting my set. Joe Weil, an incredible Creative Writing professor at Binghamton University that taught me everything I know and has been a great friend for years - he played most of the hour. Bawdy sailor songs and crazy old folk tunes. I
What’s the right way to Porchfest? I suggest experiencing it all on a bicycle, and moving around a lot. There’s a bunch of ground to cover. Catch 10 minutes of a band, then head on down the road to catch another. Bring a picnic. Bring your kids. Stay out of the street. You’re welcome to have a drink or two, just remember to keep it on private property - and that alcohol consumption is at the discretion of each host porch. Drinking in the streets is illegal every day. Don’t be stupid! And I can’t stress this enough: the right way to Porchfest is to make your own traditions! A bunch of the hosts last year had parties in their back yard and music in their front. Last year, my housemates invited a bunch of chef friends over, and we had Porkfest going on in the backyard. Do it up! The sky’s the limit! Anything you’d like to add? Just to keep an eye out for the festival program guide- it’ll be online and distributed at local businesses right around the 15th. That’ll have all the info that I don’t have yet. Also, don’t forget that the musicians are all donating their time tipping and purchasing of CDs is super, super encouraged. And of course, thanks to our sponsors! The City of Binghamton Office of Economic Development, The Beef Restaurant, The Bundy Museum, Cavanaugh’s Grocery, Muckles Ink, and Equinox Broadcasting (and hopefully a few more we’ll be picking up next week!). It’s not quite free to throw a free event, and we couldn’t do it without their generosity. And thanks to the residents of the West Side- I can’t wait to see you all at the end of the month! The Second Annual Binghamton Porchfest takes place Sunday, August 28th from noon7pm. A whole slew of information is available at binghamtonporchfest.com. If it’s not there yet, it’ll be there tomorrow. We’ll see you there!
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Fully Insured. Now Accepting Major Credit Cards! 8 carouselrag.com
Finding East Coast Bigfoot Binghamton band releases In Search Of... by Phil Westcott
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HE SMALL 2ND FLOOR porch is packed. East Coast Bigfoot has spent the last few months practicing and recording. Devinne Meyers, Ricky Resciniti, Stephen Schweitzer, and Ty Whitbeck are sitting with Joe Alston (of Milkweed, who, along with Seth Bove, produced the album). They are talking over each other, grabbing onto different parts of the EP that they liked, and giving each other congratulations for a job well done. We’ve just finished the first listen of In Search Of, and it’s fantastic. Showcasing Meyer’s strong songwriting, each of the songs is subtly and definitively influenced by each member of the band. Resciniti, who plays lead guitar in the band, gives credit to Devinne: “[She’s] got such a great vision. To hear it all constructed -- that’s what it was going to be.” There’s more to East Coast Bigfoot than just Devinne’s songwriting. Stephen Schweitzer, who plays fret-less bass, brings a humble passion to the project, driving the songs without using force. His bass plays lightly beneath Meyer’s acoustic guitar and vocals, and Ty Whitbeck’s drumming is divine. The opening to the fourth track, “Hippie and the Child,” is a spacious jam that builds slowly, and Ty is central to that. He makes excellent use of his mallets (old drumsticks with socks rolled around one end, inspired by Driftwood’s stompbox) to create a dynamic tension. The jam was recorded in one take, and it adds a new layer to the song. Devinne looks over to Joe and says, “Dude, that was magical. ‘Hippie and the Child,’ that was seamless.” And really, that’s one of the things that stands out most on In Search Of: the production is absolutely stunning. If you’ve been a fan of East Coast Bigfoot for a while, you’ll find beautiful nuances in their songs that you won’t have noticed before. One of the things that struck me, as someone who has heard the band many times, was how new and fresh the EP sounds. And if it’s your first listen, you’ll be blown away by the passion in the music. All of In Search Of is amazing, but the two
tracks that really stand out are “42 Cents” and “Trustfall.” “42 Cents” is a rollicking rock ballad. Meyers really lets loose vocally, and her cadence is marked strongly by the influence of Alanis Morissette. The rest of the band lets loose and gathers their energy around her, and they scream collectively at the less than adequate change in their pockets. “Trustfall” really emphasizes the strengths of each of the band members. The song is a little quieter, but because of that, each part stands out more. The bass line is smooth and strong, while the drums create the atmosphere, finally letting loose and pushing the song to its crescendo, topped with harmonized guitars and a slick harmonica solo. Sitting on the back porch, the members of the band remember the recording of the album. Devinne was enamored by the sandwiches. “It was my favorite part. I had the best ham and turkey sandwich of my life,” she says, seriously, but with a wry smile. Ty recalls sitting outside the studio and hearing each member of the band record their parts: “We did the drums first. We knocked them out in a day, just because I’d practiced the shit out of them. But sitting outside that room, you hear everyone, and those little dynamic changes that I miss when we’re playing together. It was great to hear everyone else’s contribution’s individually.” Joe recalls Devinne and Stephen coming out with musical ideas to Ricky, and how Ricky takes each idea with a smile and makes it his own. It’s that sort of camaraderie, he says, that will take the band to the next level. Of course, all of the buzz about In Search Of… is leading somewhere. If you’re in search of great music, you can catch both East Coast Bigfoot’s EP, and the band playing live, at 9pm on Friday, August 5th, at the Cyber Cafe West. Their infectious melodies will soar through your heart and soul, and you’ll be swinging and swaying in no time. Sasquatch has been found - and he’s not on the West Coast anymore. Cyber Café West is located at 176 Main Street in Binghamton. Tickets are $5 at the door, and the album will be available for $5. For more information, visit cybercafewest. com.
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Chris Merkley (front, center, in blue) with organizers and revelers at Seedstock 2015. Opposite: Seedstock 2015. Photos Provided.
IN FULL BLOOM:
Seedstock Festival harvests community by Heather Merlis 10 carouselrag.com
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HEN A SEED IS PLANTED, it marks the beginning of something that can flourish for years to come. Such is the case with Seedstock, the Cortland, NY festival of music and art. Now in its eighth year, it is has grown from a oneday festival into a weekend-long event, and it’s taking its name to heart.
acuse; Molly and the Badly Bent Bluegrass Boys – they’re a local band we’ve had a number of times. Mosaic Foundation – bands like that – Big Mean Sound Machine. New bands we’re excited about: Thunder Body, Sophistafunk, and The Nth Power, headlining on Saturday. What are The Nth Power like? They’re out of New York – it’s kind of like mixing gospel and R&B with almost a jam band or a rock band mentality. Their message is love, and they pull no punches on making that clear. They’re all about love. It’s got a spiritual side to it, but, what it is: it’s love. It’s packaged in some pretty kick-ass music.
We took a trip to the festival grounds, which has belonged to the Reed family (as in Reed’s Seeds) for over 200 years. Now, Main Street Farms has taken over much of the farming operation, and Chris Merkley – guitarist of roots-rock/Americana band Digger Jones and one of Seedstock’s founders (along with Jamie Yaman and Tyler Coakley)– has bought the Reed house, which serves as the nucleus of the festival. Chris took walked us through the sprawling farm while we talked about the festival, Cortland in general, and planting seeds.
What’s your vision for the future of the festival? At this point, we’re approaching what we visualized Seedstock as growing into; we’re really excited about refining the experience now. Really getting sustainable practices incorporated into it – Renovus is bringing their solar-powered charging station that they bring to a lot of festivals, so that’s going to be on-site. I was actually just talking to a friend about possibly powering… let’s move up to the forest, because that’s really cool – because we try to incorporate art as much as possible, as well.
How did this all start? When I moved into the house, there were three friends living here: Jamie, Tyler, and Mack; I took Mack’s place. They had some friends who were talking about wanting to start a music festival, and we were like, we could do that here; we have this front lawn that’s like a natural amphitheater. It would be a cool party. It just started as: let’s do a music festival with a bunch of our friends’ bands. And people had such a good time that we decided to do it again the next year. This used to be a sweetcorn field; we plowed that and seeded it to increase more parking. We’re going to put the camping up on the top of the hill, which is still the Reeds’ land, and they’re great about it. They’ve planted all the fields with vegetables now. Unfortunately, this year, there’s been a draught, and it’s mostly ragweed. We’re doing all the food vending in-house; we’ve enlisted couple of friends, one who’s been helping us for a couple of years, doing a food stand. Now that we’re overnight, we want to offer a lot more. So, we brought in a friend of ours who owns a restaurant, Brix, downtown in Cortland, who’s been helping us organize a menu. All of the produce is going to come from the farm. Allan [Gandelman, of Main Street Farms] has expanded his operation a lot, and he’s been great. He’s like, we’ll see what’s in season, and have plenty of it, and nice thing is, if we run out, we just go pick more in the field. The name of the festival has a literal – Thank you for completing that thought. It was originally named after the Reeds, but now we’re happy that it still has meaning in the focus of the festival. Allan ended up planting – he planted a strip of clover here; he left this open for us to do planting – so the campers will be right next to the squash and the cucumbers, and a little beyond there’s potato. So, yeah, we were thinking about… we were looking at these areas, the view back here - after you get to the back, the houses disappear - and it’s just the valleys and the hills. But then it’s just another festival with a nice landscape; this festival was built as a house party, so that’s why we thought, we’re gonna keep the festival to the house.
So people hang out in the house? No. What do you mean it’s a house party? In the sense that it’s around the house. But not in the house. Yeah, no – Do not go into the house. No, we’ve been closing that more and more. It used to be more free, because there weren’t as many people? I mean, people didn’t really go inside, because everyone was hanging out outside, but there was a lot more traffic inside the house. These days, with over a thousand people on the lawn… with the festival, I think we’re approaching its capacity, just because we want to keep it around the house. We could go bigger, just go into a field, but then we feel like it loses a lot of the character. Would you say that, since the festival started, that the region has changed at all? I would say that, but I’m pretty biased. I feel, in its own way, Seedstock has played a role in generating some excitement. And do you think that the changes in the area are reflected in the festival? I think it’s all tied together – and I feel like I’m a part of it, intrinsically – what’s happening is the younger generation’s starting to be a bit more proactive in shaping what the city looks like and how it functions, where a more en-
trepreneurial spirit is taking place; people are opening up more progressive, contemporary businesses. We’ve got a new local food market on North Main Street, with a big focus on health, with natural and organic foods. With some of the new businesses on Main Street, there’s a younger spirit. Like Brew 64 – it’s in the Marketplace Mall – which is a coffee shop-café by day, beer and wine bar by night. They traveled out to the Pacific Northwest to look at coffee shops out thereHave you ever been to coffee shops out there? I haven’t. Olympia Coffee Co. in Olympia, Washington serves their cold brew out of a nitro tap. These guys have cold brew on tap. They do?! Alright! In Cortland! Honestly, we’re super excited about the food this year. Almost all of the food on the menu, produce and greens, is coming from here. It seems like there’s a diverse musical lineup this year. Are there any mainstays who’ve been with the festival from the beginning, and any new acts who you are particularly excited about? Yeah, actually – my band, Digger Jones, has been a part of it every year; the Unknown Woodsmen were actually the first band to ever play Seedstock. Tim Herron Corporation, Los Blancos – bands from Syr-
Music has been the main focus, but we’ve also incorporated community murals, and it’s been hilarious, with little kids making an absolute mess finger painting. The past few years we’ve asked particular artists to join the bands onstage to do live painting during their sets. We have what’s called the Meraki Forest – so our friends come and revamp this wooded area with natural installations – sometimes it’s found objects; last year we attached a bunch of things and it was more of a percussive piece – it’s impromptu stuff, collaboration. We’ve got a friend who’s a metal and wood sculptor; we’ve talked to him about bringing his pieces up to spread around the grounds. So, with all of these things: we’re still going to expand, but we want to expand the experience. As far as the size is concerned, it’s starting to reach its capacity, in order to maintain the feel of the experience. But what we can do as organizers is continuously try to improve what that experience is. The food experience, the art, the music… I love the idea – I start to daydream a little bit – about the bands that we might potentially have play on our front lawn, which is exciting. There’s only so much you can reinvent what a music festival is, but it’s pretty open-ended, so I think we’re all excited about that, because we’ve got enough years under our belt where we almost kind of know what we’re doing now. Seedstock VIII: A Festival of Music and Art will go down on Friday, August 12th, through Sunday, August 14th. Three days, 20+ bands, two nights of camping, lots of delicious food, a beautiful view of rolling hills, and a late-night silent disco in the forest! For tickets and more information, visit seedstockfest.com. And for more on the awesome Main Street Farms, check out mainstreetfarms.com
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Have you danced with ransom yet? Thurs. 8/4 Tijuana Danger Dogs
Fri. 8/5 North & South Dakotas, Travis Rocco Duo Sat. 8/6 Bendher, The Kiil
Wed. 8/10 Ransom Jazz Collective Thurs. 8/11 The Smokin’ Crows
Fri. 8/12 Swampcandy, Brothers Blue
Sat. 8/13 Lithium Highway, A Country Mile
Thurs. 8/18 Matt Burt & the Casual Acquaintances Fri. 8/19 Rebecca & the Soul Shakers, Hi-Way Fruit Market Sat. 8/20 Bug Tussle,
Molly & the Badly Bent Bluegrass Boys Wed. 8/24 Joe & Calya Thurs. 8/25 Triple Down
Fri. 8/26 Brad Collins & Country Attitude, Tim Ruffo Sat. 8/27 The Tomahawks,
Pale Green Stars, Brian Tyneway Wed. 8/31 Matt Burt
food and drinks and music and dancing est. 1831
552 Main Street
APALACHIN ny ransomsteeletavern.com 12 carouselrag.com
music briefs His beautiful soul shines through the music in a real and romantic way. Joining Mike will be Cory Caruso and Dirk Miller, also from Rusted Root. Tickets are $10 and the show starts at 8pm. The Choconut Inn is located at 10 Quaker Lake Road in Friendsville, PA. Check out their Facebook site for more information.
