Triple Cities Carousel February 2015

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february 2015

vol. 3 issue 1

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February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 3

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TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL P.O. BOX 2947 BINGHAMTON, NY 13902 (607) 422-2043 Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Christopher M.F. Bodnarczuk Assistant Editors Heather Merlis, Ronnie Vuolo Advertising Christopher Bodnarczuk, Emmilie Urda Calendar Guru Ty Whitbeck Staff Writers Krissy Howard, Ilana Lipowicz, Rose Silberman-Gorn, Felicia Waynesboro, Phil Westcott Contributors Anvil Milligan, Paul O’Heron, Sally Ride Photography Stephen Schweitzer, Ty Whitbeck Layout/Design Chris Bodnarczuk, Ty Whitbeck On the Cover Untitled- Kady Perry FOR ADVERTISING: triplecitiesads@gmail.com FOR LETTERS, COMPLAINTS, DEATH THREATS, AND OTHER INQUIRIES: triplecitiescarousel@gmail.com Copyright © 2015 by Triple Cities Carousel. All rights reserved.

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picto-editorial.............................................................4 music.................................................................5 celebrate ......................................................................13 valentine’s day...........................................................15 art ..................................................................................16 events calendar........................................................20 theatre and dance..................................................23 poetry.......................................................................... 28 techworks ..................................................................29 food and drink..........................................................31 film.................................................................................33 coitus............................................................................35 tarotology forecast...............................................36 fun stuff...................................................................... 39

4 Vol. 3 Issue 1

picto-editorial.

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 5

music.

Photo Provided.

AZTEC-TWO STEP STRUTS INTO OXFORD:

AN INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST NEAL SHULMAN Ronnie Vuolo Assistant Editor Oxford, New York is a cool village.

It has some great architecture, antiques, an awesome gallery, interesting history (it was home to the Father of American Bridge Building), and on Saturday, February 7th at 6 on the Square, it has Neal Shulman and Rex Fowler, better known as the folk/rock duo Aztec TwoStep.

If you aren’t familiar with them, you should be. Their harmony is perfection and their acoustic sound has a clarity and crispness not often heard in a time of music that is, so often, highly commercialized, plugged in, and lacking soul.

“See it was like this, when we waltz into this place a couple of far out cats is doing an Aztec two-step. And I says Dad let’s cut, but then this dame comes up behind me see, and says you and me could really exist. Wow, I says.

Only the next day she has bad teeth and real-

ly hates poetry.” - Lawrence Ferlinghetti Neal Shulman was only 17 or 18, and Rex Fowler a mere five years older, when they met for the first time in 1971 at an open mic at the Stone Phoenix in Boston. Neal was the savvy Manhattanite, and Rex hailed from a small town in Maine. Within a year, the duo had a contract with Electra Records and a self-titled record. 44 years later, with 16 albums to their credit, they’ve been written about in Rolling Stone, appeared on the Letterman show, performed with a litany of music legends from Arlo Guthrie and Jerry Jeff Walker to Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, and had countless adventures- some of which Neal was willing to share. uuu How did you get started with music? I listened to a lot of music when I was a kid. Folk music was part of the diet in our house. I think if you look back at the time and talk to a lot of people who grew up in that era, you might find the cast album to Peter Pan and My Fair Lady, and you might find Van Cliburn playing Tchaikovsky… there are a lot of commonalities, I think, throughout the middle-class. But my family did have Pete Seeger, and Theodore

Bikel and Oscar Brand, and those kinds of records. So, a little bit of both… The other thing is that when I came to be a certain age, we had the British invasion. So, there was that…

Aside from the folk music, were the 45’s- the pre-Beatle 45’s- and then the Beatles. And so that sort of focused a lot of attention on music in a way that hadn’t been focused before.

Music was there before, but it sort of became transformed into something else culturally. I was always banging on things, which is great if you want to be a percussionist, but in your usual grade school academic setting it’s not a plus. And I thought I was going to be a drummer. And when I was 12 I just got a guitar. I mean, going to buy a guitar for $22 at a pawn shop on 8th Avenue was a lot more accessible than getting a set of drums… So there you go.

I got a guitar and I started playing and I really did take to it.

Are you self-taught? Yes, more or less. The funny thing is I also grew up in the hippie era, and although I was at the very young end of the spectrum for that time, that did enable me to get up close with a community of slightly older musicians who had more developed skills. So self-taught pretty much, but nevertheless, sitting in front of somebody- I mean directly in front of some people who really had

developed their skills to a higher level, and that is transformative.

When did you know you wanted to make music your career? It’s a funny question, because it just opens up a can of... I would say a can of worms, or like a subtext. I started to play, I had some skills (I’m still working at it), and I grew up in a counter-culture era, as I previously said. I wasn’t really happy particularly in the life I was leading- not to say my family life or anything- but going to school or any of that stuff, and I wasn’t flourishing there. So for me it was a kind of a very early decision which was a little bit of like, “Let me put on my blinders and see- not to parse this too finely- and see if maybe there’s a place for me in this.” Like, I was 14 years old and trying to play gigs, and I dropped out of college- this sounds a little boastful- but I dropped out of college the first term. I was 16 years old, in NYC that can happen. You can find yourself failing yourself forward at an accelerated rate through school, and so I just was in. I thought all that nonsense I went through to get out of school early was to buy myself time to explore.

I was just following the fantasy, and it was up to fate to decide if there would be any reality to it. And obviously there was. [CONTINUED ON PAGE SIX]

6 Vol. 3 Issue 1

AZTEC TWO-STEP [CONTINUED FROM PAGE FIVE]

Folk music has a long history of social commentary and seeking change through music. How much of that was part of your music? You know it’s funny, the last album that we did was a recording where we dug out all the topical songs that we had done over the years, and a few that had never gotten recorded, some we re-recorded... I would say that’s it’s a part of it, but I never feel like that’s the primary focus of our songwriting. I think it’s well represented, but I don’t think anybody would say… the core of what [we] do is topicality. It’s more the other things of what singer-songwriters write about, relationships and life journeys and things like that. Certainly Bob Dylan was a big influence on Rex, but by the time we came around, Bob Dylan had moved on- way, way on- from topical material into something much different. I was, as a fan, very involved with Phil Ochs. I saw him many, many times. Of course at the end, he also evolved past topical, but really, if there was ever a topical songwriter, Phil was it. But as I said, it’s just not the primary part of what we do, but it’s in the mix.

In sixties and seventies there was an underlying optimism, a belief that the younger generation, with its radical ideas, could make a difference. How much were you involved with that? Maybe if I had been 23, and not 17 or 18, I would have felt the combination of the youth and the idealism... I certainly was a part of that, but I think there’s a big difference between…

I look at formative years of like 15, 16 (I was 16 when I dropped out of college)… I don’t know how much those extra life experience years would have given some real substance to my journey in that regard, as opposed to just sort of being there and being swept up in the tide.

You could be 18 or 19 years old and going to Columbia University; you might have been on strike. But I was just one of them longhaired, bell-bottoms, love beads, plays a guitar, and hopefully influenced people to listen to the music, and to- if you were of the female gender- have sex with me. So lets say that they ran neck and neck with whatever idealism was part of the era.

You took the name Aztec Two-Step, after a line in a Beat poem by Ferlinghetti. How did that happen? Rex was the one who said “How about this?” He was the one who put it in real terms. I grew up in Manhattan, I sort of was around- very young- when the Beats... you know the Beats are from the fifties, by the end of the fifties I was still in single digits. But I had some experience there, kind of tangentially. But I think Rex had connected with it in a way that was a little bit deeper.

How did the 1999 documentary “NoHit Wonder” come about? We were approached by [a] producer-director…from Long Island, and it’s one of the places where Aztec Two-Step has put very deep roots, and has a big history. At some point he got in touch with us and said he wanted to make a documentary. And I think it’s one of those things- it’s a little bit of a no-brainer, you know. We got into this for the attention, to spread our message. So any legitimate oppor-

tunity to do that is something you’re going to say yes to. That’s when I sort of threw out the name “No Hit Wonder,” because it does seem to be part of our story. We’ve gone a long time and a long ways without that hit record that everybody keeps telling you you’ve got to get.

And believe me, they tell you.

Do you feel a difference between audiences from different regions and countries? I think that part of our story is that we are largely regionalized. Our success has been largely regionalized. There are a lot of people who have a lot of stories about the career.

One story is: you’re a superstar, and you’re a superstar everywhere you go. You’re Elton John and you go to Singapore and you’re Elton John. You go to Japan and you’re Elton John. It’s not like going to Europe and filling big arenas and going to Tokyo and playing a little club. So for us, part of our story is that between our airplay and our living on the East Coast and our accessibility to this very densely populated area with a great many colleges and those things sort of intersecting… I’ve had people say to me, “I had a great summer; I saw Springsteen and I saw you guys.” And it’s like, that’s very flattering to be considered in thatobviously the venue is probably a lot smaller, but to be considered. This is an experience, for these people, that’s on par, on a level, going, “I hold him and you artistically in a regard, that this is something that enhances this period of my life.” But that doesn’t exist for us everywhere. That’s more the answer than do I find audiences different. You kind of end up with a career and you get what you get, so it’s great to be held in that regard somewhere.

Not with any great thought, you start playing music and you think, “Well, maybe we’ll be everybody’s favorite band.” That clearly didn’t happen, but you’re somebody’s favorite band.

And that’s the basis of this for us. We wouldn’t be doing this unless we were somebody’s favorite band.

What was the strangest thing that ever happened to you in your professional career? I have to say two things come to mind… There used to be a club owner somewhere around Troy, New York, or around Rensselaer… The dressing room was sort of an attic/loft. You would go up the stairway and then come eye-level with the floor. And the guy had a pet leopard, but not chained so much that he couldn’t reach out and swipe you as you ascended into the dressing room.

The craziest thing was when he took us to the local college station and put the leopard in the back of the car. So the leopard is in the back of the car and it’s got a collar on and it’s got a heavy metal leash, so the leopard is essentially tethered into the trunk of this station wagon.

But if you’re walking by this car you don’t see that. You just see a leopard. And believe me, you park your car and everybody goes to the radio station and you leave a leopard in the back of your car- people are going to react. So that was a little odd. That’s certainly one of the oddest things. Also, Upstate New York… there used to be a guy in Rochester. He had this big restaurant/club complex and he was always doing something new and adding to it.