Michael Glabicki plays the Choconut on 8/5. Photo provided.
NEXT TO KIN AT ORIGINAL’S
During the Art Walk on August 5th in Owego, stop by Original’s at 8pm check out Next to Kin. Next to Kin is band that is, both literally and practically, family. Brother and sister Ryan Cirbus and Mallory Evans make up the blood ties in the band, while guitarist Mary Tewksbury and drummer Andy Thomas may as well be related. Cirbus, the stand-up bassist, plays with a swift skill and a near constant smile on his face. Evans is a new mother, but her voice may lead you to believe that she is the grandmother of soul. Next to Kin plays both original music and covers, in a traditional rock n roll vein. They add their own spice to the music, playing covers of artists from Salt-N-Pepa to Beyonce, Joe Cocker to The Band. Their original music is heartfelt and inspiring, and will keep bringing you back for more. Original Italian Pizza is located at 23 Lake Street in Owego. Stop by early to check out The Originals and Mike Davis’s Laughing Buddha Episodes. More information on Next to Kin can be found on their Facebook site.
MARTINA MCBRIDE AND RICK SPRINGFIELD HEADLINE SPIEDIE FEST
SEVERAL SONS AT GALAXY
On August 4th, at 8pm, be sure to stop down to Galaxy Brewing and check out Several Sons. An acoustic power trio, Jake Bucher, the lead guitarist, describes their music as “singer-songwriter mixed with ripping acoustic guitar solos.” It’s an apt description of their music, which is reminiscent of the best of the ‘90s songwriters crowd: bringing together the tones of Eagle Eye Cherry with Santana. Vocalist and rhythm guitarist Kevin Ludwig entwines soulful lyricism with music begging to be heard. Bradford Allen, the percussionist, brings it all together, playing bongos and the tambourine as if they were a full drum kit. Combined, their energies create a music all its own: part soul, part acoustic blues, and part rock n roll, all delightful to your eardrums. Galaxy Brewing Co. is located at 41 Court St. in Binghamton. The music is free, and the beer good. More information can be found at galaxybrewingco.com.
ATOMIC TOM’S FIRST FRIDAY FEATURES THE BLIND SPOTS & MORE
On First Friday, during the art walk, hop
on down to Atomic Tom’s for the SingerSongwriter Series. On August 5th, host John Kanazawich brings a fabulous crew of musicians to State Street, starting at 6pm. Todd Evans, Bess Greenberg, and Linda Stout play out on the veranda from 6-9pm, and at 9pm, the Blind Spots take the stage inside. Todd Evans plays quick, precise acoustic guitar. His jagged rhythms cut across the beat, creating a sense of urgency and bringing an intense vibrancy to his music. Bess Greenberg is an intricate part of the Binghamton folk scene. She’s played upright bass with various groups, such as the Falconers and Milkweed, over the years, but is testing the waters performing solo. Her lyrics are soulful and genuine, and her smoky voice, combined with guitar, goes directly to your heart. Linda Stout is an Ithaca based singer-songwriter, with a melodious voice. Coming from a country and bluegrass tradition, she has a knack for setting wellknown poems to music. The music of The Blind Spots is indelible, original, and ferocious. The female-fronted five-piece is from Ithaca, and are a riot to hear. Lead singer Maddy Walsh is mesmerizing: her
vocals tear up and down and have your hips grooving onto the dance floor. With eclectic keyboards and sizzling guitar, the Blind Spots are an all-original moxy rock band that will make you shake your moneymaker. They have a new album due out this fall, so stay tuned. Atomic Tom’s is located at 196 State St. The show on the veranda is free; there will be a nominal charge at the door for the Blind Spots. Check out Atomic Tom’s on Facebook for more information.
MICHAEL GLABICKI AT CHOCONUT INN
On August 5th, head out to the Choconut Inn for the musical stylings of Michael Glabicki. Glabicki is best known as the front man and lead songwriter of the band Rusted Rood; although Rusted Root is still touring, Glabicki has added his own solo dates to the tour, in order to explore new musical frontiers. In his state of constant creativity, he found that some of his songs don’t quite fit the Rusted Root sound. He brings the same relentless energy to his solo shows as to Rusted Root. The music is, at times, more restrained, and moves in a different and refreshing direction.
Every year during the first weekend of August, Binghamtonians and fans from abroad gather at Otsiningo Park to celebrate the spiedie, Binghamton’s cultural food. From August 5th through 7th the air will be filled with the smells of sizzling meat and plenty of vendors will be on hand. The Festival hosts two nights of live music: Rick Springfield performs at 7:30pm on Friday, August 5th, and Martina McBride takes the stage at 4pm on Sunday the 7th. Springfield is perhaps best known for his ubiquitous hit “Jesse’s Girl,” which, in just over 3 minutes, captures the quintessential sound of ‘80s pop-rock. Springfield is also an actor, with appearances in General Hospital in the ‘80s, as well as in True Detective more recently. He is also slated to appear as Lucifer in the cult hit Supernatural, which seems an apt metaphor for the creator of one of the catchiest earworms of all-time. Martina McBride broke into the country music scene in 1992 with her single “The Time Has Come.” Over the years she has been compared to Shania Twain, Faith Hill, and, for her soprano range, Celine Dion. She has 13 studio albums under her belt. In addition to being a renowned country singer-songwriter, she is also a tireless advocate against domestic violence. Her last album was released in April, and she has recently been touring in support of Band Against Cancer. Otsiningo Park is located at 1 Bevier St. Tickets and more information are available at spediefest.com. (MUSIC BRIEFS CONTINUED ON PAGE 14)
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music briefs SIRSY RETURNS TO MCGIRK’S
On Friday, August 12th, Saratoga two-piece SIRSY brings their unique brand of rock to McGirk’s. Lead vocalist and drummer Melanie Kramer brings a fierce energy to the stage. Standing up behind her drum kit, Kramer’s stage presence is flabbergasting. Guitarist/bassist Rich Libutti shines throughout, as he complements Kramer’s vocals with slick guitar licks and deep bass lines. Formed in 2000, SIRSY’s intense touring schedule has earned them a devoted fan base. Their sound far exceeds what you would expect out of a two-piece, and their music fights against the darkness in the world. The show is free, and starts at 9pm. McGirk’s is located at 1 Kattelville Road in Binghamton. More information may be found at mcgirks.com.
CHENANGO BLUES FEST TAKES OVER NORWICH
On August 19th and 20th, the Chenango Blues Fest will take over the Chenango County Fairgrounds. The Festival includes two days of incredible performances, featuring blues artists from all across the country. There will also be vendors, and both on and off site camping. If you’d rather “glamp,” accommodations are also available. Friday’s performers include the Funky Blu Roots, Laurence Jones, and the evening’s headliners, Davina and the Vagabonds. The Vagabond’s old-school soul and R&B sound is enveloping and lovely. Focused around Davina’s incredible voice, the band utilizes horns, bass, and keys to recreate the sound of a smoky 1940s ballroom. Friday’s show is free. Saturday’s music includes Canned Heat and Carolyn Wonderland, with Anders Osborne as the evening’s headliner. Osborne is originally from Sweden, but moved to Louisiana in 1985 and considers New Orleans his home. His music is steeped in the New Orleans tradition, and he tours both with his trio as well as playing as a guest artist with acts that include Toots and the Maytals, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, and Phil Lesh. Tickets are $25 in advance, and $35 the day of show. A full schedule, ticketing information, and further details can be found at chenangobluesfest.org. The Fairgrounds are located at 168 E Main St. in Norwich.
AMERICAN ROGUES/ BINGHAMTON CITY LIMITS AT MCGIRK’S
On August 19th, McGirk’s presents music all day. From 2-5pm, Caroline Angel hosts their Binghamton City Limits show on the Jameson Sound Stage, featuring an afternoon of the area’s best musicians. At 7pm in the golf course tent, the American Rogues play modern Celtic rock in the vein of the Dropkick Murphy’s, but more focused on traditional style than on punk; there are even some layers of operatic metal in the arrangements of songs. Their music also helps support military veterans through various organizations including Operation
Ward 57, the Wounded Warrior Project, and others. Tickets to see the American Rogues are $10. McGirk’s is located at 1 Kattelville Road in Binghamton. More information available at mcgirks.com
BUG TUSSLE AND MOLLY & THE BADLY BENT BLUEGRASS BOYS AT THE RANSOM STEELE TAVERN
Get ready to get down and dirty; Molly and the Badly Bent Bluegrass Boys, followed by Bug Tussle, will get us all dancing our fannies off on August 20th starting at 8pm. Molly and the Badly Bent Bluegrass Boys play original and cover bluegrass music. The Boys’ fastpaced bluegrass is led to a frenzy by singer Molly Reagan’s bluesy belt. Bug Tussle is made up of the former Band of Strings, and they bring the same exuberance, but with original bluegrass and Americana tunes. Songs like “Hippies in the Henhouse” display their wit and skill. The Ransom Steele Tavern is located at 552 Main Street in Apalachin. Tickets are $7. More information can be found at ransomsteeletavern.com.
REC PARK MUSIC FEST CELEBRATES 21 YEARS
Returning for the 21st year, and taking place on August 21st, this year’s Rec Park Music Fest promises to be a blow out. From 1:309pm Rec Park will be filled with music. Among this year’s performers are: Grace’s Ghost, Raibred, and East Coast Bigfoot. Grace’s Ghost plays original straightforward rock n roll, with a twist - there is no lead guitarist. Instead, the keyboard player takes control on leads. Fronted by Taunya Grace, they are sure to please and delight. Raibred is a band made up of young folks who really understand the sounds of classic rock n roll. Playing a style reminiscent of the Grateful Dead, Raibred’s diverse musical sound stretches across traditional genre lines, creating a music all their own. East Coast Bigfoot will also be playing at the festival. Their sound has matured over the last year, and Devinne Meyer’s growth as a songwriter is evident in her well-crafted and gorgeous songs. Rec Park is located between Beethoven and Laurel Streets in Binghamton. The event is free. A full schedule of events and more information may be found at the Facebook site: The Rec Park Music Fest – Friends & Family.
THE REVELERS AT ABEL’S PUB
As we crawl to the end of the month, make sure you check out The Revelers at 9pm on the 26th. A classic rock three-piece, playing both original tunes and covers, they are also influenced by Celtic folk music - as evidenced by their song “Miles Away,” and their cover of Prydein’s “Stairway to Scotland.” Uproarious and thoroughly bawdy, the Revelers bring together diverse musical ideas and wonderful instrumentation to create a sound uniquely their own. Abel’s Pub is located at 65 Rotary Avenue in Binghamton. The show is free.
Music briefs compiled by Phil Westcott: music@carouselrag.com
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EXPLODING
FINGERS
GUITAR DOJO
A monthly lesson in music theory from guitar player extraordinaire Chris Arp
W
HAT IS UP REGIONAL GUITARISTS? Last month we changed gears from traditional music theory ideas to a focus on developing our technical proficiency. We looked at the technique known as economy picking, or “sweep” picking, and went over a small handful of related licks in the C major scale. You can find all past articles and their accompanying videos at www.explodingfingers.com. This month we are going to start looking at the idea of music embellishments. More specifically, we are going to look at the technique known as trills. When guitarists first learn how to improvise they focus on learning scales. They learn which scales will work over which chords. This idea is very fundamental to western music. Next the guitarist may learn how to use arpeggios. Arpeggios are the specific notes used to construct any given chord. You can use these to improvise over these chords as well. This, like the use of scales, references the use of specific pitches, but generally ends there. You’re just playing notes. Again, the mastery of these ideas is very important for competency as a guitarist. But after some time, the guitarist is going to get bored, and their listeners most likely will too. Here is where the guitarists may start to consider different ideas for expression, or “feeling”. The art of expression within music can be perpetually studied over a lifetime. It considers phrasing, or how groups of notes are divided up. It looks at different ways of playing the “wrong” notes, or chromatic notes, over these chords using a method referred to as tension and release. It uses double stops by combining two notes together at the same time to cause a subtly more complex effect than a singular note. Different dynamics from soft to loud, and accents, convey other types of expression. There is a staccato and there is a legato way to play notes. There are hundreds and hundreds of years of music to be studied filled with an infinite amount of examples of expression. Musical embellishments are tools to add decorative details to our playing. This certainly would fall under the category of expression as well. Techniques such as vibrato, bends, slides, and this month’s focus on trills, are the types of playing augmentations that I would call musical embellishments. They are sometimes subtle, sometimes not, but they are certainly unique ways of manipulating pitches to get more out of your fretboard. Trills are a vibratory sound. Through the use of hammer ons and pull offs, the player performs rapid alterations between two notes. These two notes blend into each other to create one unique effect. By doing the exercises in Figure 1 to strengthen your finFig. 1 ger dexterity, you will soon be able to apply this fluttering sound between any two notes you so choose in your playing. With that, it then becomes very easy to put more into your playing than just relying on static note sequences up and down the scale. Mix this technique with any variety of other techniques and you’re going to sound like you know what you are doing! Please visit my website www.explodingfingers.com to see an example of how to perform these exercise, and how one might incorporate trills into their playing. If you have any questions, comments, column suggestions, or are interested in getting guitar lessons in the Binghamton area, contact me at explodingfingers@hotmail.com.
www.explodingfingers.com/carousel.html May 2016 triple cities carousel 15
Don Demauro at 80 by Felicia Waynesboro 16 carouselrag.com
The work of Don Demauro. Both pieces untitled.
art.
“W
E’RE JUST TRYING to create something, you know, that, that… that moves people – gets people moving – makes people realize they’re in the fight, too,” says Don DeMauro of the August show at Spool Contemporary Arts Space. “It’s not just our fight now, it’s everybody’s. The fight spills out in the streets.”
es, “what the figure is in its life and living as opposed to being the body… let’s see. If, you know, it goes back to Descartes and mind and body. I mean, you’re always,” he pauses again, “the body’s interesting, I mean,” and here, finally, the thoughts congeal: “I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I was born into a certain kind of family. My mother had a lung removed when I was about 8 years old. That was like 72 years ago so that wasn’t an easy operation. She had to work hard. She worked at the local Air Force base because my father,” he says parenthetically, “that’s a whole other story… She would regurgitate; there’d be bottles of blood and they’d be [congregated] on her nightstand. So that gave me a really potent sense of the body.”
When asked if all this fighting is about promoting the arts, DeMauro answers, “Believing in the arts. Now the arts has to rationalize itself in some way. We have to find a reason for being.” That may be a strange and provocative concept to most of us. But strange and provocative concepts often sputter from the mind of this former associate professor of art, who taught at Binghamton University for 38 years until retiring in 2008, and founded Spool Mfg. 16 years ago.
Does beauty play a part in his work? DeMauro says he has “mulled over” that a lot. He then goes in circles to touch on Francisco Goya, darkness, the poet Neruda, the fact that “beauty” is an awkward word - and ends up never answering the question.
We’ll have to grow accustomed to calling it Spool Contemporary Arts Space from now on. That’s one of the things that is in transition as the gallery/performance space/screening house catches up to the fact that it has been officially non-profit for only about a year, having been funded primarily out of the professor’s own pocket for most of its existence. It is against New York State’s statutes to have a not-for-profit arts organization’s name end with a manufacturing suffix like Mfg. - an echo of the building’s past life as some sort of textile factory. Spool’s entire neighborhood in Johnson City - known in some circles as the Health and Culture District - is, in fact, in the process of, “for want of a better word, ‘gentrifying,’” DeMauro says. He is obliged to be part of the municipal meetings deciding the neighborhood’s various fates. It is somewhat surprising, looking at this man, that the August show is tied to Don DeMauro’s 80th birthday. The retired art professor is monochromatic on the day of the interview in a gray t-shirt; alert hazel eyes staring out beneath spiky gray hair and bushy, graying brows; and something gray and chalky clings to his clothing and his hard-working hands. The door to his un-air-conditioned office at Spool is open to the street so that he is visible, sitting at his desk, from the sidewalk and the energy of passing traffic intermittently drifts in. Don has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. In the 1980s he won the F. Lammot Berlin Arts award. He has exhibited widely and once had a solo showing in a gallery of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Some of his works are part of the permanent collections of such institutions as the Smithsonian, the Brooklyn Museum, the Library of Congress, and many others. He graduated in 1960 from what was then the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles (which became the current CalArts or California Institute of the Arts) and describes himself as, “an old hippie.” DeMauro’s website is filled with statements he has made about his art, using phrases
Don came to the Binghamton area from scraping a living together as an artist in New York City. He had spent some years in Vermont and was still under the lingering influence of a beloved teacher from his California college education. (“She wore magenta and turquoise,” he says, and sometimes carried sushi in her purse.) Binghamton U. found DeMauro and called him here. “I was kind of a hippie and they were going to give me $10,000, which was a prince’s ransom to me. I was going to live in my office for a year and live for the rest of my life on the $10,000.” His life didn’t develop that way, of course. He says it was a good time to be at the University. The chairman of the Art Department was a man whom DeMauro considered visionary an African-American artist/educator named Ed Wilson, at a time when a black department chairman in a mixed-race university was a rarity. Despite his earlier plan, it wasn’t until nearly four decades later that Don retired from teaching at BU. like, “concepts of immanence, singularity, multiplicity and becoming,” and “a socially functional strategy for the existential impulse.” When asked if he could explain what he means to someone who does not have that vocabulary, he laughs and says, “I don’t have that vocab-” then breaks off in the middle of the word and says that, as in a Walt Whitman poem, “I’m one of the roughs really.” Glancing through the open door he proves it by pointing out, “I have a little 13-year-old car out there.” But he then does go on to explain, “I use the term ‘existential’ only in the sense that my own feeling of being in existence is having been thrown here,” a little chuckle still audible in his voice. “We’re all thrown into a particular space and culture that makes for a lot of complexities that we have to find our way in or out of.” He repeatedly refers to his upbringing in Mt. Vernon, NY as taking place in, “a dysfunctional, middle-class family.” His father, he says, was the dysfunctional part. DeMauro’s dad was an Italian Roman-Catholic and his
mother’s side of the family was made up of Russian-Germans whom he says, “tended to be very secular. I think I tended to choose the secular side… it was kind of open.” The mention of politics in both social and personal spheres keeps coming up and, because this is a presidential election year, even the idea that Trump and Clinton have their own “metaphysics” becomes a hiccup in the conversation. “You come into the world not by choice. You don’t sign on the dotted line to be anything. And then people squabble and fight over you everywhere, you know; whatever little differences there are… the beauty of it and having a consciousness is spending some time figuring it out.” When asked about the human figure as a recurring image in his work, often in fragmented forms, Don responds, “We deal with the figure in figural terms.” Then he lets his thoughts putt-putt out in words that may, or may not, congeal into a communicative mass. “The figural is the broad aspect of,” he paus-
So what was DeMauro to do with this statement: “This professor is so HOT I could barely sit through class and pay attention”? This evokes a lengthy stunned pause, then a smile. “That is an interesting comment,” he responds, completely unaware, until informed just now that an anonymous BU student entered that comment as an online evaluation of DeMauro back in 2004. “I think to some degree the ‘hot’ isn’t just,” pausing here again to find the right words to match the meaning, then veering after the pause to say, “to some degree I think I was a good teacher and able to, you know,” pause, then he guns forward with, “I think teaching art is just the really best thing possible because it’s so holistic in its very nature.” What would he have done if he hadn’t become an artist and an art teacher? “The only other thing I thought I ever could do was be a bookseller.” (DON DEMAURO CONTINUED ON PAGE 18)
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The work of Don Demauro. Both pieces untitled.
(DON DEMAURO CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17) This makes sense - DeMauro clearly has a love of words. The August birthday show at Spool, still in the planning phase at the time of this interview, is set to include the spoken word, primarily in the form of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, in addition to some African art and plenty of Bach. Hakan Tayga-Hromek, the principal cellist of the Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra, is on board as the featured artist to play Bach throughout an installation that covers six spaces in Spool. “It sounds great from the outside,” Don says. “We’re not just in here. We’re going to blast it out into Johnson City,” through an open door in a side room. Of family in adult life, Don speaks of an exwife and a stepson whom he formally and lovingly adopted. Spool, however, is his baby. “We have an incredible resume,” DeMauro boasts. The things that have passed through here… People come in with an idea and we have the kind of space that will embrace it.” One shining moment in that history was performance art from famed modern dancer Mary Anthony, who performed at Spool when she was in her 80s. “We’ve done film, dance, and theatre. You name it, we’ve done it. Something comes along and our ears perk up.” DeMauro speaks of art as a community. “It’s not about me; it’s about the audience and the fact that they have some inner life. I mean, audiences are often confused, I think, and looking for meaning.” He grapples here with who the audience is, what their needs are, and structures, and movement. “It’s not the transfer of a meaning. I think that’s the beautiful thing about art, you know. It deals in a kind of ambiguous space between what form and content are and how they’re transferred.” When asked if it is equally as important that an artist’s voice be understood as it is that
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the voice merely be heard, the former professor answers, “I think art doesn’t want to be didactic. It’s putting sensate things out there but in question. And none of this has meaning or value until it passes through the audience,” which involves interpretation. He goes on to evaluate that maybe interpretations are healthiest when they occur without a set form. “But, to some degree, there’s always going to be that attempt,” to set a form. “You’re looking for some value for yourself.” In response to the question of what he wants people who come to Spool to take away with them, he says, “You’re trying to bring something that has a depth to it, and that sort of thing, that the viewer recognizes and they’re drawn into a relationship with that.” His words have grown increasingly quieter as those thoughts swirl around, as if down into a funnel. “A relationship that’s probably different,” searching until he adds, more audibly, “And not be afraid of difference probably. You know what I’m saying. People don’t understand art and they don’t know what to think of it and it comes in all these forms.” So, if people feel they don’t understand art, why do they come to Spool? It’s that sense of art as community again. He smiles as he says, “The building itself is an important player.” He says neighbors sometimes bring their children in out of curiosity. Then he relates a story of a young neighborhood woman in bare feet who once asked if she could come into Spool. She was, of course, invited in, and after looking around she asked if she could go home and come back and bring her friends with her. “That’s what you hope for,” he says. Happy 80th Birthday, Mr. DeMauro! An opening reception for IV, featuring the art of Don Demauro and the music of Hakan Tayga-Hromek, takes place on August 20th, from 7-10pm, at Spool Contemporary Art Space, 140 Baldwin St. in Johnson City, NY. For more info on the show, check out spoolmfg.com. For more info on Demauro, check out dondemauro.com.
art briefs City High School who is always striving to build student knowledge. He draws inspiration from Degas’ composition, color, and lines, and from Henry Yan’s (recent collection) for figure drawing. Visitors to the BCAC gallery can enjoy and learn through the fascinating lens of this art teacher and artist. The exhibit will be open to the public on First Friday, August 5th, from 6-9pm, and Monday through Friday from 10am-5pm through August 26th at the Broome County Arts Council Gallery, 81 State Street in Binghamton. The Outdoor Sculpture and Architecture Walking Tour commences at 5pm on August 5th from the Seven Seals of Silence, located at the intersection of Chenango & Henry Streets. It is sponsored by the Broome County Arts Council in conjunction with the Preservation Association of the Southern Tier. More information may be found online at www. broomearts.org/walkingtours or by contacting Laura Knochen-Davis: (607) 723-4620 or lkdavis@broomearts.org.