And he built volleyball courts and would have these volleyball tournaments and he would get people from the various colleges, pro-referees, and it would be like amateur semi-butreal tournaments. And when we returned one

year, he had built an enclosed- like a sports bubble. Like you’ve seen where they have these big giant structures that are not exactly hard sided, but kind of inflatable- but gigantic. And I showed up one year and the revolving doors were covered in brown paper. And I was like, “What are you doing, coed nude volleyball?” And he goes, “Yeah.” Coed nude volleyball! I mean, come on. So those are some of the weirdest things. I will say that on another level, our career had a very sort of rock-n-roll tinge to it. And so a lot of things… Like, if you look at a movie like Spinal Tap or Almost Famous- even though Spinal Tap is straight-out satire and farce- I can look at things in Spinal Tap, I can look at things in Almost Famous and say, “You know, that happened to us. We had to peel somebody off a ledge. Maybe it wasn’t on top of a roof diving into a swimming pool, but it was a ledge. And it was five stories up. There were substances involved, you know, so I can say no more about that.

What’s the worst place you’ve ever stayed on the road? You know, you’re young, you’re a folk singer, you’re sleeping on somebody’s couch, or you’re in some really, really bad hotels. Places you probably shouldn’t be in, and probably you’re the only people actually going to bed in that hotel. So there’s not one absolute worst place when you play as many gigs as... but I will tell you that I don’t do that anymore. For whatever reason, we come in contact with people like, “Well, we can put you up.” And I’m like, “Well, unless you wanna come down at three in the morning and see me sitting on your couch in my underwear flipping channels, I don’t think you want me staying at your house.” So I always tell people. Rex is a little more fluid than I am. But people ask, and I always say, “I’m not that sleep-on-your-couch folk singer; I’m the take-me-to-the-Hilton-Garden-Inn kind of folk singer.”

You developed a classroom series. How did that come about? We knew some people who were teachers- music teachers- and they were like, “I’d love to have you come and talk to my class about what it is you do.” And so, it’s like, Okay, let’s go talk about… here’s “This Land is Your Land” and then here’s “Blowing in the Wind” and here’s “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and here’s what came in between. Here was Howl and here was On the Road and how that changed. It was obvious for Bob Dylan; he started on this path, clearly kind of appropriating a persona of Woody Guthrie. And then his life experience led him to Beats, and he appropriated that and included that language, and that’s how you get from “Blowing in the Wind” to “Mr. Tambourine Man.” It just kind of came about. Now I think we’re much more involved, and had a much longer relationship with looking at the duos of pop music who really influenced our specific kind of music. I think that’s what we’re doing up in Oxford, the classic duos.

Do you prefer records, CDs, or digital music? I certainly am a believer that nothing is as warm as listening to vinyl records.

But then again, you’re going to pop up every 15 minutes to turn the record over… And also, I keep telling young people this, it’s like... it’s funny because just before the holidays in our apartment building we were having a little gathering and there was this couple that lives

on the next floor up, and their daughter was turning 14 a couple of days after Christmas, and they were telling me how she had asked for a record player to play vinyl. And I was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” Now, when you’re the parent of a 14-year-old you don’t want to hear this, but I tell it to a lot of people. And that is, you gotta say to young people (not your 14-year-old neighbor, but slightly older younger people, you know): take an ounce of pot, dump it onto your iPod, and try to shake out the seeds and the stems. Not gonna work as well. You want the Beatles “White Album,” that big double album. But it’s all got its place.

It’s a very strange time in the world of technology and the delivery of music. It’s brought us forward, and it’s also brought us back in some other ways, more having to do with the rights and protection of intellectual property.

In some ways we’re like back in... post-Civil War, where there is no law. And if there was, there’s no real method of enforcing that law.

So if you’re Edgar Allan Poe or Stephen Foster you- perhaps coincidentally- are gonna die young, broke, and drunk while everybody is printing your stuff in the backroom. Now the drunk part is optional, but somehow it seems to be a common thread between the two of those guys. But that’s from more of my perspective, not from the perspective of the listener who listening to Pandora or something like that.

Have you ever played at 6 on the Square before (it used to be called The Night Eagle)? We’ve never been at 6 on the Square but we’ve been to Oxford to play The Night Eagle more times than I could count. Come and see us play. I mean, you know, Lord knows it is a fun show. It has been fun to play the Simon and Garfunkel songs, it’s fun to play the Everly Brothers songs, it’s fun to get a Chad and Jeremy song in, and it’s fun to get a Peter and Gordon song in, and these are really the people who really influenced us in pursuing this acoustic duo thing… and we do Aztec Two-Step, too. uuu 6 on the Square came into being to fill the musical void left when Night Eagle closed.

“When the Night Eagle left Oxford and moved to Binghamton, a group of community members gathered (in January of 2007) to look at possibilities for the venue,” explains manager Nancy Morey. “The group that gathered wanted to see music continue as the focus, with more community activities within the space.” As a result of their work, 6 on the Square opened its doors in June 2007 as a non-profit, volunteer-based organization dedicated to providing exceptional acoustic music, showcasing local artists, and hosting community activities. It’s a listening venue, according to Nancy, “Serving desserts, coffees (from local roaster FoJo Beans), teas, sodas, and waters.” In addition to scheduled performances, exhibits, and community functions, they hold monthly open mics and drum circles. The club is located at 6 Lafayette Park in Oxford. The Aztec Two-Step show commences at 7:30pm on the 7th. Tickets are $30 pre-show and $35 at the door. They may be purchased online or using a mail-in form available on the website. For further information, go to: 6onthe square.org, their Facebook site, or contact info@6onthesquare.org.

STEVE STRAUSS

8 Vol. 3 Issue 1

CELEBRATES RELEASE OF

SEA OF DREAMS Phil Westcott Staff Writer

On February 28th Strauss and Co. will take the stage at Cyber Café West, where Steve Strauss, a familiar figure, will appear to celebrate his fantastic 3rd release, Sea of Dreams.

He has played hundreds of shows (literally) at Cyber, as both the main act and as a supporting guitarist to many bands, including the house band for many years, Monkeys Typing.

In his new project, Strauss and Co., he looks to combine his years of experience into a new, electrified sound. The expressive blues soul he indubitably possesses shines through, and he hopes to record a new album relatively soon.

We were lucky enough to sit down with him and get his thoughts on the recording process, and of his time playing. uuu How did you get you get your start in music? Have you been local the whole time or...? No, I’m not from around here; I grew up on Long Island. I came here to go to college in the eighties, and kind of got stuck here like a lot of people do. It’s an interesting place, I think it has to do with the confluence of the rivers- it’s a vortex. There’s a lot of really talented people around here. I’ve been playing seriously since I was 12. I’m 50 this year so, it’s been a few years. I’m mostly selftrained; I found lessons too tedious and constrictive. I wasn’t in a lot of bands. I mostly played by myself, and didn’t start writing until my early twenties.

Do you find it easier to be the head of the band or a supporting player? I have great aptitude and energy for being the leader of the band. It’s a difficult role, driving and being responsible... You need to attract professional musicians. In Strauss and Co., I don’t want it to be me; I have to be very concentrated on playing and singing the songs, so I’d rather it’d be someone else. I like to sit back and let other people drive. There are two sides to my art: one is guitar playing, and the other is song writing.

You’re steeped in the blues and rock traditions. What drew you to that? Blues is about expression. It’s not about shredding, although there are great players. The long, sustained notes- what we call ‘tasty playing’- it’s almost like having a conversation.

You’re expressing your feelings in the music;

it’s about expression for me. My brother was a blues harp player, and so I listened to a lot of classic blues growing up. We used to drive 35 minutes to Dan Lynch’s on the Lower East Side on Sundays for a jazz jam, and I met a lot of bluesmen that way. I call myself a blues stylist, and say that my music is blues infused.

How did Strauss and Co. form? Part of it was wanting to go under my own name. If I’m going to give a singer-songwriter advice, it’d be go under your own name. The other part was the company- I wanted it to be like a theatre company, where it’s going to be whoever I need at the time. Right now I play with Tony Sulzynki and Rick Iac0velli, and Mike Whitney. I wanted to be able to play what I wanted.

Do you remember your first show at Cyber Cafe? What do you like about playing here? It was a solo acoustic show, in the late nineties or early 2000s. The thing about Cyber is it’s an actual venue; there’s an actual stage. There’s something fun about playing in a bar, and I’m just starting to enjoy it now, but a stage elevates the music, both literally and figuratively. A stage is designed to elevate the music: it creates the music as the focal point.

Sometimes, there’s only four or five people clapping, or only one riveted person, but that’s like a whole audience for me. I’d rather play for one riveted person then 50 people who aren’t paying attention.

Who’s your favorite local artist other than yourself? My other favorite local songwriter is Dan Pokorak, and Joe Alston too, of course. I know we have a lot of great talent, but those are the guys I see the most.

Tell me about your new album. What was the recording process like? This is an example of artistic serendipity. A friend of mine lives in Texas, and introduced me to his record label, Stockfisch Records. He sent in my tape, and I got an email saying that his producer would like to record me. That was 1998, and that was the first album. Songwriting is like a tree growing to me. The second album was in 2004. Each song is a sculpture, and craft is important to me. uuu Steve Strauss wrote all the lyrics and music, as well as created all of the artwork for this album. Again, the show is Saturday, February 28th at the Cyber Cafe, and promises to be absolutely off the walls. The album is available now on Amazon, and will be available soon at Music City and AudioClassics locally.

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binghamton galaxybrewingco.com FOR FULL EVENT LISTINGS AND MORE INFO

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 9

FROM THE BACK OF A MOVING TRAIN TO THE STREETS OF BINGHAMTON: Heather Merlis Assistant Editor

Salsa Libre is one of the few bastions of Latin culture in the Triple Cities. A group that has been through many incarnations and is diversely composed, in terms of ethnic and musical backgrounds, they bring the “spirit of salsa” to a region that would be otherwise bereft of music with this kind of flavor.

Ithaca. So, on a lark, I went down and asked if we do a performance. [The owner] gave me a date, five or six weeks away, and that’s when I started calling people to start a band. Then, two, three weeks later, the Ithaca band cancels, so we arrived at a very accelerated pace.

We had horn players, a percussionist, a Latin vocalist, and Carlos was a part of it- we wanted someone who was very dedicated to Salsa.

And we were playing every Saturday for a year or so.

ting into, and then I got really into salsa music. I have a history, I guess, of self-educating.

RW: We’re all self-taught. Meaning, we can study with people either directly or indirectly through recordings, but everything is self-education.

How did you come up with this name?

TY: It’s a traditional thing. It’s about the spirit of something.

RW: The spirit of salsa. Salsa itself is an amal-

How has Binghamton treated you as a band?

TY: For an eight-piece Salsa band, pretty well.

RW: I think it’s exciting to consider the possibilities that may emerge from this, not only for ourselves, but for these other creative [local] bands, to develop and grow audiences and more connections to community- that perhaps more and more people will realize that there a individuals who can contribute culturally to the diversity of the area. It’s great to have that and be proud of that.

TY: And some of those gigs we played outdoors at Zona’s- the patio was packed and people were literally dancing in the streets.

RW: It’s just a wonderful feeling, when you walk downtown, and you start smiling because there’s something to smile about.

Carousel sat down for a conversation between Taze Yanick, guitarist extraordinaire, and Robert Weinberger, world musician and multi-instrumentalist, as they recalled the path to their musical present. uuu How did you two meet?

Taze Yanick: Probably playing jazz at the Lost Dog or something. We did some jazz gigs before Salsa Libre.

How did you find your way into playing salsa?

Robert Weinberger: For me, it was a long process. I was performing contemporary jazz and some rock-n-roll, and involved in some Afro-Caribbean music in this community in the late seventies, early eighties, through the college. So I have some experience with congas and djembe, African music. Then I spent some time living in Puerto Rico, up in the San Juan area, in the early nineties, and then joined a world music group out of New York City. Then I came back here, and I reconnected with some people I knew from many years ago, including Carlos [Chaluisant], who I met at the university from 1970-74. I came back here in ’95, playing a lot of world music, and started Unity Group in ’97.

TY: When would you say Salsa Libre got started?

RW: There was one gig- I was contacted by the Binghamton First Night people to do a performance at the YWCA downtown Binghamton. I transcribed and arranged [the music] for one show, and then it all went back in the vault for a couple of years.

TY: That’s what happened with me- you asked if I could play Latin, and I was assuming you meant Bossa Nova, basically, but then you came in with “La Banda” written out, and I was like, What the hell is-?! Rob got me into it, and I became nuts about it.

RW: There was a restaurant called La Chalet, at the very end of Old Vestal Road, and I read that it was having live Salsa music every Saturday night- a band coming down from

ple. It’s weird, trying to make audiences with this band, because it’s not weird music; it’s traditional- like classic rock, but classic salsa.

There’s an audience that doesn’t tend to go to other things. When it’s a good show, it’s wallto-wall salsa dancers. It’s a built-in crowd. I’m always trying to tell my friends in the, sort of, folk-Americana scene, Why don’t you guys come see Salsa Libre? You think you don’t like it; maybe you don’t know what it is, but I bet you you’ll love it. It’s hard to get people from different scenes to cross over.

Salsa Libre. (RW 2nd from left. TY 2nd from right. Provided.

TY: We did outdoors in the summertime.

RW: It was fun. We’ve played colleges, festivals, special shows; we played the Blues TrainTY: We played on the back of a moving train.

What’s your musical background?

TY: I was a metal head in high school […] in Seattle. I got really into jazz in my late teens; self-educated by listening to records and transcribing solos. I got into all kinds of other things- I was in a band called the Balkan Connection for a while, and I self-studied, againTurkish, Greek, and Bulgarian gypsy music. I was in commercial work with Rob- played on a cruise ship, for a while, where Rob was my boss. The salsa began in the late nineties- it was Rob who got me into it, he sort of threw me into the fire- I didn’t know what I was get-

gamation. There are elements of the mambo, some very enlivening dance combinations.

Are there any other Latin bands in Binghamton?

TY: One, Sonando, but that’s with me and half of Salsa Libre.

How has it been, being the only group like this?

RW: So lonely!

TY: But it’s interesting- there’s a certain audience who will come out for it.

Who? RW: Dance-oriented people.

TY: Some of the crowd tends to be older [than college-aged]; Spanish-speaking peo-

What do you hope to bring to your audiences?

TY: Good music, first of all.

RW: And an accurate spirit of what the music represents.

TY: It’s very precise music.

RW: It’s perhaps one of the most difficult musical idioms I’ve studied. The amount of information necessary to make salsa a living process is exhaustive. It’s like going on [a] roller coaster. When it’s done well, the audience, the dancers, and the musicians get taken for this ride. We’ve been playing some of these charts for 14 years, and I’m not really tired of them. It feels like we’re about to go for this ride, and something can happen in the middle of it that’s really invigorating and wonderfulif it’s done well. uuu Salsa Libre currently consists of Taze Yanick on guitar, Robert Weinberger on reeds and percussion, Carlos Chaluisant on timbales, Moises Donato on bass, David Perez on congas, Dennis Martinez on trombone, Vic Merrill on trumpet, and Freddy Mendoza on vocals and percussion. They will be playing at Merlin’s Dance Club Wine Bar Lounge, located at 73 Court Street in Binghamton, this First Friday, February 6th, from 8:30pm to midnight.

SALSA LIBRE’S WILD RIDE

10 Vol. 3 Issue 1

DAN DUGGAN AND PEGGY LYNN Photo Provided.

TO PERFORM AT CRANBERRY COFFEEHOUSE Ronnie Vuolo Assistant Editor

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

-Robert Frost Dan Duggan and Peggy Lynn have taken the road less traveled. Native to Central New York, their musical journeys started early, diverged, and continue to grow, sometimes in unexpected ways. After an early foray in blues, Dan became interested in traditional music while in college in Fredonia.

“One of my friends, Tom Stocky, played the hammered dulcimer, and then after I met Sterl VanArsdale at the College Lodge, I was hooked,” he explains. “I really fell in in love with the dulcimer and started to write music, and in 1985 won the National Hammered Dulcimer Contest in Winfield, Kansas, playing pieces I had written. Winning the contest really helped to boost my career nationally, and I started traveling across the country performing at festival and concert venues in many states.”

With increased recognition came increased demand. “Paul [Simon] was looking for a hammered dulcimer player for a project he was working on, and someone in the studio recommended me.” This led to his performance on Simon’s 2000 release of “You’re the One,” collaborations with other artists, and national airtime on NPR. A prolific composer, he plays traditional Irish and American music as well as his own creative innovations.

His deep interest in perfecting his art led him, along with woodworker John O’Hara, to create Blackhawk hammered dulcimers, as well as to design a smaller travel version.

For the past 32 years he’s performed with John Kirk and Rick Bunting as the Susquehanna String Band, whose body of work includes two symphonic suites. But it was his work with fellow musician Dan Berggren that eventually led him to a personal and professional collaboration with Peggy. “I had been playing music with Dan for many years, and Peg had been playing with Dan for a few years.

We all started to perform together and really hit it off. That is how the trio Jamcrackers was born,” he recalls.

Peggy Lynn came from a musical family for

whom singing was “like breathing.” Her early years singing in church choir and playing multiple instruments led to bar gigs in her twenties, and songwriting in her thirties. Her song ideas are drawn from her many and varied passions. With degrees in forestry (she recorded two musical science CD’s for children), women’s studies, and American and women’s history, she states, “My research on women informs all of my philosophy and writing.” Attending college in the Adirondacks drew her interest to the role of women in that region, resulting in the writing of a book, Breaking Trail: Remarkable Women of the Adirondacks, with Sandra Weber, and her being named “Adirondack Woman of the Year” in 1996.

Her deep concern for women’s issues eventually led her to Fran Yardley, and their creation of Creative Healing Connections, an organization that holds creativity-oriented healing retreats for women veterans and those suffering from serious illness. In 2013 she received the Altes Prize from Empire State College in honor of this work. In addition to an extensive schedule of performing, recording, lecturing, and hosting workshops, she now teaches parttime for Empire State College.

Married for almost 12 years, Dan and Peggy’s lives together include solo and collaborative efforts in many areas, including a new recording project. They live on a 50-acre farm in Red Creek, that Dan purchased in 1987. “I saw this old farm, and on the door, the name Esperance Fruit Farm was written,” he says.

“Esperance is the French word for hope and has become my business name, publishing company’s name, and record label’s name.”

This is a fitting title for a man who is also a cancer survivor.

On Saturday, February 21st, the duo plays Binghamton’s Cranberry Coffeehouse at 7:30pm. “We look forward to seeing old friends and meeting some new ones, and performing some of our old favorites and new collaborations. We really like the venues where we can feel a connection with our audience, and that is what we look forward to at the Cranberry Coffeehouse.”

Cranberry Coffeehouse is located at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 183 Riverside Drive in Binghamton. The suggested donation at the door is $8. For further information contact (607) 754-9437 or cranberrycoffeehouse@yahoo.com.

POCKET VINYL: ART MEETS MUSIC MEETS LOVE February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 11

Phil Westcott Staff Writer

Photo Provided.

Pocket Vinyl is a two-piece art and music love affair out of New London, Connecticut.

Comprised of the emotive and evocative pianist/singer/songwriter Eric Stevenson, and painter Elizabeth Jancewics- who creates vibrant visual odes to all things natural and nautical onstage at every show- these two serve as mutual muses on their shared creative journey. Mr. Stevenson spoke with Carousel on behalf of this deftly expressive duo. uuu What is music to you? Do you own the music or does it own you? I’ve actually been thinking about this a bit more recently.

Perhaps it’s just for the poetic beauty of it, but I like to think of any song as something I “discovered” rather than “created.” Kind of like it was there the entire time and I just happened upon it. After all, it’s not like any of the notes or words I’m using are new, just the way I’ve arranged them. I guess I feel like it’s not mine.

Art and music are linked inextricably and especially during your shows- what do you view as the purpose of this link?

That is, how does the interplay affect what you produce? The art and music affects each other, but in a long-term way. A lot of people ask if what Elizabeth is painting is directly because of what I’m playing that night, which is not the case. Nor are the songs I’m playing due to the painting she’s doing at the moment. However, since we both love each other and each other’s art, and we are always creating around each other and bouncing ideas off of one another, we can’t help but be influenced by what the other is doing, regardless of the medium. At this point, 420+ shows in, we feel both the art and music are two things that are lacking without the other. We always have that on our minds, so it definitely affects the direction we each head down, even if they’re completely different.

It’s like two people on two separate roads, yet we’re on walkie-talkies and give directions to the other.

Where did you meet, and how did you fall in love? Did it involve Scrabble? It did not involve Scrabble, but when we got engaged I sent her on a scavenger hunt all around town. That was fun. We both met in school at Houghton College. Then we both went to teach English in South Korea and it was there we became a bit more than friends.

Shortly after we started dating, we came back from Korea and devised our whole “piano slamming/live painting” thing and realized that it worked really well! We actually made money on our first tour, which is unheard of for small bands. After we spent those five weeks traveling around together, we realized we weren’t sick of each other at all. It felt weird for both of us, but then we got married in 2011 and started touring around full time, and we have no mind to stop.

How do you interpret the following quote by John Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty – that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”? I suppose he’s saying that anything that is beauty must be true, and only in truth can true beauty

exist. That perhaps anything that is beautiful has some sense of truth to it. But the biggest problem with this is interpreting exactly what “truth” is. If someone is an excellent speaker, yet they use their gift to spread lies and deceit, is there still truth in that? Do we define truth as “factual” or perhaps as anything we can connect to? I think most, if not all, people would agree that some weird sense of truth exists in a sunset. Not that it’s there, but just that it’s special or pretty or beautiful or something, yet how do you define exactly what that truth is? To say that “yes the sunset exists and it is there” doesn’t really describe the feeling we all get when we see one.