ART OF BINGHAMTON OPENS AT ROBERSON
Art by Mathew Card, on display as part of the Art of Binghamton exhibit at the Roberson.
DONALD SAAF & SUZANNE POE AT BUTTERNUT
The Butternut Gallery & Second Story Books invites you to visit a story-world of color, patterns and dream-like imagery in the upcoming exhibit, Donald Saaf & Suzanne Poe. Saaf is a mixed media painter from Vermont, and Poe, a needle-felted wool sculptor from New York. Donald Saaf said, “For more than 20 years I have explored the place where fine art and folk art intersect, with subject matter drawn from local experience of community, family and immediate surroundings as well as an internal dream place. At times I approach a composition like a quilt, or even a stained glass window, breaking it down into luminous forms - I see pictures simultaneously for their story and as pure abstraction.” Suzanne Poe shares a similar goal of drawing the viewer into her unique vision. Poe began needle-felting about seventeen years ago and has since trained in England and been inspired by the sheep of Scotland - an animal that appears frequently in her work. She says, “I enjoy using this versatile medium to interpret favorite themes from stories and the natural world, including both animals and people. I try to convey personality or feeling - if the pieces bring warmth and a smile, I have spent my time well!” The exhibit can be seen during normal business hours: Wednesday through Saturday, 11am-5pm, through August 13th. Additional information is available at butternutgallery.com or by calling (570) 278-4011. Butternut Gallery & Second Story Books located at 204 Church Street, Montrose, PA.
MYSTICISM, MYSTERY & SPIRITUALITY AT WHIPWORKS
The current Whipworks exhibit features the work of artists: Pennie Brantley, Ashley Norwood Cooper, Melissa Sarat, and Anthony Santuoso, come together to illuminate a common theme. In portraying what appears to be commonplace, Brantley’s “unpeopled structures” and Cooper’s domestic scenes, the artists lead you in to look past the ordinary and to experience a deeper more spiritual and mystical meaning. Santuoso’s images, on the other hand, are entirely products of his imagination, infused with, “a hint of New Age mysticism… paintings that deal with myth, symbolism, states of consciousness and sustained contemplation.” And at the far end of the spectrum, there is Sarat, who, having grown up on the grounds of a mental institution, portrays realities far from the norm of the typical viewer. Her colorful, detailed paintings illuminate a “French-Cajun Louisiana Creole” reality, a place where “religion takes a bizarre, colorful bent that’s all mixed up with voodoo and superstition.” The exhibit may be viewed on Fridays from 1-4pm through August 27th. Windsor Whipworks is located at 98 Main Street in Windsor. Further information can be found at whipworksartgallery.org or by calling (607) 655-2370.
BINGHAMTON’S FIRST FRIDAY ART WALK
Binghamton’s First Friday Art Walk returns, like clockwork, on August 5th. The (mostly) free monthly event, which runs from 6-9pm,
Art briefs compiled by Ronnie Vuolo: art@carouselrag.com
showcases a whole slew of visual artists and musical acts across 25 venues in downtown Binghamton (as well as portions of the West and South Sides). August visual art highlights include: a gallery opening at Cooperative Gallery 213, Ada Stallman Retrospective and Watercolors by Shirley Ernst; a showcase of prints, oils, watercolors, drawings, and etchings - Joseph Lindsley and his Artist Friends - at the Connelly Gallery; and the continuation of July Carousel cover artist Joel Nsadha’s photography exhibit Times Riddle at the Salati Gallery. Musical highlights include Ithaca rockers The Blind Spots at Atomic Tom’s, Cans N Clams with Splash at the Holiday Inn, Classical and English folk music by Shepherd and Ewe at Christ Church, and dance music with Rooster and the Roadhouse Horns at the Place on Court. The newest First Friday venue, Trinity Memorial Church, will host “Broadway and Beyond” featuring Timothy Smith (organ) with special guest star and vocalist, Ladene Miles Bourne, in performance inside the sanctuary at 8:30pm. The First Friday Art Walk, presented by the Gorgeous Washington Street Association/GWSA, is sponsored in part by Equinox Broadcasting, M&T Bank, and Triple Cities Carousel. For a full schedule and more information, be sure to check out gorgeouswashington.com. (And of course, for our friends to the West, don’t forget about Art Walk Owego, happening every First Friday in the coolest small town in America. More info at owego.org.)
ERIC ADOLPH- LESSONS FROM AN ART TEACHER
Erich Adolph is an art teacher at Johnson
Opening this month at the Roberson is Art of Binghamton, a collaborative exhibition featuring 17 local artists. The exhibit, presented by Matthew Card (owner of Matthew Card Photography) and Steven Palmer (pioneer of Binghamton’s First Friday/owner of GAGRAGS Tshirts), showcases the work of some of the area’s best visual artists, many of whom have displayed and sold their work locally and nationally: Matthew Card, Victor Lay, Hall Groat II, David Skyrca, Danielle Herman, Steven Palmer, Kirk & Leslie Zanderbergen, Mike Ricciardi, Chuck Haupt, Thomas LaBarbera, Drew Lewis, Gregory Milunich, Amara Kopakova, Rebecca Collins, Scott Anderson, and Robert C. Johnston. Many are art educators and were born and raised here. It is evident that they reflect their pride and love for their hometown in their artwork. Each piece is a unique representation of Binghamton - past, present or future. The most impressive aspect of this show is that it is an eclectic group of media from classic to advanced digital that will offer an eye opening viewpoint behind the appealing interest and history Binghamton has to the beholder. The opening reception for Art of Binghamton takes place at the Roberson Museum and Science Center’s Sawtelle Gallery on Friday, August 12, 2016 from 5-9pm. Live music by The Island Hoppers Steel Band, Alex Creamer, and Black Apple Current Unplugged. Food and beverages provided by Binghamton Brewing Co., Plenty Oh! Foods, Enfields, Strange Brew, Glen Park Vineyards and more. Admission is free. The show runs through September at Roberson and moves to The Bundy Museum in October with a First Friday opening on 10/7. This event is made possible by the generous support of Tyrone Muse (President/CEO of Visions FCU), Roberson Museum and Science Center, The Bundy Museum , Binghamton Brewing Co, Strange Brew, Glen Park Vineyards, Plenty Oh! Foods, and BingoRento. More info: facebook.com/artbinghamton.
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triple cities carousel carouselrag.com mon. sun.
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Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW) Robbie Perez (MGRX)
Peaches & Crime (BBW) Bing City Limits w/ Jameson Sisters (MGRX) Spiedie Fest (OTS) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB)
Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW) Budd Ash (MGRX) CPR Certification (YHPL)
School of Rock (EPAC) Bing City Limits w/ Christian Sezenias (MGRX) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Seedstock (RSC) Almost Maine (TCP)
Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW) Sonny Weeks (MGRX) Bark-9 (YHPL)
The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Shakespeare Before Sunset (GJP) Bing City Limits w/ Robbie Perez (MGRX) Rec Park Music Festival (REC) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB)
Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW) Coloring Club (YHPL)
The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Chris Thater Races (DTB) Alpha Brass (MGRX) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Binghamton Porchfest (WS)
Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW)
KEY (ABE) Abel's Pub, Binghamton (ACA) American Civic Assoc., Binghamton (ATOM) Atomic Tom’s, Binghamton (BBC) Binghamton Brewing Co, Johnson City (BBW) Black Bear Winery, Chenango Forks (BEL) Belmar Pub, Binghamton (BSP) Blarney Stone Pub, Norwich (BTP) Blind Tiger Pub, Johnson City (BUN) Bundy Museum, Binghamton (CAL) Callahan’s Sportsman’s Pub, Binghamton (CCF) Chenango County Fairgrounds, Norwich
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(CCW) Cyber Cafe West, Binghamton (CHOC) Choconut Inn, Friendsville PA (CIT) Citrea Ristorante, Binghamton (CMP) Cider Mill Playhouse, Endicott (CRT) Chenango River Theatre, Greene (DSC) Discovery Center, Binghamton (DTB) Downtown Binghamton (DTO) Downtown Owego (EPAC) Endicott Performing Arts Center (EPN) East Side Park, Norwich (FHS) Firehouse Stage, Johnson City (FTZ) Fitzies Pub, Binghamton
tues.
02 09 16 23 30
Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CCW) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK) The Island Hoppers Steel Band (YHPL) Make Your Own Snacks (YHPL) National Night Out (DTB)
Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CAL) Karaoke (CCW) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK) Book Discussion (YHPL) Essential Oils Make & Take (YHPL) Make Your Own Snacks (YHPL)
Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CAL) Karaoke (CCW) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK) Movie Night: Mr. Holmes (YHPL)
Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CAL) Karaoke (CCW) Blues Traveler (MGC) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK)
Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CAL) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK) Essential Oils Make & Take (YHPL)
(GJP) George W. Johnson Park, Endicott (GXY) Galaxy Brewing Co., Binghamton (HICK) Hickories Park, Owego (HIDT) Holiday Inn Downtown, Binghamton (LDC) Lost Dog Cafe/Lounge,Binghamton (MGC) Magic City Music Hall, Binghamton (MGRX) McGirk’s, Chenango Bridge (ORG) Original’s Bar and Lounge, Owego (OTS) Otsiningo Park, Binghamton (OUH) Old Union Hotel, Binghamton (REC) Recreation Park, Binghamton (RFG) Rolling Fire Glassworks, Endicott
wed.
03 10 17 24 31
Busking at the Bel (BEL) Alex Creamer (BTP) Deep Cuts (CAL) Stephen Douglas Wolfe (CCW) Triple Play w/ Alice Detrick (HICK) Jazz Jam (LDC) Country Line Dancing (MGC) Open Mic (RST) Preschool Storytime, Crafts & More (YHPL)
Busking at the Bel (BEL) Devinne Meyers (BTP) Open Drum Circle (BUN) Deep Cuts (CAL) Nate Calzetoni (CCW) Country Line Dancing (MGC) Rick Pedro (MGRX) Jazz Collective (RST) Preschool Storytime, Crafts & More (YHPL)
Busking at the Bel (BEL) Marv Williams (BTP) Deep Cuts (CAL) Cannon the Brave (CCW) Jazz Jam (LDC) Country Line Dancing (MGC) Feast with the Beasts (RPZ) Open Mic (RST) Carousel Run (YHPL)
Busking at the Bel (BEL) Dusty Wayne & Rusty Pete (BTP) Open Drum Circle (BUN) Deep Cuts (CAL) Greg Neff (CCW) Country Line Dancing (MGC) Rob Stachyra & Robbie Perez (MGRX) Joe & Calya (RST)
Busking at the Bel (BEL) Chris Mollo (BTP) Deep Cuts (CAL) Philip Celia (CCW) Country Line Dancing (MGC) Vermont Cheddar (MGRX) Matt Burt (RST)
(ROB) Roberson Museum, Binghamton (RPZ) Ross Park Zoo, Binghamton (RRB) RiverRead Books, Binghamton (RSC) Reeds Seeds, Cortland (RST) Ransom Steele Tavern, Apalachin (SCPH) South City Publick House, Binghamton (TCK) Tri-Cities Karate, Endicott (TCP) Ti-ahwaga Performing Arts Center, Owego (WS) West Side, Binghamton (YHPL) Your Home Public Library, Johnson City
thur.