What’s been your favorite part of touring? Is there a specific moment that sticks out to you in a ‘Wow, what are we doing?’ sort of way? The first thing that popped into my head, and often what I think about when reflecting on past tours, are the small moments that have no consequence, but can mean everything. This one time, we finished up a crappy show where no one really listened at some coffee shop. We start-

ed at 6pm and the placed closed at 8pm. No one offered us a place to stay, which meant we were sleeping in the car that night. So we decided to get a $5 pizza from a nearby Little Caesar’s, drove to a Walmart parking lot, got a Redbox movie, and watched it on my laptop in the car. It was kind of cold that night, but there we were, sitting in an abandoned corner of a parking lot, eating pizza and watching a movie, just kind of waiting to get tired enough to sleep in the car a few hours later… I have a smile on my face thinking about it. It was miserable, uncomfortable, and it was unequivocally fun and joyous. Perhaps it’s hard to convey, but that is definitely a “how did our life lead to this moment?” kind of feeling. Those moments are often forgotten, too, which is a shame, but in a way it only makes them better in my mind.

Who’s gonna be the president of the United States in eight years? Once on tour a few years ago, this guy at a Kentucky rest stop told me he was going to run for President in 2020, and that he was traveling around the country by foot to meet the American people face to face to get their vote. He was younger than I was, and aimed to be the youngest president in history. He then told me how he was sure he would marry Taylor Swift. He was certainly a very interesting man. I hope all his dreams come true.

Your latest album is thumping and melancholy, in the best of ways. What was the inspiration for your album?

Where did these songs come from?

For “Death Anxiety,” I would have to say the main inspiration was death. I was incredibly terrified by death, and in an effort to alleviate that fear, I figured I should try to face it head on. So I wrote a bunch of songs about death and all that surrounds it. I figured why not try to channel my fears into something positive.

At least that was the goal. Thankfully our fans have seemed to be on board with it. uuu Pocket Vinyl has toured nationally and is excited to return to Cyber Café West on February 20th at 9pm. It’s going to be a phenomenally badass show! Also, beer.

Klossner Stringed Instruments -acoustic & electric -refrets -setups -nuts & saddles -structural repairs

(607) 727-9012

SERVICING ALL FRETTED STRINGED INSTRUMENTS

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 13

celebrate.

THAT’S A

HOLIDAY? We like to do things a little bit different here at Carousel, and holidays are no exception. We’re bored of hearing the same-old same-old when it comes to tried and true seasonal celebrations, so we’ve tasked our own FELICIA WAYNESBORO with the monthly responsibility of filling us in on all the holidays we’ve been missing… uuu It’s almost a legend now that circa 2005 a guy named Dustin Barnes- who was then one of the editors of the student newspaper on the Mississippi State University campus- wrote an article blasting the commercialism of Valentine’s Day. He reminded the student population that in the midst of all the hype about romance there are many unacknowledged individuals who are not half of a couple. Barnes suggested that singlehood could be celebrated in its own right. According to certain archival records, the article gained national attention and Singles Awareness Day was born as its own S.A.D. celebration on Valentine’s Day. After tracing Barnes through a round-about colleague of an acquaintance route, I wasn’t ultimately able to unearth him as he is today; but one thing I did learn is that the holiday has evolved since Dustin introduced it.

The holiday appears on a few calendars and is referenced at many places on the Internet.

“Yes, I am familiar with Singles Awareness Day,” says Jeremy Bowker, program coordinator of Late Nite Binghamton on the University campus. “We held an anti-Valentine’s Day event a couple of years ago,” he told me. But that was probably before many celebrators decided that sadness and rebellion were not the appropriate spirit and moved the holiday to its own annual date of February 15th.

When asked if her Meetup group fetes the holiday, Lori Rae Silvers, a co-organizer of the Binghamton Singles Social Club answered with a stunned, “Wow,” then added, “no.” She says she had never heard of S.A.D. and reports that she and some of her single friends make a restaurant reservation for a “group date” on Valentine’s Day. Silvers speaks of breakups- the commonest reason one may find oneself single- saying, “Selfish is really good for people who’ve just come out of relationships, so we’ve found. It’s healing.” Broken up or not, if you’re looking to celebrate Singles Awareness Day with some positive selfishness, one trusty way is to book your spa treatment of choice.

Singlesawareness.com suggests a more altruistic form of celebration: Buy a dozen (or more?) roses and pass them out, one by one, to complete strangers who look like they could really use a little flower-therapy.

Lori Rae laughed through her words as she pointed out that when you’re on your own, “You don’t HAVE to be nice to anybody.” The Cherry Bomb Comedy troupe, in their homage to Singles Awareness Day on YouTube, very convincingly listed the absence of a bedmate’s occasional (or frequent?) gaseous nocturnal emissions (my delicate expression, not theirs) as one of the many reasons to enjoy being single! uuu The Girl Scouts/Girl Guides and the Boy Scouts each celebrate an annual holiday in February.

A British nobleman - Robert, Lord Baden-Powell - founded the Scouting movement in the early 1900s. He and his wife - Olave, Lady Baden-Powell – coincidentally shared the same birthdate, February 22nd. The World Association of Girl Guides & Girl Scouts decided in 1926 to honor the Baden-Powell’s mutual birthday annually, to be celebrated as World Thinking Day. The Boy Scouts of America decided to honor the day of their incorporation in 1910February 8th- annually to celebrate…themselves. Is this another instance of a Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus focus on life?

176 Main Street Binghamton (607) 723-2456 cybercafewest.com sunday

monday

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Beer Sale Beer Sale

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Team Trivia Team Trivia

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Fe br ua r y Eve nt s

tuesday wednesday thursday Open Mic

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M o n k e y ’4s Typing

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Iacovelli

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5 g Thin Two

friday

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Kim & Chris

spheerius

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17 Karaoke

18 Adam Ate

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Po & D c k e t 20 ap Vi Ma hne L nyl rtin ee

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22 Beer Sale

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24 Tues. Nite

J a m i 25 Wil e

26 Mary

27 John Wylde Band

2 Steve 8

Jammers

the Apple

lard

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Strauss

&C o

Nothing says Valentine’s Day quite like cybering with the one you love.

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 15

valentine’s day.

HOW TO WIN AT VALENTINE’S DAY Krissy Howard Staff Writer As someone who, for the most part, grew up in the Northeast, I feel I have earned the right to declare February the WORST month of the entire year. Sure it’s the shortest, but only because it needs to be- you can’t be the coldest month and have Valentine’s Day at the same time, you just cannot!

Many people do not know this, but Valentine’s Day was founded two million years ago in super-ancient Rome, when Julius Caesar’s sidepiece produced JC Junior, and let me tell you, she was none too inconspicuous about it either. Terrified that his wife would find out, he promised to devote an entire day to his lovely crowd favorite, Valentine, because you can’t let an independent woman who blows the roof off the joint to ‘Hot for Teacher’ on Wednesdays, Fridays, and every other Saturday slip between your fingers gentlemen, you just cannot!

Unfortunately for us, the holiday originally intended to honor the most important (or at least, the second most important) person in our lives has since lost its romantic flair by way mainstream consumerist banality.

Everyone hates Valentine’s Day, everyone. It is obvious why single people would despise

it, a day devoted solely to the recognition of already seemingly happy couples, but what many single people are not aware of is this: most couples are not as happy as they seem on the internet, and Valentine’s Day sucks for them too.

Why? How could a day reserved for the honor and appreciation of the one person you love and care for more than any other person in the entire world be awful? Well if you would shut up for five seconds I would tell you! It sucks because it is designed to make us fail, like casinos, or being young and black and a man in America (or a woman pretty much anywhere). Try as we might, there is just no way to win; the entire holiday is riddled with far too many expectations. You can’t go out to eat because it’s too crowded, and neither of your dumb asses had the foresight to make a reservation two weeks ago. So you try to make something at home, hiding under the guise of “romanticism,” but it ends up being disgusting as you have already mixed together all the necessary ingredients before realizing you’re short one egg, leaving you to fancy up some nasty spaghetti with a lame attempt at “garlic bread” as you sit in silent contemplation over whether or not you could actually see yourself having children with this idiot.

It does not have to be this bad. What if I told you, that for the low, low price of $29.95, you can win at Valentine’s, every times! Below I have outlined a brief sample of my kid-tested, mother-approved FIVE POINT GUIDE to surviving Valentine’s Day.

1. Limit expectations. Flowers and chocolates, or maybe even just one or the other, depending on how long you two have been together.

When shopping for a man, get nothing. Men do not care about holidays in general, especially not a commercialized piece of shit one like Valentine’s Day. Absolutely under no circumstances are you to attempt to give jewelry.

Jewelry is for birthdays, anniversaries, and whatever religious holiday you celebrate the other hundred times a year. If your partner expects jewelry- run. Seriously, who are you?

Make sure you swipe the chocolates back up on your way out the door.

2. Don’t be an idiot. This point is kind of an addendum to the first one. Limit expectations, but don’t be an idiot. I don’t care if your partner is one of those cynics who make it a point to tell everyone on Facebook that the original St. Valentine was some child-molesting animal rapist who was burned at the stake for shoplifting canned food donations from the CHOW bin at Wegmans; you cannot just do nothing. Be nicer or scrape their windshield or remember to buy milk or something. I feel like those little considerations tend to mean more anyway (everyone does love chocolate though, wink wink).

3. Celebrate on a different day. I have done this. In fact, I tend to prefer to do this for any day reserved for honor and celebration besides birthdays and anniversaries, as it just takes the “This day is gonna be perfect!” story that you know we all come up with, and decreases the pressure valve just enough to al-

low some oxygen back into your brain. If you want to spend Valentine’s Day with your love, do it on the following Tuesday or something.

This way you definitely get a table, your server will have time to care about what you want, and it really will feel like a day just for you two as everyone else will be at home trying to figure out how to amend that missing eggs debacle from earlier.

4. Just avoid it. Perhaps you are among the millions of people out there who just absolutely hate this holiday, you can easily just “Have to work babe, what do you want me to do?!”

Offer to work and get out of the whole thing entirely.

5. Be single. Or if you are really one of those “go big or go home types” just opt out of being involved in a romantic partnership and go it alone on everyone else’s special day (and every other day, for that matter). No one leaves disappointed, and the only person you have to share that heart-shaped Papa John’s pizza with is Y-O-U! Now get back to masturbating and marathon-watching whatever new show is on Netflix, you losers!

Valentine’s Day: sure it’s stupid, but it’s only one day of the year. And if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times, it’s spelled “Valentimes” Day, as in, “How many times do I need to ask if you really mean it when you say ‘no gifts’ before it’s safe to think you might actually mean it?” Pick up a book every once in a while, gosh.

16 Vol. 3 Issue 1

KADY PERRY PAINTS

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 17

the town red Kady Perry is a Binghamton artist currently living in Brooklyn, although she still spends a lot of time in the 607.