04 11 18 25
Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP) Joe Stento (BTP) Team Trivia (CAL) Ugly Dolphin (CCW) An Evening of Wine & Roses (DSC) Dustbowl Revival (EPN), CameroonONE (GXY) Several Sons (GXY), Karaoke (LDC) Acoustic Brew (MGRX) Tijuana Danger Dogs (RST)
Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP) Humble Beginnings Band (BTP) Team Trivia (CAL), Ugly Dolphin (CCW) School of Rock (EPAC) THE WEIGHT Band (EPN) Acoustic Krooked Knuckles (GXY) Karaoke (LDC) The Smokin’ Crows (RST) Magician’s Skills Workshop (YHPL)
Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP) Chris Mollo (BTP) Team Trivia (CAL) Ugly Dolphin (CCW) Dwayne Dopsie & The Zydeco Hellraisers (EPN) Shakespeare Before Sunset (GJP) The Lightkeepers (GXY), Karaoke (LDC) 2nd Edition w/ Mary Meyer (MGRX) Matt Burt & The Casual Acquaintances (RST)
Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP) Acoustic Brew (BTP) Team Trivia (CAL) Ugly Dolphin (CCW) The Smell of the Kill (CRT) BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet (EPN) Karaoke (LDC) Not Sold Separately (MGRX) Triple Down (RST)
05 12 19 26
fri.
calendar of events august 2016 sat.
The Blind Spots & More (ATOM) John Truth Experience (BBW), Rick Iacovelli (BTP) Dusty Wayne & Mr. Pete (BTP), Real & Imagined (BUN) DJ Space One (CAL), East Coast Bigfoot (CCW) Michael Glabicki (CHOC), Binghamton Live on the Waterfront (DTB) First Friday Art Walk (DTB/DTO), Cans n Clams (HIDT) Black Apple Current (LDC), Hummels Mug (MGRX) Next to Kin & Art Walk Party (ORG), Spiedie Fest (OTS) Pete Ruttle (OUH), Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) North & South Dakotas/Travis Rocco Duo (RST) Home Brew (SCPH)
John Truth Experience (BBW), Pasty White & Doublewide (BTP) DJ Space One (CAL) Our Common Roots (CCW) School of Rock (EPAC) Cans n Clams (HIDT) Werk! (LDC) SIRSY (MGRX) Kali Cornwell (ORG), Pete Ruttle (OUH) Art of Binghamton Opening (ROB), Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Seedstock (RSC), Swampcandy & Brothers Blue (RST) The Stoutmen (SCPH)
John Truth Experience (BBW), Woodshed Prophets (BTP) DJ Space One (CAL), Chenango Blues Fest (CCF) Parts Unknown (CCW), The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Binghamton Live on the Waterfront (DTB), Shakespeare Before Sunset (GJP) Cans n Clams (HIDT), East Coast Bigfoot (LDC) Aaron Lewis (MGC), American Rougues (MGRX) Several Sons (ORG) Pete Ruttle (OUH) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Rebecca & The Soul Shakers/Highway Fruit Market (RST) Michael Whittemore (SCPH)
Revelers (ABE), John Truth Experience (BBW) Bruce Beadle Band (BTP), DJ Space One (CAL) Raibred (CCW) The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Cans n Clams (HIDT) Joe Stento (LDC) The Stoutmen (MGRX) Brian Vollmer & Claire Byrne (ORG) Pete Ruttle (OUH) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB), Tim Ruffo (RST) Doug & Eamonn (SCPH)
06 13 20 27
Monkey's Typing (CCW) Martin Shamoonpour (CAL) DJ Space One (LDC) Parlor City (MGRX) Spiedie Fest (OTS) Pappy Biondo of Cabinet (OUH) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Bendher & The Kiil (RST) Ultra Vibe (SCPH)
L Ectric Brew (BTP) Gals at Cals (CAL) Goodfruits & Concrete Nature (CCW) Magic & Music (CMP) School of Rock (EPAC) DJ Space One (LDC) Dirt Farm (MGRX) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB), Seedstock (RSC) Lithium Highway & A Country Mile (RST) Anonymous Blondes (SCPH) Almost Maine (TCP)
Garlic Fest (ACA), Bing Brew Fest (BBC), Tomahawks (BTP) Pasty White & Doublewide (CAL) Chenango Blues Fest (CCF) The Old Main (CCW) The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Shakespeare Before Sunset (GJP), DJ Space One (LDC) Beard of Bees (MGRX) AllSiders 6 (REC) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Bug Tussle/Molly & The Badly Bent Bluegrass Boys (RST) Greg Neff (SCPH)
The Beatles Band (BTP) East Coast Bigfoot (CAL) Milkweed (CCW) Comedy Night (CMP) The Smell of the Kill (CRT), Chris Thater Races (DTB) DJ Space One (LDC) The Rum Runners (MGRX) Glass Blowing Expo (RFG) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Tomahawks/Pale Green Stars/Brian Tyneway (RST) Donal Shaughnessey (SCPH)
The Triple Cities Carousel Events Calendar is compiled by Emmilie Urda. Calendar entries are guaranteed only to advertisers. Open space available on a first come first serve basis. Submit events at carouselrag. com or to calendar@carouselrag.com by the 20th of the month prior to publication.
May 2016 triple cities carousel 21
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poetry.
THE POETRY OF
LEA DAVIS
Lea Davis is a 20-year-old poet, an undergraduate student, and (currently) an aspiring theatre director. She was born in Johnson City, raised in Sidney, came of age on the internet while living in Oxford, and studies and works in the Oneonta area. In her life and in her work, she tries to be as honest and free from absolutes as possible, and she hopes that any art she produces is as much a dialogue with the viewer as it is a personal declaration. That said, at this stage in life she’s mostly just a sad sack who falls for a lot of people and spends her time writing love poems about all of them.
roadside america
walking through a still life again I am post-apocalypse lonely wondering if I really want the spell to be broken remembering when she (she who used to be the only She, now vies for control in a dresser drawer envelope of lesser loves) told me I’d never liked anyone giving me at once the rule and the exception and two reasons to make myself over completely now the grass is too green and the birds too many and the houses too actively still something shivering through the sharpness of an unbroken line cars rushing down the highway bear witness same as me but not bound, homebound but untied, untied yet not undone as i am coming on a park bench overlooking the most peaceful of fields, streamlined churchyard, highway adjacent and what do I want with a wider world what business have I when the one I have too heavily trod still twists on itself makes my eyesight falter means nothing to me at all
processed pulp
Writ large as tabloid headlines lesbian hitchhikers high on a substance somewhere between life and peyote stage a streetfight at the margins of existence autoerotic anxiety comes a close second to the inevitable explosion of unknown knowns roadside sweat and long unbated breath finally finding release in someone else’s voyeurism asylum seekers rattling between grimy fantasies found a home in the desert of my hollow chest radiating from the longwave simmer of a half-averted glance warming heavily in my lungs until the rising shudder robbed me of all humane concern scaling the sides of the canyon in lurid humidity trying to convince themselves their urges were their own they angled gently for the light made their way to truer fantasies by the time it reached my eyes, the warming glow of revolution had seared deep enough to convince me I had been blind all along
a last break-up poem, supposedly
you need to put this thing to bed tuck your torments into shallow graves lay to rest your metaphors trip shut your better emotional mousetraps before they turn into another way to digest externalize and compartmentalize and fictionalize and end everything that ever felt new her bedroom first time you visited was larger and darker and stranger and had more angles than a room that size possibly could smelled like something that used to stir things inside you now is just a particle protruding somewhere from the wall of your left lung now is just the memory of a chemical now is just a hint you catch on the wind and start to sweat to you she was a flavor and she was a collection of moments and a weight of warmth on thick skin the curve of a neck suggested by a scarf and linked arms icy street starry night evangelism the weight of the rain on the trees and what it meant when the birds were circling to you she was a promise and soon you will feel safe enough to make her a symbol say she was distance and she was pain and she was waiting to be unwanted say she was the truth of loving another person/tangible reality of a body/unspoken gravity of a consciousness you will say anything to pretend that you knew her at all stay up nights writing instead of crying until the pictures turn to millions of curated words the sound of your voice made a little bit more a little bit closer to clever with every attempt until her face in your memory is completely papered over until you see her on the street and are slapped with the one thing you never named until the night you forget the way her breath caught halfway between your lips and your fingers and learn to masturbate to internal rhyme instead
season’s greetings
I dreamed about you last night or at least dreamed I did All I remember is the rise and fall and the revolutionary concept of your lips several levels of waking up to something missing but distance will do that tried to write it down until words fell short and I felt guilty knowing my life’s work will mostly be noise half drowning out the apocalypse of sound in the next room but you came over me in waves and i told myself the personal is politicalif so I just might be the most political person in this whole town time has been slipping back out of coherence again and mirrors keep catching me slightly by surprise every morning face to face with someone new a not-quite stranger or quiet roommate or nodding acquaintance I’d vaguely like to get to know by the time the world tried asking who i was i’d run out of ways to explain christmas day or that afternoon at the end of a month that barely happened I tried to take a walk sick of smiling and lonely enough to finally let the hum inside my head take over found downtown deserted all four stores shuttered concrete and dead land and even stray snowdrifts tinged in mud halfway over the bridge spotted in the distance a single old man Coors Lights straining bags in each hand studying me like I might have been the last person alive on earth
Interested in having your poetry featured in an upcoming issue? Please email 3-5 poems and a short bio to Heather Merlis: poetry@carouselrag.com
May 2016 triple cities carousel 23
FRI-SAT UNTIL 1A
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FREE Delivery with $10 minimum order. Must present coupon at time of ordering
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theatre.
Shakesspeare Before Sunset 2015. Provided.
ALMOST, MAINE IN OWEGO
Almost Maine is a children’s show written by John Cariani. One cold, clear Friday night in the middle of winter, while the northern lights hover in the sky above, Almost’s residents find themselves falling in and out of love in the strangest ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. Love is lost, found, and confounded. And life for the people of Almost, Maine will never be the same. The New York Daily News called it, in 2006, “Sweet, poignant, and witty. Nearly perfect.” Almost, Maine: It’s love, but not quite. Performances are Saturday, August 13th and Sunday, August 14th at the Ti-Ahwaga Performing Arts Center, 42 Delphine Street in Owego. Saturday curtain is 7pm, Sunday matinee is 2pm. General admission is $15. Visit tiahwaga.com or call (607) 687-2130 for tickets or more information.
SHAKESPEARE BEFORE SUNSET IN THE PARK
A 30-minute production of The Merchant of Venice and Tom Stoppard’s The 15 Minute Hamlet are the offerings in Shakespeare before Sunset – the Endicott Performing Arts Center’s 13th anniversary presentation of Shakespeare in the Park. The production runs August 18th through August 21st at George W. Johnson Park, 201 Oak Hill Avenue in Endicott, rain or shine. Showtime is 7pm. Admission is free. For more information call EPAC at (607) 785-8903.
LETTER WRITING FROM SPARE
Marisa Valent, the playwright of Letter Writing and a member of SPARE Productions, says her show dovetails well with SPARE’s primarily young membership. We’ve all heard the clichés that come along with freshman year: “I love my major;” “The cat food is going to be awesome;” “I’m going to get so many girls;” “I’m only going to party once to get it out of my system;” “I’m going to stay with my long distance boyfriend forever!” What happens when they get twisted, though? Come and follow Holly, Anna, James, Michael, and Alice as they work their way through their first semester and the problems and challenges that come with being on your own, away from home for the first time. Whether you’re a freshman right now, or you’ve been out of school for years, you’re sure to love this relatable group of friends trying to fake it until they make it. Perfor-
mances run August 19th through 21st. For venue, times, and ticket prices call SPARE Productions at (607) 542-9057.
THE SMELL OF THE KILL AT CHENANGO RIVER THEATRE
In this regional premiere, suburbia is the final frontier – an unexplored wilderness where floating dinner parties belie the seething bloodlust of its primitive inhabitants. Take three delicious, malicious wives, add three unlovable husbands and chill. That’s the recipe for this tantalizing dark comedy that had Broadway audiences laughing and cheering. Nicky is married to an embezzler and is ready to kill for money. Molly is married to a stalker and is ready to kill for more sex. Debra is married to an adulterer and is just ready to kill. While their unseen spouses practice putting in the dining room, the women exchange confidences for the first time. When a completely unlikely opportunity presents itself, and gives each of them a chance to escape their marriages, one by one the women make their choices with more than a little help from one another. The show runs August 19th through September 11th, Thursdays through Sundays at the Chenango River Theatre, 991 State Highway 12 in Greene. Curtain Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays is 7:30pm, Sundays at 2pm. Admission prices: Thursdays $22, Fridays and Sundays $23, and Saturdays $25. All tickets are held at the theater. Sunday August 21st is “Name Your Price!” Post show talkback Friday, August 26th. For tickets and more information visit chenangorivertheatre.org or call (607) 656-8778.