She is both quirky and outgoing, open and beautiful. She is a proud native, Binghamton through and through. Her art is sometimes huge- she has murals all over. Her work is an emotional response to the environment that she grew up in, and she has been a major player in the arts scene here for five years. Perry has a unique view of Binghamton, fostered by her life experiences, shaped by both growing up in the town and also completing her college degree at the University. She could have a perfect day helping artists get into contact with opportunities for their own advancement, but she doesn’t stop there. Her work with the Quarter Yellow Family brought local art to the attention of our community, and her constant pushing has brought it to the attention of the world outside. She answers questions real well, too. See below. uuu When did you first start doing art? I was made creatively, from day one. I’ve always had crayons in my hand; I’m an illustrator. In 2008, I got into painting and realized that my doodling could transfer to a wall… picking up a brush and realizing “I can draw with this!”

It encouraged my creativity and let me think outside the bus. In 2010, I took a more mindful approach to being a cultural leader.

I think that’s one of the most interesting things that you’ve done. You helped to create a lively arts scene here in Binghamton. What drove you to involve yourself? I’ve never actually thought about it. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I’m just a naturally creative person, and I love hanging out with other artists; helping them to create. So, inherently in my social interactions, I would ask people what they were doing, what they were working on; focus the conversation on art and art projects, from baking to fine art.

Whatever people do to get weird. It was just passion.

What was the pull to Brooklyn? More wild giraffes in Binghamton. Just more wildlife in general. But seriously, I’m a grant writer, and in trying to get more resources, I had to move. I’ve been trying to get million dollar grants into Binghamton. It wasn’t planned.

I got a once in a life time opportunity. I had to learn more about the art world in order to help local artists. I’ve been exposed to so much, and I’m able to share that with the community.

Do you think your art reflects Bingham-

ton? Absolutely. I had an interesting experience in being a Binghamton townie and a student, so I was able to involve myself in a bunch of different worlds. I’ve done different projects based on those experiences- from talking to a homeless man under the bridge, all the way up to the Mayor’s Ball, as well as on campus events. My work is highly reflective of that. From my perspective, it’s this really weird, wild, kind of like… Twilight Zone. It’s evolving, but at the core of it...

It’s got its own panache. So, growing up in Binghamton, if you have to pick a river, which would you choose? The Susquehanna. This is a dirty opportunity to say that. I can’t make a choice, but we swam in the Susquehanna. We didn’t fucking ski or do any of that. We swam in the Susquehanna.

What’s your favorite part about Nilla Wafers? A recent invention. I’ve been experimenting with edible art, brandy and tequila cakes, and the whole thing started with Nilla Wafers. I invented this art cake thing for a friend who loved them.

If you had to use one word to encompass your artistic pursuits, what would it be? Public!

Do you self-identify as a realist or idealist? I’m a romantic. I romanticize everything.

I’m not a realist. Being grounded in reality and operating on the common human schedule is a job for everyone else. I’m totally off the radar, off the scale. I have a very non-traditional approach to life. I see everything with starry eyes. There was a lot of chaos in the times that I grew up, so I value my positivity. People tell me my energy is contagious, and it’s genuine.

I’m excited for life.

That’s interesting to me. Sometimes Binghamton can seem bleak to me, and I use that judiciously. There’s a part that makes me want to hope for more, and a part that makes me wonder where we are. Do you sense that?

Do you feel you had to leave to understand? I’ve never spent any time in Binghamton thinking I was bored or that there was nothing to do. I’ve never seen that side of Binghamton. To me, it’s a laboratory; it’s a classroom. I hate to say this, but it’s a magical land! It’s a great place for creative artists.

There’s a reason you can be writer, a poet, a musician, an artist- for some, even around the clock. I’m totally awe-inspired and smitten by the city. This is the real meat: I struggled to survive, but now it’s the struggle to thrive. I spent many years fighting everything around me. I grew up in the ‘90s in Broome County. I have a very interesting family history. I don’t have parents, and I have been fiercely independent since the age of 15. I ran away and

art.

by Phil Westcott

never looked back. I have been on a crazy adventure ever since… For the first time in 25 years, I would say I am proud of myself. I miss that- motivation and encouragement- it has always been lacking. So often, people who really know me ask me what the secret is. How do I do what I do? What moves me? Even in answering the question, I struggle to comb this out. You. You move me. Everyone but me.

I have ignored myself for 25 years, and only recently embraced the opportunity to reflect and look deep into my own soul.

with my art supplies. Also, doomsday planning...

What do you think would create a more positive creative atmosphere in Binghamton, where young artists and professionals would stay around? I think two things. I think that people are overworked in Binghamton, that their creativity is limited by their tiredness… The other thing is connecting. Some people don’t know the next step. They don’t know how to rely on and trust in their community. But, we can’t work together if we are an overworked population.

What do you have planned for 2015 in Binghamton? I spearheaded a two million dollar open art program in Binghamton. I put out an open call to the community, told them to let go of restrictions and we got some great ideas. We put it all together, and at the end of February we’ll find out if we advance. We need some cheerleaders out of the community. I started a ‘Celebration of Creativity’ during JulyFest at the MLK promenade, and I’m going to be hosting that again this summer.

Do you think there is a divide between the Binghamton University and the community? How do you bridge that?

That’s my secret. I don’t know how to say it succinctly, but that’s the root of the work that I do. Bringing together student volunteers with local talent, seeing musicians talking to WHRW deejays: the magic’s happening.

These sorts of things need to be programmed actively. There’s a lot of politics surrounding the issue, but I don’t feel that way. I lived in both worlds, and I made it a point to mix them.

What do you see as the Binghamton Pride? It’s that, you know, you really want it to be better. It’s so gritty and ratchet, but the opportunity to be yourself is here. I’ll bring artists from the City up to Binghamton, and they’ll have a memorable night on the town.

I’m a huge advocate for the creativity hub that is Binghamton.

What do you see as the role of business in the art world? The artist should be in the studio. They shouldn’t have to open invoices, answer emails, or take calls. That should be another person. I want to be in the art world myself, but I also want to be that person.

I want to be the support and advocacy for someone who should spend time creating.

I’m out. If I have less than ten cans of beans, that’s a bad day. I want to know more about what drives you. What makes you want art? There was no real thought. Most people have role models, but there’s not a lot of that for me. That being said, there were no restrictions. So when I discovered there was the art world, I wanted to play in it all of the time.

Tell me everything you want the Binghamton public to know right now. If you could scream into the sky on the corner of Court Street and Main, what would you say? Probably some stupid shit like ‘follow your dreams.’ Own your Binghamton persona. Don’t be depressed, don’t feel hopeless. Reverse the Twilight Zone vortex.

See it as an opportunity to make a name for yourself. You can be the only sword swallower. You can set yourself apart, be whimsical and have fun. uuu

I think that’s a really great way to look.

It’s not business in art, but business supporting art. What’s your favorite medium to create in? Personally, 3-D installation art. I like to bring objects into a space, and make it an interactive experience.

That’s the conceptual answer, but the hard answer is drawing.

What do you think of Katy Perry? They modeled her after me. When she had purple hair, I had purple hair, when she started dating a John I was already dating a John! Coincidences, but a little strange.

Will you marry me? I need a tax break, so yes. But grounds for divorce would be fucking

Kady’s got big plans for the area. She is currently working with the Binghamton Bridge program to turn blight into a canvas project with the DPA. You can contact binghamtonbridge@gmail.com for more info. Her second mural festival is coming in May, and she is working with Councilman Espinal in Bushwick to host a mural jam in Cypress Hills with xMental, Inc. She generally gives away her paintings for free and leaves them untitled, but would love to accept your money. As she says, “[My art is] an emotional response to human interaction. I get easily overwhelmed and excited, so instead of biting someone’s eyeball out so I can save it in formaldehyde, I create.”

OWEGO GALLERIES BRIM

18 Vol. 3 Issue 1

WITH AFFORDABLE TREASURES

“Black Cat Gallery” painting by Tim Tarbox.

Felicia Waynesboro Staff Writer

Got a mass-produced-made-inChina-budget but a unique-handmade-artisan-created-sensibility?

Then these are the places for you.

Gallery Forty-One and Black Cat Gallery are just a short walk apart in the Historic District of award-winning downtown Owego and both are fully loaded with works from a wide ranging scope.

When you hear the word “gallery” you may be expecting a place exhibiting works of art that you go to ponder without necessarily intending or being able to buy anything. Well, while you could get a lot of pleasure just gazing at the works showcased in either of these establishments, it could be more in the nature of browsing than rumination.

“I call this an artist’s retail store,” says Janelle Malia, co-founder, in 2010, of Black Cat Gallery.

Judy Bjorkman, a long-standing member artist of Gallery Forty-One says, “It depends on how you look at a gallery.” Seated on what gallery members have dubbed the “Spouse Couch” (based upon the barely questionable theory that guys are usually not as into shopping as their wives or girlfriends tend to be) and scanning the perimeters of a space lively with paintings, jewelry, ceramics, textile arts and more, Judy points out, “The walls are a little fuller than one would find in an actual

gallery.” This may be a bit of an understatement.

These are shops where the notions of art, fine art, decorative arts, wearable art, and crafts are blurred. Though Bjorkman- a jewelry designer who creates in brass, copper, nickel-silver and gemstones- referred to herself and the gallery members in general as, “local craftspeople,” these local and regional artisans so often apply the subjectivity of art to the skills of a craft that it is inevitable that these elements are intermingled and so interdependent that it would be difficult and undesirable to extract one from the other.

The two galleries have similar membership arrangements. Interested artists submit samples of work, which are then juried for their artistry, quality of craftsmanship, allure, and uniqueness in relation to other works already available in the shops. Malia says she also assesses artists for their personalities, since it is the member artists themselves, at both galleries, who man the shops and assist customers.

Gallery Forty-One

“It doesn’t dawn on most people,” Judy Bjorkman says, but the name of the gallery is derived from its address. That is a reflection of how much the small group of artists who founded the establishment in 1998 loved their home in Owego, which, according to several sources, was once named “Coolest Small Town in America” by Frommer’s Budget Travel Magazine. Even Forty-One’s signature logo is an inverted design from a brick tile high up on the façade of the 1887 building: true pride of location. Diane Arbes (a creator of jewelry and fiber art) and Jerry Arbes (a woodcrafter) have been partner owners since 2011, and gallery membership is currently about 25 artists.

Among the more surprising items for sale on the day Carousel visited was a “painting” of houses, trees, and a rolling field of lavender that looked very much like a Van Gogh, but was created entirely in fiber using felting techniques, by artist Ann Laczak, one of the newest members. There were leather teddy bears from crafter Marc Bowers and amazing, ever-lasting glass nail files of various sizes fashioned by Diana Tillotson, whose work also appears in the Corning Museum of Glass. Forty-One tries to keep price points below $100.

The cost of a one-of-a-kind jewelry piece, for example, can be as low as $30, and even the priciest paintings here do not exceed a few hundred dollars.

Guest artist shows- where non-member artists can have their works featured for a month- will continue in the Exhibition Room this year, and there are new plans for the upcoming months. A series of yoga classes, new community outreach events, and other developing projects are about to be born at Gallery Forty-One.

Black Cat Gallery

Where Gallery Forty-One has its “Spouse Couch,” Black Cat has its “Man Couch” (sometimes called “Kid Couch”), as the same Mars/ Venus shopping theory prevails here.

is asked how the gallery got its name, Malia says that as she was musing on the idea of a moniker, her black cat padded across her view. Images of cats often appear in her work.

Her co-founder and longtime friend Donna Townsend is a textile crafter as well.

Pride-of-location spirit also dwells at Black Cat. One of the ways the gallery supports its community is with an Art Spirit Award bestowed, almost since the gallery’s inception, on one graduating senior in each of the five high schools in Tioga County. The students do not necessarily need to have plans to become professional artists in order to receive the scholarship. They are chosen by their art teachers as young people who give form to the value and power of art.

Black Cat offers the same kind of affordability as Gallery Forty-One. Janelle points out some highlights: wet-felted hats from fiber artist Denise Tarbox (very “Downton Abbey”); mud cloth paintings and dolls in a rainbow of fleshtoned fabrics by Kathye Arrington; small and large-scale metal sculptures- sometimes realistic, sometimes whimsical- by Jim Hargrave.

February’s Artist of the Month is Paula Leab, whose jewelry creations are as creative from the back as they are when forward facing. uuu

Widely considered one of the best galleries in the region, Black Cat presents the work of about 35 local area artists.

For founder Janelle Malia, her healing arts as a massage and physical therapist morph into the aesthetic art of needle felting- the creation of pictorial representations or three-dimentional objects using a barbed needle to fashion fibers. When the Washington, D.C. transplant

Gallery Forty-One is located at 41 Lake Street; their phone number is (607) 6872876, and they can be found online at galleryfortyone.com. Black Cat Gallery is located at 190 Front Street; (607) 687-5550; blackcatgalleryowego.com. Check gallery websites for hours, membership information, and further details. And catch the action on monthly Third Friday ArtWalks!

KEN WEIR

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 19

“Jonestown” by Ken Weir.

DEMYSTIFIES THE MYSTERIES Rose Silberman-Gorn Staff Writer

The Jonestown Massacre is known as one of the largest ever deliberate losses of American life. It’s a source of inspiration for artist Ken Weir, who created a seven-and-a-half by four-foot painting inspired by the tragic event.

He interpreted the cult’s mass suicide via Kool-Aid not as a violent, chaotic occurrence, but as an oddly placid cocktail party scene.

Various figures drink stiffly while a female guard, under the direction of leader Jim Jones, looms above them in the background, seated in front of a cauldron.

Weir describes his Jonestown Massacre painting as “an allegory about belief in the purifying effects of liquid.” The liquid in question, unfortunately, had deadly rather than purifying effects. The large painting is typical of Weir, who enjoys creating figure paintings that convey an ambiguous story or dilemma.

Weir also finds inspiration in pulp illustrations on dime-store mystery novel covers, due to their ability to show multiple events happening in the same frame. Weir uses less flashy color and racy imagery than the pulp illustrations, instead focusing on intriguing scenarios painted in a realistic but somewhat painterly style.

For instance, Ken’s painting entitled “Girl Painting a Rose” depicts a lounging girl coloring a white rose red, with a vase of red roses on a table next to her. It’s a deceptively simple scene that engages the viewer by making them wonder about the story behind it.

Weir loves nothing better than to see people get involved with his work by sharing their various theories and explanations about his paintings. “I want people to wonder about the things that are happening in the painting,

and I hope people will identify with my work in different ways,” he explains. Much of his enjoyment of painting figures comes from this desire to connect with viewers. “With figures, I can engage the viewer and communicate a bit more than I would with other subjects.”

Interest in painting figures also stems from Weir’s experience at the New York Studio School in the 1970s, studying under Paul Georges. “Figure painting was taboo in New York at the time, which just reinforced my interest in it,” he explains. Weir also enjoys “building on the rich tradition of figure painting,” as he puts it, by studying masters of the genre such as Alex Katz and Edouard Vuillard.

Weir began his education in art by taking several studio classes while majoring in Biophysics at Cornell University. The classes piqued his interest, and he went on to study at a workshop in Lake Placid. He then proceeded to study at the New York Studio School, and continued living in New York City for a little while, before returning to his hometown of Binghamton to work as an engineer.

Other than the importance of aesthetics and design, Weir does not feel that his engineering is very much related to his artwork. However, his recent retirement has given him more time to work on his new paintings, which will be exhibited in his upcoming show. Up for the month of February, The Jonestown Massacre and other Human Mysteries will feature eight large paintings.

Weir is excited for his exhibit, and is excited to have the time to progress with his paintings.

“I’ve started introducing small areas of patterns into my figure paintings,” he says.

“The beauty of figure painting is that there are still things to be discovered.” uuu An opening will take place on Thursday, February 5th from 6 to 9pm at Cooperative Gallery 213, located at 213 State Street in Binghamton. For more information, contact the gallery at (607) 724-3462.

FEBRUAR

triple cities carousel sunday.

01 08 15 22

Lend Me a Tenor (CMP) Sassy Sundays (TRQ) Open Mic (BRK) Super Bowl Party (BBC)

Lend Me a Tenor (CMP) TCO: The Italian Girl in Algiers (FRM) Planetarium Shows (ROB) Sassy Sundays (TRQ) Open Mic (BRK) Winterfest (BEL),

Planetarium Shows (ROB) The Pillowman (KNOW) Composers at the Confluence (PMM) Sassy Sundays (TRQ) Open Mic (BRK) Binghamton Philharmonic (UPC)

Dance Stories: Shapes (EPAC) Mason Warrington Orchestra (FHS) Planetarium Shows (ROB) The Pillowman (KNOW) Sassy Sundays (TRQ) Open Mic (BRK) Binghamton Philharmonic (AC)

(AC) Anderson Center, BU (ATOM) Atomic Tom’s, Binghamton (BBC) Binghamton Brewing Co., Johnson City (BCA) Broome County Arena, Binghamton (BCDC) Broome County Dance Center, Binghamton (BEL) Belmar Pub, Binghamton (BHMN) Bohemian Moon, Norwich (BRK) Brackney Inn, PA (BRO) Brothers 2, Endwell (BSP) Blarney Stone Pub, Norwich (BDT) DoubleTree Hotel, Binghamton

monday.

02 09 16 23

Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Board Game Night (TRQ) Mondays at the Museum (PMM) Free Tax Services (YHPL)

Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Board Game Night (TRQ) Mondays at the Museum (PMM) Free Tax Services (YHPL)

Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Board Game Night (TRQ) Roberson Adventure Week (ROB) Mondays at the Museum (PMM) Free Tax Services (YHPL)

Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Board Game Night (TRQ) Mondays at the Museum (PMM) Free Tax Services (YHPL)

(BTP) Blind Tiger Pub, Johnson City (BUN) Bundy Museum, Binghamton (CAL) Callahan’s Sportsman’s Pub, Binghamton (CCW) Cyber Café West, Binghamton (CI) Choconut Inn, Friendsville, PA (CMP) Cider Mill Playhouse, Endicott (CRAN) Cranberry Coffee House, Binghamton (CS) Cinema Saver (DTB) Downtown Binghamton (DTO) Downtown Owego (EPAC) Endicott Performing Arts Center

tuesday.

03 10 17 24

Open Dance w/Kate Pulling (BCDC) Swing Dance (REX) Speakeasy Open Mic (CCW) Madrigal Choir (UPC)

Open Dance w/Kate Pulling (BCDC) Swing Dance (REX) East Coast Bigfoot (OUH) Trains & Lovers Book Discussion (YHPL)

Open Dance w/Kate Pulling (BCDC) Swing Dance (REX) Roberson Adventure Week (ROB)

Open Dance w/Kate Pulling (BCDC) Swing Dance (REX)

(FHS) Firehouse Stage, Johnson City (FIVE) Number 5, Binghamton (FRM) Broome County Forum Theatre, Binghamton (GXY) Galaxy Brewing Co., Binghamton (HIB) Holiday Inn Binghamton (JBC) John Barleycorn, Owego (KNOW) KNOW Theatre, Binghamton (KROW) Krowbar, Endwell (LDC) Lost Dog Café/Lounge, Binghamton (MB) Matty B’s, Binghamton

wedne

04 11 18 25

D

Comedy W

F Cyber’s 4000th Show w

Orq. Sinfonica de D

Comedy W F

D

Comedy W

Roberson F

D

Comedy W F

(MRLN) Merlin’s, Bingham (OUH) Old Union Hotel, (PMM) Phelps Mansion M (REX) Rexer’s Karate, En (ROB) Roberson Museum (SIX) Six On the Square, (TCO) Tri Cities Opera, B (VCH) Vestal Coal House (TER) The Terrace, Apala (TRQ) Tranquil Bar & Bis (TSC) The Social Club, B

RY 2015

esday. thursday.

Deep Cuts Pro Jam (CAL) Open Mic (JBC) Writing Workshop (BUN) Comedy Open Mic (MB) Free Tax Services (YHPL) w/Monkeys Typing (CCW)

el Estado de Mexico (AC) Deep Cuts Pro Jam (CAL) Open Mic (JBC) Writing Workshop (BUN) Free Tax Services (YHPL) Rick Iacovelli (CCW)

Deep Cuts Pro Jam (CAL) Open Mic (JBC) Writing Workshop (BUN) Comedy Open Mic (MB) n Adventure Week (ROB) Free Tax Services (YHPL)

Deep Cuts Pro Jam (CAL) Open Mic (JBC) Writing Workshop (BUN) Free Tax Services (YHPL) Jamie Willard (CCW) Painting Night (GXY)

mton Binghamton Museum, Binghamton ndicott m, Binghamton , Oxford Binghamton e, Vestal achin stro, Binghamton Binghamton

05 12 19 26

Trash Thursdays (MRLN) Open Mic (BSP) Lend Me a Tenor (CMP) Film: Une Vraie Jeune Fille (BUN) Harlem Globetrotters (BCA) Bruce Beadle (BHMN) Free Music Orchestra (GXY) Thing Two (CCW)

Trash Thursdays (MRLN) Open Mic (BSP) Film: Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (BUN) Tom Graham CD Release (GXY) Thing One (CCW)

Trash Thursdays (MRLN) Open Mic (BSP) Roberson Adventure Week (ROB) Hung Like Horses (GXY) The Pillowman (KNOW) Thing Two (CCW) Enerjee Jazz w/Ayana D (LDC)

Trash Thursdays (MRLN) Open Mic (BSP) Joe Kollar and Friends (GXY) Mary Tewksbury (CCW) Speed Dating Tonight (TCO)

(UPC) United Presbyterian Church, Binghamton (YHPL) Your Home Public Library, Johnson City

events calendar

friday.