GHANDI, IS THAT YOU? AT CIDER MILL PLAYHOUSE
Two Cider Mill Playhouse audience favorites return to end your summer in style! Named one of the best weekly comedy shows in NYC as a “Time Out New York Critic’s Pick” in 2015 and 2016, Ghandi, Is That You? features comedians Lance Weiss and Brendan Fitzgibbons. The pair are joined by Alex Carabano. Two shows on August 27th at the Cider Mill Playhouse, 2 South Nanticoke Avenue in Endicott. Show times are 7pm and 10pm. Tickets are $25. Also enjoy concession specials including beer and wine. (Please note there is adult content and use of adult language; the show is recommended for ages 18 and above.) To purchase tickets or for more info visit cidermillplayhouse.com or call (607) 748-7363.
Theatre briefs compiled by Felicia Waynesboro: stage@carouselrag.com
May 2016 triple cities carousel 25
OPEN TUES-SAT (7am-3pm) (607) 217-4134
See our full menu at JCvillagediner.com
CHECK OUT OUR NEW...
...EXPANDED DINING ROOM!
BREAKFAST SPECIALS SERVED ALL DAY!
LUNCH SPECIALS SERVED TUES-FRI 11-3 LIMITED LUNCH MENU ON SATURDAYS
STEAK & CHEESE OMELETTE- served with peppers, onions, homefries & toast. ROOT BEER FLOAT PANCAKE- 1 giant pancake topped w/ vanilla ice cream & homemade root beer syrup. CHILI & CHEESE OMELETTE- w/ homemade chili, melted cheddar, homefries & toast. GRILLED BREAKFAST BURRITO- scrambled eggs, cheese, salsa, hot sauce & choice of meat w/ homefries. BANANAS FOSTER OVER FRENCH TOAST, PANCAKE, OR BELGIUM WAFFLE- homemade caramel sauce infused w/ sliced bananas, topped w/ ice cream & whipped cream. FRENCH TOAST BREAKFAST SANDWICH- two eggs, cheese, & choice of meat on French Toast w/ syrup to dip. HOMEMADE PUMPKIN PANCAKES OR WAFFLEthey literally melt in your mouth! LOADED BREAKFAST PIZZA- eggs, peppers, onions, bacon, sausage & cheese on a crispy tortilla. CHEDDAR GRITS HOMEMADE CORNED BEEF HASH
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GRILLED MAC & CHEESE SANDWICH- w/ tomato, bacon & homemade cheese sauce on grilled sourdough. STROKA GENIUS SANDWICH- grilled ham, melted swiss & apples on grilled marble rye w/ mayo & mustard. CHIPOTLE CHICKEN SANDWICH- w/ melted cheese, bacon & homemade chipotle ranch on a Kaiser roll. HAND CRAFTED STUFFED BURGERS- choose from bacon cheddar, jalapeno pepperjack, mushroom swiss & bacon bleu. CAROLINA BBQ TURKEY MELT- roasted turkey, bbq sauce, cheese & coleslaw on grilled sourdough. “THAT” FRIED CHICKEN SANDWICH- marinated chicken breast, deep fried & served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion & mayo on a grilled Kaiser roll. Also available buffalo bleu style. GRILLED CUBANO- sliced pork loin, ham, dill pickles, swiss & mustard on grilled ciabatta w/ chips & a pickle. FISH TACOS- (3x) beer battered cod, chipotle/jalapeno slaw, salsa, cilantro, chipotle sour cream & chips.
food and drink. Photo by Ty Whitbeck.
Bored With Your Booze?
Unearth a new taste with Mead, the first fermented beverage of mankind! Hard Ciders with a twist! Wines without grapes! Cherries, Currants, Peaches, Elderberries, Blueberries, Raspberries!
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(607) 656-9868
Tues-Thurs 12-6, Fri 12-9, Sat-Sun 12-6
BING BREW FEST
Saturday, August 20th, marks the third annual Bing Brew Fest, presented by Binghamton Brewing Co. From 2-10pm, Avenue B in Johnson City will shut down to make way for a celebration featuring live music, games, food, and of course, local craft beer. The event will mark the second anniversary of Binghamton Brewing Co., which coincides with the centennial of the fire station (the first one in North America to be privately owned) in which the brewery is located. It also marks the 100th anniversary of the naming of Johnson City! Visit bingbrew.com for tickets, which include a commemorative glass, tastings, and snacks; the event is free for anyone who wishes to make their purchases a la carte.
PIEROGIE GUY ARRIVES AT HOUSE OF REARDON
When Bob Norris, proprietor of Binghamton’s House of Reardon, recently visited the Syracuse area, he tasted some potato dumplings that he had to bring back and share with his customers. They had been made by Matt “The Pierogie Guy” Lewis, who based them on an old family recipe, using all-natural ingredients and as much local produce as possible. He and his wife now produce the pierogies in East Rochester, but Binghamtonians need look no further than House of Reardon, located at 25 Grant Street in Binghamton’s East Side. They are open seven days a week and they’ll be offering pierogies with a variety of fillings. What could be more authentically Upstate? Check their Facebook page for hours and more information.
FEAST WITH THE BEASTS AT BINGHAMTON ZOO
On Wednesday, August 17th, the Binghamton Zoo at Ross Park holds its 25th annual Feast with the Beasts. Guests are invited to unleash their primal appetites as they enjoy dishes and drinks from over 20 New York
and Pennsylvania restaurants and wineries. There will also be live music, a silent auction (which may be bid on early by visiting rossparkzoo.com), and the kind of animal attractions that can only be found at a zoo. The Zoo is located at 60 Morgan Road in Binghamton and the event takes place from 5:30 until 8pm. Tickets may be purchased online or at the ticket booth: $20 for members, $25 for non-members. For more information, please visit rossparkzoo.com, or call (607) 724-5461.
13th ANNUAL GARLIC FEST
What would Binghamton be without its Garlic Festival? This unassuming yet lively event has been a tradition in town for over a decade and this year is no exception, hosting garlic growers, dancers, craft vendors, and purveyors of ethnic foods. Like garlic itself, we may sometimes take this event for granted, but our lives would surely be lacking without it. Garlic deserves to be celebrated! The festival takes place on Saturday, August 20th, from 11am until 6pm, at the American Civics Building, located at 131 Front Street in Binghamton.
ACHIEVE NY’s 7th ANNUAL SAVOR THE SUMMER
For those of us who don’t already know, ACHIEVE has been providing services for several decades to enhance the lives of people with disabilities in Broome and Tioga Counties. On Thursday, September 1st, from 6-8:30pm, they will enhance the gastronomical experience of attendees at their 7th Annual Savor the Summer. The dinner features gourmet fare from some of the finest local eateries, accompanied by local wine and craft beer. The evening of food and drink is presented by ACHIEVE’s Agency and Foundation Boards of Directors, along with a slew of local sponsors. For more information about the event and the organization, visit achieveny.org.
Food briefs compiled by Heather Merlis: food@carouselrag.com
May 2016 triple cities carousel 27
OLD UNION
HOTEL 246 CLINTON ST. BINGHAMTON 607-217-5935 open daILY
a
a
MON - PROGRESSIVE WING NIGHT TUES - OPEN MIC LADIES NIGHT (except first Tues.) WED- DEEP CUTS PRO JAM (9p) THURS- TRIVIA (7:30p) FRI- B.Y.O. VINYL WITH DJ SPACE ONE (9p) SUN- KARAOKE NIGHT (8P)
8/6 martin shamoonpour 8/13 gals at cals 8/20 pasty white and double wide 8/27 east coast bigfoot If we’re open, the kitchen’s open! Burgers, Spiedies, Phillies, Reubens, Wings, Fries, Etc. (At the corner of Main and Beethoven)
190 main st.
binghamton
(607) 772-6313
Open Daily: Mon-Thurs 3p-1a, Fri-Sat 12p-3a, Sun 12p-1a
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THYME & SPACE A featured monthly recipe from the kitchen of Galaxy Brewing Company’s Chef Brian Lovesky
41 court street
binghamton
Photo by Derek Johnson.
MUSSELS WITH SPICY TOMATO CREAM SAUCE (serves 4)
Ingredients: -2 lbs. mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded -1 tablespoon Oil -3 ounces pancetta or bacon, diced -2 ounces red onions, halved and sliced -2 cloves garlic, chopped -1 jalapeno, sliced into rings -2 teaspoons red pepper flakes -1 lemon, sliced -1 ounce sherry -4 ounces tomato sauce -2 ounces heavy cream -salt and pepper
LIVE MUSIC CALENDAR
8/4 Several Sons
Soulful harmonies and melodic runs
Directions: 1. Heat oil in a pot. Add pancetta and cook until browned. 2. Add the onions and cook until they soften, then add garlic and jalapenos. 3. Add red pepper flakes and deglaze the pot with sherry wine. 4. Add lemon slices. 5. Add tomato sauce and cream, and bring to a simmer. 6. Add mussels, cover pot and cook mussels until they open. Discard any that stay closed. 7. Using slotted spoon, transfer opened mussels to a large bowl. 8. Season the sauce with salt and pepper, and continue to simmer until reduced by 50% and thickened. 9. When the sauce is reduced pour over the mussels and enjoy!
8/11 Acoustic Krooked Knuckles hard driving punk n’ roll from upstate NY
8/18 The Lightkeepers Virtuosic jams from CNY rockers
galaxybrewingco.com FOR FULL EVENT LISTINGS AND MORE INFO
Born and raised in Broome County, Chef Brian grew up surrounded by the many flavors of the different ethnic cultures of our area. He is the Executive Chef at Galaxy Brewing Company in Downtown Binghamton (and former Executive Chef at Tranquil Bar & Bistro). A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America with 20 years of restaurant experience in Upstate NY, New Orleans, and Nashville, Chef Brian currently resides in Vestal with his wife, two sons, and a daughter.
May 2016 triple cities carousel 29
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film.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Provided.
OPENING AT THE ART MISSION & THEATRE
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (opened July 29) Based on the book Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump, this 2016 quirky New Zealand comedy begins when Ricky Baker, a defiant boy from the city, is sent by child services to the country to live with foster parents, chipper Aunt Bella and Uncle Hec, who would rather Ricky just go away. When Aunt Bella passes away suddenly and child services decides to take the boy back, Ricky escapes into the bush and Uncle Hec chases him. When child services arrives to an empty house, they conclude that Hec abducted Ricky. This spawns a national manhunt, and Ricky and Uncle Hec must put aside their differences in order for them both to survive. (PG-13) Café Society (August TBD) Woody Allen’s latest romantic comedy stars Jesse Eisenberg as Bobby, the son of a jeweler in 1930s New York City who, discontented working for his father, moves to Hollywood to work for his talent agent uncle Phil (Steve Carrell). There Bobby falls in love with Phil’s secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart); she’s unpretentious, he thinks, unlike the other Hollywood girls. Unbeknownst to Bobby, Vonnie is already involved in a secret affair with his uncle; Phil has promised to leave his wife for her. Although Vonnie and Bobby get together briefly, she ultimately chooses Phil, leaving Bobby at the sulky end of a love triangle he never fully escapes. While it won’t be the next classic, the film fits neatly inside the Woody Allen canon. (PG-13) The Art Mission & Theater is an art cinema and located at 61 Prospect Ave. in Binghamton. More info and full screening schedule at artmission.org.