06 13 20 27

First Friday Art Walk (DTB/DTO) Lend Me a Tenor (CMP) TCO: The Italian Girl in Algiers (FRM) Beard of Bees (FIVE) Planetarium Shows (ROB) Milkweed (LDC), Pete Ruttle (OUH) Psychic Readings w/Alonnie (VCH) Next to Kin (JBC) Scott Helmer (FHS) Stratospheerius (CCW) Rachel Sage (BUN)

Devin Spears Scholarship Showcase (EPAC) Rhapsody in Black (FHS) The Boondock Rebels (KROW) Brotherhood (FIVE) Planetarium Shows (ROB) Tumbleweed Highway (BSP) The Pillowman (KNOW) Pete Ruttle (OUH) Thousands of One (CCW) East Coast Bigfoot (LDC) Tim Ruffo (BTP) Dance Stories: Shapes (EPAC) Bruce Beadle Band (KROW) Splash (FIVE) Roberson Adventure Week (ROB) Planetarium Shows (ROB) The Pillowman (KNOW) Noche de Salsa (MRLN) Pete Ruttle (OUH) Pocket Vinyl & Daphne Lee Martin (CCW) The Falconers (LDC) Pasty White & Double Wide (BTP) Water Monsters (KROW) Brotherhood (FIVE) Planetarium Shows (ROB) The Pillowman (KNOW) The Dusty Box Experience (MRLN) Pete Ruttle (OUH) John Wilde Band (CCW) Sonando (LDC) Rhapsody in Blue (FHS)

saturday.

07 14 21 28

Pianist Gleb Ivanov (AC) Love In Love Out Dinner Theatre (BRO) Mike Whittemore (BTP) Lend Me a Tenor (CMP) Odd Man Out (FIVE) Planetarium Shows (ROB) Psychic Readings w/Alonnie (BRO) Superhero Mask Making (YHPL) Kim and Chris (CCW) Aztec Two Step (SIX), Liz Berlin (CI) Winterfest (BEL), Castle & Krae (LDC)

NYC Ladies of Laughter (FHS) Smooth Sounds of Ralph Mauro (FIVE) Murder Mystery Dinner (ROB) Planetarium Shows (ROB) The Pillowman (KNOW) Kings and Queens of Comedy (MRLN) Courtship Tails – adults only (ZOO) Love on the Rocks (CMP), Milkweed (CCW) The Heart Beats (TSC) Cupid Party (HIB) Bhangra Fever (AC), Castle & Krae (LDC) Dance Stories: Shapes (EPAC) Ventriloquist Lynn Trefzger (FHS) Wreckless Marci (KROW) Planetarium Shows (ROB) The Pillowman (KNOW) Divas After Dark (MRLN) CNY Comedy Clash 2 (VCH) Binghamton On Tap Beer Fest (BDT) Dan Duggan & Peggy Lynn (CRAN) Next to Kin (TER) Castle & Krae (LDC), Parlor City (FIVE)

Odd Man Out (KROW) Jazz Night (FIVE) Planetarium Shows (ROB) The Pillowman (KNOW) Steve Strauss CD Release (CCW) The Vestal Violators: Rocky Horror (CS) Castle & Krae (LDC) Speed Dating Tonight (TCO)

The Triple Cities Events Calendar is featured each month as a courtesy to our advertisers, however we welcome venues to submit their events to triplecitiescarousel@gmail.com by the 24th of each month prior to publication. Space is limited, so calendar entries, which have no cost, are picked on a first come/first serve basis. Triple Cities Carousel reserves the right to reject any submission.

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February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 23

theatre and dance.

TRI-CITIES OPERA HEADS TO ALGIERS IN NEW PRODUCTION The cast of ‘The Italian Girl in Algiers.’ Photo by Randy Cummings.

Ilana Lipowicz Staff Writer

Bey Mustafà has fallen out of love with his wife, Elvira, and he is set on marrying an Italian woman.

Lo and behold, out of a shipwreck climbs Isabella, a beautiful Italian girl who’s come in search of one of Mustafà’s Italian slaves.

While this seems an incredibly fortunate coincidence, the girl doesn’t fall so fluidly into the Bey’s hands.

Dottie Danner, the director of the Tri-Cities Opera production of Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers, explains, “The screwball comedy was the introduction of a strong female character becoming a threat to the masculinity of the leading male. And I thought: that’s this plot! She’s washed up on shore, and the Bey, who is all powerful- she all of the sudden turns him into a crazy person.”

The Tri-Cities Opera is excited to have Danner, who has earned a reputation for her unique staging throughout a lifetime of experience in theatre. Danner comes from an artistic family; her sister is Blythe Danner who

plays Will’s mother on Will & Grace and is the real mother of Gwyneth and Jake Paltrow.

Danner started out as a dancer and performed on Broadway before transitioning into directing. Her website is overflowing with beaming reviews of her close-to 200 theatre productions from all over the US as well as in Canada and Belgium, working with and learning from a wide array of artists involved in every aspect of production.

Dottie carries an easy excitement about her.

She is full of ideas and stories, which spill out of her with great momentum. Her background in dance makes her attuned to movement on the stage. This is particularly important in comedies such as this one, where movement and timing can make or break a scene. “Comedy is very physical,” says Danner. She gets up and shuffles across the floor, slightly hunched over, demonstrating the different roles of the chorus. “How do eunuchs walk? Well, kind of indecisive and more effeminate! Softer, gentler. How do pirates walk?” She affects a rougher, quicker step. This kind of attention is sometimes reserved for the lead roles, but Dottie constructs her schemes so that every corner of the stage is visibly involved in the action.

The opera was written in 1832, but this pro-

duction takes place around the 1920s, close to the advent of screwball comedy, which has very much influenced Danner’s interpretation of the piece. This opens up opportunities for different props, costumes, and behaviors.

This is not her first time directing The Italian Girl in Algiers; she actually did a production of it in the fall with another company. With this experience of the material to guide her forward, she’s reinvented it on a new stage with new actors who bring their own fresh ideas.

The cast is made up of seven leads, all making their Tri-Cities debuts. Danner was not much involved in the casting, but she feels lucky with the cast she’s been given. “There were some ideas flowing around through here yesterday and I said, Oh yeah, let’s try that.

That’s what you really pray for, is that people with imagination will walk into the room.” As for their vocal talents, Danner continues to be impressed with the skills of the performers.

“The stamina it takes to sing this- not many people in the world can do it.”

The story itself unfolds in a series of events that are either unlucky or ridiculous. Danner’s productions prioritize rhythm and vivaciousness, and the key to keeping a scene alive is to infuse it with conflicts. And to, of course,

always keep things moving. You won’t see the actors standing still through every song.

“Probably people who are used to more conservative theatre might think it’s busy, but that’s what I hear in the music.” Rossini’s music is often fast and flittery, building brilliantly at moments of high emotion. The energy of Rossini’s original music, combined with that of the actors and director, should make for a special performance.

Pack your binoculars, dust off the gowns and tuxes, stuff some pretzels in your pockets and get ready to enjoy some high-class entertainment. Actually, you can dress casually and should be able to see just fine from your seats!

The Italian Girl in Algiers will be performed at the Forum Theatre at 8pm on Friday, February 6th with a 3pm matinee following that Sunday. Tickets range from $20 to $70 with discounts for children, seniors, and students.

Later this month, Tri-Cities Opera will also be putting on a modern Comic Opera called Speed Dating Tonight! It’s a quirky comedy in which speed daters are “searching for sex, love, and everything in between.” See it at the Tri-Cities Opera Center at 315 Clinton Street for only $20, or for $30 they’ll throw in table seating and a glass of wine! The performances take place on February 26th and 28th.

BHANGRA FEVER STRIKES B.U. 24 Vol. 3 Issue 1

Heather Merlis Assistant Editor

For many of us, our college years mark the beginning of independent life: the chance to stake one’s place in the world and form some semblance of an autonomous identity, to step out and prove one’s coolness.

Which is why it is so refreshing to meet a group of college students who aren’t wasting their energy feigning aloofness and are pumped to get out there and shake their shoulders in brightly-colored beaded costumes for all to see. This energetic bunch is known as Binghamton Bhangra, the dance club that is hosting Bhangra Fever 6, an event that will bring something entirely unique and entertaining to the area this month.

“There’s a lot of things that are specific to Bhangra,” says Kevin Acker, President of the Bhangra Fever committee. “It can be performed to a lot of kinds of music, but when it comes to the dance, you’ll see a lot of specific things: a lot of shoulders bouncing, heads shaking around, and you’ve got to smile.”

Binghamton Bhangra was formed in 2006,

and has traveled to competitions all over the Northeast. They began hosting Fever in 2010.

“We bring in judges from out of town, and a Bhangra deejay,” says Acker. This year’s competition will be hosting teams from Miami, New York City, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, Boston, and Princeton, New Jersey.

This traditional dance form has gone on an interesting journey, capturing the hearts of college students around the world. “Bhangra is a North Indian folk dance from the Indian state of Punjab. There’s a lot of Punjabi immigrants in the US, so when they came, they brought their dance with them,” Acker explains. “Now it’s been fused with some American styles of music and dance, and a lot of teams have sprouted up on college campuses across the US and in Canada as well. [Also], the UK and Australia are the big places- outside of Indiawhere Bhangra is performed.”

Bhangra dancers seem to be the excitable, proud types, which is apparent in the symbol on our local team’s costumes. Jash Mathuria, treasurer of both the team and competition committee, describes them as “very colorful; ours has a peacock and is made with beads, [and] there’s jewelry involved.” This flamboyant display is one with earthy roots: “Back in India, it was the farmers who usually wore this.” Mathura continued, “So, before harvest season or the rain, people would usually

dance Bhangra. You can see this in the dance form itself, and in the props that are used.

We use these things called saaps- they’re just wooden clackers- they were used to cut the wheat, back in the day.”

As for the history of each of the dancers, they are diverse in their backgrounds. “We have tryouts, but there is no experience necessary,” Acker explains. “A lot of the people who come to our team are totally new, not only to Bhangra, but even dance. I never did formal dance before I did Bhangra.”

“I used to dance hip-hop back in the day,” says Mathuria, a Queens native, “but no Indian folk dance.”

Varun Chahal, Vice President of Bhangra Fever committee, had a bit more to fall back on. “Before I came to college… there’s an Indian community back in Buffalo, and I had some Indian friends and our parents were pretty close, so we would perform at family functions- we did dances- and for a couple of years, we did Bhangra. This Punjabi familythey were Sikh- they taught us all the moves, and where it came from.”

Binghamton Bhangra has very few members who are actually Punjabi, which can be a challenge for the team. So, how do they learn about Bhangra? “We gotta teach ‘em,”

says Acker. “It goes along with the dancing.