FAMILY MOVIE DAYS AT VESTAL LIBRARY
Ice Princess (August 12) A science-oriented girl must come up with a summer project for her application for a scholarship to Harvard. She decides to apply her knowledge of physics to figure skating, and soon become a talented and passionate skater, but she struggles to juggle her sport with her school work. (G)
The Karate Kid (August 19) Daniel moves with his mother to Southern California where he is bullied by students who study karate at the Cobra Kai dojo. He becomes friends with the unassuming handyman Mr. Miyagi, who turns out to be a karate master himself, and teaches Daniel a more compassionate form of karate and prepares him to face the students of Cobra Kai. (PG) Herbie Fully Loaded (August 26) Maggie Peyton wants to be a NASCAR driver, bur her former-racer father would rather have his crash-prone son than his daughter out in the lanes. She picks out a Volkswagen Beetle – Herbie - from a junkyard. Herbie turns out to have a mind of its own and helps Maggie and her racing career take off. (G) All screenings begin at 10:30am. Children must be accompanied by a caregiver. The Vestal Library is located at 320 Vestal Pkwy E, Vestal, NY. Info at vestalpubliclibrary. org.
SHOWING AT YOUR HOME PUBLIC LIBRARY
Mr. Holmes (August 16) In this 2015 film’s take on the life of Sherlock Holmes, it is 1947 - Holmes is 93 years old, and he is making jelly from a prickly ash plant brought back from Hiroshima in order to save his failing memory. He was upset by Mr. Watson’s fictionalization of his last case and wishes to correct it in his own account, but he has trouble remembering it. In his Sussex farmhouse, he lives with his housekeeper Mrs. Munro and her son Roger, towards whom he develops paternal affection as they spend time together, Holmes teaching Roger how to care for the bees in his apiary. Roger helps Holmes remember the case, which began when a man approached Holmes to find out more about his wife’s changed behavior after she miscarried twice. This story plays out in flashbacks interwoven with the present, in which Holmes’ deteriorating health creates tension in the household. Viewing starts at 6pm. Admission is free. (PG) Your Home Public Library, located at 107 Main St. in Johnson City, hosts regular movie nights and film screenings throughout the year. More info is available at yhpl.org.
Film briefs compiled by Ilana Lipowicz: film@carouselrag.com
May 2016 triple cities carousel 31
books. manage to find a rough camaraderie on the road, though: the elderly Jewish comedians who teach them to shrug off catcallers (“How else will you become true vaudevillians if you don’t have practice handling all the misery this life has to offer? Next time will be easier.”); an Italian brother-sister musical act; a conniving French singer; and Tip, the brilliantly talented black tap-dancer who builds them a springboard for their act, and pays dearly for his generosity.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLERS (as of 8/1/16)
Fay is an engaging writer and the plot tumbles along at a delightful clip, narrated alternately by beautiful, headstrong Gert and shy, intellectual Winnie, but it never shies away from the seediness underlying the bright lights of the stage, or the ugly truths of life on the cusp of the Prohibition. Gert’s friendship with Tip the tap-dancer begins to blossom into an impossible romance that threatens both their careers and his life. There is a sharp, deliberate contrast drawn between Tip and performer Willie “Watermelon” Lee, the white “coon shouter” who plays a blackface minstrel act. “The difference between them struck me,” Gert observes. “Tip in his neatly kept suit, polished shoes, and spotless white spats, well-mannered and hardworking. Lee in his ridiculous outfit, playing a stupid, lazy Negro. I wondered if Tip was thinking, ‘That’s not me, and it’s no one I know.’ ” The contrast takes an even uglier turn later, after a stage manager shows the 1915 pro-Ku Klux Klan silent movie Birth of a Nation: Lee’s blackface act is met with laughter and applause by the audience while Tip’s act gets a far more hostile reception. “We stood there watching Tip move as fast as he ever had, as if by sheer force of talent he could keep them appeased. But the applause was losing ground to the heckling.”
1. THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins 2. THE BLACK WIDOW by Daniel Silva 3. AFTER YOU by Jojo Moyes 4. BOSSMAN by Vi Keeland 5. ME BEFORE YOU by Jojo Moyes 6. NIGHT AND DAY by Iris Johansen 7. A MAN CALLED OVE by Fredrik Backman 8. OBSESSION by Helen Hardt 9. DIE AGAIN by Tess Gerritsen 10. FIRST COMES LOVE by Emily Giffin 11. THE WOMAN IN CABIN 10 by Ruth Ware 12. THE GIRLS by Emma Cline 13. THE NIGHTINGALE by Kristin Hannah 14. THE GAMES by James Patterson & Mark Sullivan 15. MAGIC by Danielle Steel
Tumbling into Vaudeville Binghamton-b0rn Juliette Fay’s The Tumbling Turner Sisters by Natassia Enright
(on loan from Your Home Public Library)
T
HE FOUR FRACTIOUS Turner sisters of Johnson City, New York, are quite possibly the least likely candidates for a successful stage act, but when their father breaks his hand in the winter of 1919 and loses his factory job at Endicott-Johnson, their already precarious financial state turns dire. Their difficult mother, Ethel, who has always dreamed of the bright lights of stardom, seizes upon the girls’ half-hearted gymnastic act for the upcoming talent show as their saving grace. They don’t win the purse, but they do catch the attention of Morty Birnbaum, a shrewd,
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fast-talking, and cynical agent who tracks them down and offers to book them in the local vaudeville circuit, despite their lack of preparation or polish. “Pretty girls in short skirts sells,” he tells them bluntly, “even if you’re up there laying bricks.” It’s not like they have a lot of options, so teenagers Gert, Winnie, and Kit, along with recently widowed Nell and her young son take to the road with their mother in search of fame and fortune or at least enough money to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Vaudeville isn’t exactly a respectable career choice for young women in 1919, and the learning curve is rough: they’re booed offstage in Fredonia after an act falls flat (literally), and their money is stolen by a light-fingered singer and her banjo-playing partner. They do
The precarious, chaotic, and occasionally seamy world of vaudeville in its latter days (the era of silent films was coming to an end in the 1920s, and the first feature-length “talkie” was only a few years away) comes to vivid life in this book, but it is the relationships between the characters that really shine. Gert and Winnie, the two narrators, begin the book entirely at odds with one another, but they find an understanding in their shared experiences of heartbreak. Domineering stage mother Ethel is a difficult person to like, but she is never reduced to a caricature. There are reasons for her frustration with the girls’ quiet, patient father, or, more accurately, for the confines of her life as a wife and mother - and she is able to find some measure of happiness in the reflected light of the stage. Broadway is calling, and the money keeps rolling in, but one thing is clear: even after the Tumbling Turner Sisters act hits the bigtime, disaster is only ever a single misstep away. Juliette Fay was born in Binghamton, NY; her great-grandfather Fred Delorme performed in vaudeville in the Johnson City - Binghamton area in the early 1900s. The Tumbling Turner Sisters is her fourth novel. To learn more, check out juliettefay.com.
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HELP IS AVAILABLE AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) in the Triple Cities Region Hotline: (607) 722-5983 For a list of meetings: aabinghamton.org Al Anon/Alateen in Broome Co. and surrounding areas For info: (607) 772-0889 or (607) 387-5701 For a list of meetings: nynafg.com/district_10.html NA (Narcotics Anonymous) in the Triple Cities Region For info: (607) 762-9116 For a list of meetings: tcana.net May 2016 triple cities carousel 33
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OFF THE BEAT:
travel. A monthly look at quirky nearby places, people, and things Nudist/Clothing Optional Resorts Less than 3 Hours from Binghamton Empire Haven Nudist Park Moravia, NY 25th Annual Northeast Naturist Festival Aug. 2nd–Aug. 7th empirehaven.net Bare Lake Nudist Club near Corning, NY very private barelakenudistclub.com Beechwood Lodge Nudist Camp Ashfield, PA rustic & family oriented beechwoodnudistcamp.com Sunny Rest Resort Palmerton, PA several special events in August sunnyrest.com
Felicia finds some nature. Photo provided by the author.
Naked Getaways by Felicia Waynesboro
“N
UDIST COLONIES don’t exist,” I was told. Apparently it’s true that there are no nudist “colonies” in America, in terms of taking over land and establishing an order outside of the larger society. But there are certainly plenty of nudist and clothing-optional resorts, clubs, parks, and campgrounds near Binghamton destinations “where nudity is embraced and expected in a non-sexual atmosphere,” as formally defined by naturists. For a while I debated with myself whether this installment of Off the Beat should depict nakedness as a weekend fling of freedom for couples and singles, or nudism as an ongoing lifestyle for whole families. Since there are few basic pleasures more wonderful than being bare in the outdoor summer air, I decided to go for both. Trying to research family nudism led me to one site on the borderline of child pornography and another that went horrifically over the line. It was an exploitation on every level,
which was the last thing I expected, and an experience that has left me still shaken – and stirred to emphasize that family naturism can be an especially healthy bond. Felicity Jones is a 28-year-old who was raised as a nudist, as was one of her parents. She co-founded Young Naturists America in 2010, based in New York City with plenty of Upstate events, activities, and affiliations. Jones points out that anyone can participate in social nudism, “even if they’re really nervous about it. We always get new people in and they might be scared for the first couple of minutes and then they get used to it, like really fast. Like twenty minutes later, they’re fine.” How legal is public nudity? As long as the public exposure of genitals occurs at a place, and under circumstances, where the sight of an exposed person is not likely to offend, affront, or alarm the people who see the nakedness - for example, at a popular skinny-dipping spot – officialdom is generally tolerant, though, technically, it isn’t really legal in the state of NY. As for bare breasts, did you know that since a court ruling in 1992, it is perfectly legal within New York State for a woman to
go topless in public wherever men can? It’s true! “Topfree” is the preferred term, though, for women not concealing their breasts and nipples. (I had to teach that one to my laptop dictionary.) If you’re a guy and you get an erection no one will blame you. Just don’t flaunt it! Though that kind of rudeness is reportedly rare, it could certainly get you thrown out of a nudist resort, “without refund or recourse,” as the phrase commonly goes. In fact, whatever your gender, be certain you familiarize yourself with all the etiquette outlined at the website of the place you want to visit. Volleyball has been called the official sport of nudists and seems to be universal. Felicity muses, “I don’t really know why.” Hmmm… well, volleyball requires no training and the high flopping-factor can be interesting. The clothing we wear tends to try to mold everyone into a standard shape. “In reality,” says Felicity, “there’s so much more variety in bodies than what you see in the media.” When we’re all naked together, “it creates this kind of equality… because everyone is kind of unique.”
Steph’s Pond Nudist Retreat Williamson, NY very family oriented stephspond.com (if there is trouble reaching the website try calling 585-645-8505) Juniper Woods Nudist Recreational Park and Campgrounds Catskill, NY juniperwoods.com
Note: Public skinny-dipping spots can be – literally and figuratively - a slippery slope around here but if you want the adventure, and the rewards, enter “Potter’s Falls” as a search at the Young Naturists America website. Visit: youngnaturistsamerica.com Another Note: Despite what you may find on the internet, Upstate New York contact for Young Naturists and Nudists America is now youngnaturists@gmail.com.
May 2016 triple cities carousel 35
WEDNESDAY! 8/3
Stephen Douglas Wolfe 8/10
Nate Calzetoni
MONDAY!
a binghamton tradition
starts at 8:30
TEAM TRIVIA!
Coffee! Lattes! Steamers!
FIRST TUES.
sign ups start at 7:30pm
music starts at 8
OPEN MIC!
8/17
Cannon the Brave
FRIDAY!
8/24
Greg Neff
8/5
8/31
East Coast Bigfoot CD Release Party
Philip Celia
LIVE MUSIC!
22 Beers on tap!
8/12
Our Common Roots
Free Wifi! Study Nooks! Comfy Couches!
8/19
THURSDAYS!
Parts Unknown
start your weekend early
8/26
with ugly dolphin!
Raibred
LIVE MUSIC!
LIVE MUSIC! 8/9, 8/16, 8/23
SATURDAY!
on the cyber stage
Monkey’s Typing
KARAOKE!
8/13
sing your little heart out
1 76 M ain St. BINGHAMTON
cybercafewest.com (607) 723-2456 open daily 36 carouselrag.com
Sandwiches! Soup! Salads!
Burgers! Wraps! Desserts!
8/6
Good Fruits & Concrete Nature 8/20
The Old Main 8/27
Milkweed
LIVE MUSIC!
fun stuff. “LET ME REPHRASE THAT” by Paul O’Heron
B.C.
DOGS OF C-KENNEL
by MASTROIANNI & HART
by MICK & MASON MASTROIANNI
*The across answers are all common phrases reworded using synonyms. ACROSS 1. Move the Conestogas into a protective ring? 9. Never twice during an azure satellite? 10. Ante up with a bath sheet? 15. Shove a single flat paper container? 17. Alternative intention? 22. Recline and unwind? 25. Maintain a well honed oculus toward? 29. Committed to binge watching the series on adhesives? DOWN 1. “As long as there’s really good actors that use their _____ to support fringe films, whatever genre it is, they’ll still get made.” - John Curran 2. “There’s always gonna be rock n’ roll bands, there’s always gonna be kids that love rock n’ roll _____, and there will always be rock n’ roll.” - Dave Grohl 3. Hawaiian adornment. 4. Apprentice. 5. “I am not eccentric. It’s just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric _____ set in a pond of catfish.” - Edith Sitwell 6. “Opportunities present themselves every day - to everyone. You just have to be _____ and ready to act.” Marc Ostrofsky 7. It defeats XXX.
8. “The only man who has stolen my heart is my _____.” - Sandra Bullock 11. “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the _____.” - Rabindranath Tagore 12. “The only thing that ever sat its way to success was a _____.” - Sarah Brown 13. “A real friend is one _____ walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” - Walter Winchell 14. “He _____ as he opens another bottle of wine…” 10CC, Working Girls (1983) 15. “Harvard takes perfectly good _____ as students, and turns them into prunes.” - Frank Lloyd Wright 16. “All hope abandon, ye who _____ here!” - Dante Alighieri 18. “Now when he was a young man, He never thought he’d see People stand in line to see the boy king.” King _____ (1979, Steve Martin) 19. “The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the _____ which resists it.” – Albert Schweitzer 20. “There is no necessity to separate the _____ from the mob; all authority is equally bad.” - Oscar Wilde 21. “Life has all sorts of hills and _____, and sometimes you don’t end up doing what you had your heart set out on, but sometimes that’s
WIZARD OF ID
by HART & PARKER
even better!” - Ruth Buzzi 23. “Groundhog Day was one of the greatest scripts ever written. It didn’t even get nominated for an Academy _____.” - Bill Murray 24. Approximately equal to 10−13 meters, it is used to quote the wavelength of X-rays and gamma rays. 25. Unit of measurement at a frat party. 26. Australian relative of the ostrich. 27. “I owe absolutely everything to _____.” - Emilia Clarke, actress Game of Thrones 28. “Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones _____ up the little ones.” - Pericles, Prince of Tyre, William Shakespeare
May 2016 triple cities carousel 37
star stuff.
ASTRO LOVE Cosmic guidance from Uranus. A monthly column by Binghamtons favorite astrologer, Emily Jablon.
E
ARLY AUGUST HAS AN UNDERTONE of bewitched, bothered, and bewildered, depending on how you look at it. Just when you think you get it, you realize you don’t, and boom, a chimera in broad daylight. It’s happening to everyone else too: a typical psychedelic experience for weeks. If it feels like one of those days, it’s because it is. Maybe a couple of those days, but hey, the sun will come out tomorrow (if and only if you sing that song). Difficulty in focusing in on just what it is you want is universal, so don’t try to pin down other people’s orders too tightly, as no one has a firm grip. Where you can put off decision, surrender to the flow. Smoke some, and go skinny-dipping instead. Blow off everything important in your life until the full moon, which starts on the 18th. The temptation to tend to everything is strong all around, and overdoing it comes easy. Having fun is easy. Put the top down and don’t speed. Aries (Mar 21- Apr 19) It’s naptime, Aries. Drink some warm milk and get over yourself a little bit this month. Temper tantrums no longer equal a dominant personality. Taurus (Apr 20- May 20) Get away from standing in front of the mirror looking for imperfections, and liven it up a little. No, cleaning and organizing your closet doesn’t count. GET OUT OF THE HOUSE BULL. It’s weird. Gemini (May 21-June 21) So you know how Kanye West is a Gemini and is just kind of uncomfortable in every way? Well, Gem, this is not your month to make up for your decisions in July. Cancer (June 22-July 22) Yes, we get that your feelings matter. This does not give you right to explode all over the place. Remember emotions and feelings are like weather; let them pass. Leo (July 23-Aug 22) This month, Leo, if you don’t get constant attention, you will wither away and die. Virgo (Aug 23-Sept 22) Hey, so you know that important decision you need to finally make that’s been holding up your life? Well, let’s not joke ourselves, it ain’t happening this month either. Libra (Sept 23-Oct 22) Hey, Libra - this is the month to motivate yourself and wake up before 3pm. You spent a lot of time in the bathroom last month, and this is your month to not only catch up, but get ahead. Scorpio (Oct 23-Nov 21) Go on as usual this month, Scorpio, just stop those plots to kill people. You know who I am talking about. Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21) This month ahead may be rough, centaurs, so try to be aware and not extra obnoxious. Whatever you do, don’t shave your head. Have hope: Britney Spears was too a Sag. Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 19) Personality is not a Capricorn thing, but hobbies and success are. Focus on those things as usual, goat. Aquarius (Jan 29-Feb 18) Tell people about how you smell your own farts, instead of your hippie elitist opinion you only half care about. Enough is enough. Pisces (Feb 19-Mar 20) Learn to take a joke, Pisces. For being the liars of the zodiac, you should be armed with some thicker fish scales. Work on this for August; no one likes a manipulative brat baby.
Emily Jablon, “Binghamton’s Astrologer to the Stars,” is a certified astrologer and public mosaic artist. Jablon has been studying astrology since college and specializes in relationship and personal astrology. She offers classes, private and group readings, and parties for a donation. Go to jablonstudios.com for more information or email emily@jablonstudios.com.
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1330 AM 101.3 FM 105.1 FM 107.9 FM
directory listings. arts organizations BROOME COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL Where the arts mean business! 81 State St. #501, Binghamton, NY (607) 723-4620 broomearts.org TIOGA ARTS COUNCIL Inspiring & supporting Tioga County 179 Front St. Owego, NY 13827 (607) 687-0785 tiogaartscouncil.org
art studios THE SPIRAL IMAGE STUDIO Affordable abstract art for any space. 2328 Colesville Rd, Harpursville NY (607) 349-2760/alla.boldina.art@gmail.com www.allaboldina.com KAPOW! ART STUDIO Unique Quality Art Classes for All Ages 186 State St. 2nd Fl, Binghamton, NY (607) 237-8246 kapowartnow.com
bars BELMAR PUB West Side World Famous 95 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 724-5920 belmar-bing.com CALLAHAN’S SPORTSMAN’S CLUB Drinks, food, and good tunes! 190 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 772-6313 Find us on Facebook! FITZIES PUB Music, pool, and cheap shots! 9 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-5446 Find us on Facebook! McGIRK’S IRISH PUB Music 5 nights/wk. Curated whiskey bar. 1 Kattelville Rd. Binghamton, NY (607) 648-9988 mcgirks.com
WATER STREET BREWING CO. Fresh. Local. Uncomplicated. 168 Water St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-4546 waterstreetbrewingco.com
carousels ROSS PARK Undergoing renovations 60 Morgan Rd. Binghamton, NY (607) 772-7017 binghamton-ny.gov/carousels RECREATION PARK Round and round we go! 58-78 Beethoven Street, Binghamton, NY (607) 772-7017 binghamton-ny.gov/carousels C. FRED JOHNSON PARK Round and round we go! 98 CFJ Blvd. Johnson City, NY (607) 772-7017 villageofjc.com HIGHLAND PARK Round and round we go! 801 Hooper Rd. Endwell, NY (607) 786-2970 townofunion.com GEORGE W. JOHNSON PARK Round and round we go! 201 Oak Hill Ave. Endicott, NY (607) 757-0856 endicottny.com WEST ENDICOTT PARK Round and round we go! Maple St. at Page Avenue, Endicott, NY (607) 786-2970 townofunion.com
dance instruction MANDALA BELLYDANCE & FLOW ARTS Classes/Fusion Bellydance /Fire & LED (607) 759-7551 www.facebook.com/mandalaflow mandalaflowarts@gmail.com
OLD UNION HOTEL “King of Wings” 3 Years in a Row! 246 Clinton St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-5935 oldunionhotel.com
PURELY TECHNIQUE DANCE INSTRUCTION Ballet/Contemporary/Jazz/Tap Dance 32-36 Washington Ave. Endicott, NY (607) 245-6366 Purelytechniquedance@gmail.com
OWEGO ORIGINALS BAR & LOUNGE Music, pizza, drinks: Owego’s newest venue 25 Lake St. Owego, NY (607) 687-9510 Find us on Facebook!
TANGO MY HEART Argentine Style Classes/Practice: Mon. 7pm Atomic Tom’s, 196 State St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-8731 tangomyheart.com
breweries GALAXY BREWING CO. Craft beers & great food in downtown Bing 41 Court St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-7074 galaxybrewingco.com
dining CHROMA CAFÉ & BAKERY Artisan breads & pastries. breakfast/lunch. 97 Court St. Binghamton, NY (607) 595-7612 chromacafeandbakery.com
CITREA RESTAURANT & BAR Woodfire Pizza & Tapas 7 Court St. Suite 3, Binghamton, NY (607) 722-0039 citreapizza.com GROTTA AZZURA Late Night Pizza Delivery Fri.-Sat. 52 Main St. Binghamton, NY 13905 (607) 722-2003 grottaazzurraitalianrestaurant.com LOST DOG CAFÉ Global fare, specialty cocktails, music 222 Water St. Binghamton, NY (607) 771-6063 lostdogcafe.net MI CASA Authentic Latin Cuisine 58 Henry St. Binghamton, NY (607) 237-0227 Find us on Facebook! VILLAGE DINER Check out our menu on Page 26! 255 Floral Ave, Johnson City, NY (607) 217-4134 JCvillagediner.com
hair salons ORION BEAUTY & BALANCE, INC. Hair, nails, body waxing, hair color. Aveda! 118 Washington St. Binghamton, NY (607) 724-0080 orionbeautyandbalance.com
home improvement BUTCH’S PAINTING Residental, Commercial, Interior, Exterior Binghamton, NY (607) 222-9225
jewelers CAMELOT JEWELERS Coins/repairs/custom designs. We buy gold and silver! 48 Clinton St. Binghamton, NY (607) 722-0574
medical practices NY SKIN AND VEIN CENTER Natural good looks & healthy legs! 75 Pennsylvania Ave. Binghamton, NY (607) 417-0040 info@NYSVC.com
museums BUNDY MUSEUM Explore local Binghamton history! 127-129 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 772-9179 bundymuseum.org ROBERSON MUSEUM Exhibits, Events, The Mansion, & More 30 Front Street, Binghamton, NY (607) 772-0660 www.roberson.org
music instruction BANJO AND FIDDLE LESSONS with Brian Vollmer Binghamton, NY (301)385-4027 banjoandfiddle.com brian@banjoandfiddle.com
music venues CYBER CAFÉ WEST Binghamton’s home for live music. 176 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 723-2456 cybercafewest.com MAGIC CITY MUSIC HALL Back in action, bigger & better than before! 1040 Upper Front St. Binghamton, NY (607) 296-3269 themagiccitymusichall.com RANSOM STEELE TAVERN Do some dancin’ with Ransom 552 Main St. Apalachin, NY (607) 258-0165 ransomsteeletavern.com
specialty GARLAND GALLERY Custom framing, cool gifts, zany cards 116 Washington St. Binghamton, NY (607) 723-5172 garlandgallery.com
video production STEPHEN SCHWEITZER Video production and editing (607) 222-9281 vimeo.com/stephenschweitzer stephen.schweitzer@gmail.com
wineries BLACK BEAR WINERY NYS fruit wine. Stop by our tasting room! 248 County Rd. 1, Chenango Forks, NY (607) 656-9868 blackbearwinery.com
Be Inside Us! 18,000 discerning monthly readers. 200 regional distribution locations. 3 years of unrivaled arts coverage in the Triple Cities. Get in touch today! (607) 422-2043
advertising@carouselrag.com May 2016 triple cities carousel 39