Before we learn a particular move or a dance, we elaborate on where it originated from and what the point of the dance is.”

Binghamton Bhangra brings more than a learning experience and the opportunity to perform. “We feel like a family,” Chahal beams. “We’re all close; we’re all friends.”

Audiences have the chance to make friends with the dancers, too. “We want people to get a taste of Bhangra and hopefully try some Bhangra out at the after party, maybe,” suggests Acker. “That’s at Club Papillion in the Days Inn on Front Street. It’ll be a dance party, with a bar, and Bhangra and some hiphop.” All of the teams will be there, but not in costume. uuu

Bhangra Fever 6 will take place on February 14th at 6pm, Osterhout Concert Theater, Anderson Center. Tickets are $12 presale on bingtickets.com, $15 at the door. Student discounts apply. They are also offering a very romantic buy one, get one half-off Valentine’s Special if you come in person to buy advance tickets. For hours and location of on-campus ticket sales, and for more information and media, visit facebook.com/binghamtonbhangra.

KNOW THEATRE PRESENTS ‘THE PILLOWMAN’ Rose Silberman-Gorn Staff Writer

When Tim Gleason, Artistic Director at KNOW Theatre, saw The Pillowman on Broadway, he knew that he had to bring the 2003 play to Binghamton.

He thought the dark, edgy material would be a perfect fit for KNOW Theatre, which has a reputation for choosing challenging, cuttingedge subject matter. Immediately after watching the play, “I already had half of the cast in mind,” he says.

Bernie Sheredy, director of The Pillowman, knows that Tim has a golden touch of sorts when it comes to productions. “Tim has a knack for casting, and is good at attracting talents,” praises Bernie. “People love working with him because his mission and track record are appealing, and he chooses subject matter that makes people think.”

The Pillowman, written by Irish playwright and director Martin McDonagh, is very interesting subject matter indeed. The play takes place in a totalitarian police state in an unknown country. Katurian, a prolific but unpublished short story writer, is brought to

a police interrogation room for questioning.

He’s suspected for a string of child murders, because his disturbing short stories contain identical details to the crimes committed.

What ensues is bloody, funny, and more than a little twisted.

The play is consistent with McDonagh’s other output, which includes the films In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths. Bernie Sheredy describes McDonagh’s writing style as “juxtaposing cruelty and comedy; horror and hilarity.” His plays and movies contain graphic violence, but also laugh-out-loud comedy through clever, brash dialogue and bizarre scenarios.

For instance, in the play Lonesome West, a character shoots his father for insulting his new haircut.

Though McDonagh uses lots of graphic violence in his writing, it’s not without purpose. “McDonagh’s use of violence helps to illuminate the humanity of his subjects,” says Sheredy. “He conveys that every human being has humanity there, no matter how awful the criminal.”

The fact that his characters commit bloody acts makes it all the more jarring and poignant when they show a softer side. By writing a character who is suspected of crimes due to his disturbing writing, McDonagh is

essentially flipping the bird to the critics who think his violence is gratuitous.

Setting The Pillowman in an unknown country is an interesting choice of McDonagh’s, especially since the rest of his plays take place in Ireland. “McDonagh didn’t indicate a particular nationality because he wanted to tell a universal story,” explains Bernie.

Though the play has been performed all over the world since opening in London in 2003, there’s never been an attempt to perform it with a specific accent.

Bernie Sheredy describes the performers who are bringing the story to life as “four of the Southern Tier’s finest actors.” Gifted young talents Zac Chastain and Josh Sedelmeyer will play Katurian and his brother Michal.

Mike Arcesi and Chris Nickerson, experienced and committed seasoned actors, will play detectives Tupolski and Ariel. “It’s the best cast I could imagine having to do this play,” raves Bernie.

The play also wouldn’t be possible without the many dedicated and talented workers at KNOW Theatre. In addition to Tim Gleason, Lighting and Sound Designer Gregory L. Bain, Scenic Artist and House Manager Kat D’Andrea, Set Designer Sydney Steward, Production Assistant Amanda Marsico, and

Stage Manager Duncan Lyle all contribute to pulling the performances together. Regardless of job title, KNOW Theater workers also complete various tasks to help the show run smoothly, from fixing stage lamps to cleaning toilets. “When something needs to be done at the theatre, we roll up our sleeves and do it,” says Tim Gleason. “Everyone wears many hats here.”

After the hard work and collaboration that go into putting on a show, the only thing left is the audience. “I expect the audience response to range from one extreme to another,” says Bernie. “Many will fall in the middle. I think everyone will feel that they’ve seen a good story done well.”

“I think it will be a rollicking night at the theatre, and the audience will have a good time absorbing the shocking stuff,” adds Tim. uuu Performances will take place from February 13th-March 1st, on Friday and Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm. Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, and $10 for students.

Thursday, February 19th will be “pay what you can night.” Tickets can be purchased online at squareup.com/market/knowtheatre or over the phone at (607) 724-4341.

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 25 Leland Gantt. Photo courtesy of The Bardavon.

LELAND GANTT STARTS THE CONVERSATION

AT THE FIREHOUSE STAGE

Felicia Waynesboro Staff Writer

“We’re all potential superheroes here,” says LeLand Gantt in the video announcement of Rhapsody in Black, the one-man show written and performed by the actor. The play chronicles Gantt’s personal journey through the often camouflaged, sometimes undisguised, variegated habitat of racism in America.

He finishes the thought with, “and I’m just trying to start a conversation.”

In the wake of racial incidents like the occurrences in Ferguson, Missouri, Oprah’s snubbing by a sales associate in a high-end boutique in Europe, and the “I can’t breathe” encounter and its aftermath in New York City recently, it is clear that our society has a great deal of self-examination to do. Perhaps “the conversation” begins by looking at things we think we know, from a different perspective.

Estelle Parsons, Academy Award winner of Best Supporting Actress in 1967 for her role in the ground-breaking film Bonnie and Clyde, was Rhapsody in Black’s director. Television fans likely remember Ms. Parsons as the mother of the title character on the sitcom Rosanne, and she has numerous Broadway credits as actor and director.

The show’s tour makes a stop in Johnson City this month, but Parsons explains that the piece began as a critiqued acting session in 2013, in a tradition at the treasured Actors

Studio where both she and Gantt have been long-time members. “We all know him as an actor,” Parsons says, “but then he showed up and booked himself in a session to do a piece he had written. We all loved it.” When Parsons showed the script to Woodie King- a familiar face from films, who is also a renowned African-American producer and founding director of the New Federal Theatre in New York City- he responded immediately. “He said this is the story of every black man but nobody gets up and tells it.”

A grapple through bias, anger, and transcendence, “It’s his personal odyssey,” Parsons says.

“We called it from the beginning ‘Stand-Up Theatre.’ Isn’t that good?” she asks, delight radiating through her voice. “It’s much like what stand-up comics do, you know, just come out and start talking: that’s what LeLand does, and then it turns into theatre.” She does not call herself the play’s director; “I say I’m a Directorial Consultant.”

Because Estelle Parsons directed Al Pacino in the staged reading of Salome on Broadway and had celebrated experiences with one-person plays and unconventional forms of staging, LeLand enlisted her help. “She has such incredible sight into the human condition; there was never a moment where I felt that I could not speak to her about anything in or around or about myself. I couldn’t ask for a better squire for my show– whether she calls herself a director or not.”

Gantt’s film and television credits include roles in major releases such as Requiem for a Dream and Malcom X and guest appear-

ances on such familiar series as Law and Order and J.A.G. He has performed on regional stages including the Longwharf Theater and the Cincinnati Playhouse, and Off-Broadway at the legendary La Mama and other wellknown venues. Rhapsody in Black garnered Mr. Gantt the Best Storyteller Award from the United Solo Theatre Festival in New York City last November when Ms. Parsons received the award for Best Direction. “He is very eloquent and literary,” Parsons praises, and that is evident in the text of the play. “He’s just an extraordinary person.”

With regard to “the conversation,” Gantt, as an example, unflinchingly confesses the hard truth that racial profiling “is so pervasive a construct in our society… that, even as a victim of it, I myself sometimes perpetrate it. I actually have found myself impelled to react defensively to the fact of approaching a few young black men on the street at night– just because they are black.” It may be difficult to face in ourselves that we have all probably perpetrated something similar at times.

LeLand goes on to point out that, “There are times when common sense would lead you to ‘cross the street’– physically or metaphorically– to protect yourself when on a dark street in a shady neighborhood at night, but this situation isn’t in vogue all the time. The clutching of the purse, crossing of the street in broad daylight to evade proximity to that idling-approaching-not-threatening-you-inany-manner-other-than-just-being-a-black person- and the assumption that that person is more likely to be a criminal or dangerous to you simply because they are black- needs to be examined. If one can do that, now we have a conversation!”

Rhapsody in Black speaks to anyone who has ever felt devalued and been badgered into low self-esteem, regardless of whether or not the battery- and resultant psychological injurieshad a racial basis.

In Johnson City High School, on the morning of the Rhapsody in Black tour stop in our area, the students will get to share what promises to be an exceptional experience. Naima Kradjian, CEO of the Goodwill Theatre, informs of Gantt’s show, “He’ll be performing in the evening at our Firehouse Stage. But we’re so glad kids will get to see this and talk to him.” Both performances that Friday will be followed by talk-back sessions between audience and writer/performer.

“What I would ask of any audience is to come to be a part of an experience.” Gantt says that he hopes the information imparted will give another perspective on what he refers to as “The Other”: the different, outside person with other experiences, other views, “heretofore misunderstood or unknown. Hopefully, this will lead to a realization that we are all more alike than different and that the so called ‘differences’ we all seem to be so focused on will come to be celebrated and enjoyed rather than vilified and denigrated– putting us on a vector toward a human community.” uuu Rhapsody in Black will be preformed on February 27th, at 7pm at the Schorr Family Firehouse Stage, 46-48 Willow Street, Johnson City, NY. 90 minutes, no intermission.

Tickets: $20 adult, $18 senior/student. For more information, call (607) 772-2404 or visit goodwilltheatre.net.

26 Vol. 3 Issue 1

EPAC’S RESIDENT DANCE COMPANY

Photo Provided.

EXPLORES MOVEMENT OF SHAPES Ronnie Vuolo Assistant Editor

Dance Stories is all about telling stories through dance.

It is a creative blend of dancers, actors, and musicians using movement, music, and the spoken word to interpret concepts in creative and innovative ways. Dance Stories is also the name of the resident dance company at EPAC, which each year puts on a new original dance show. This year’s performance, called SHAPES, takes as its inspiration the work of abstract artist Sylvia Skok.

“Sylvia creates abstract art, which, in addition to standard shapes, contains dots, squiggles, drips, splats, swirls, curves, doodles, and ribbons,” explains Artistic Director and founder René Neville. In addition to performing with the troupe, Neville, along with Emily Foti and Kim Cook, are the resident choreographers. It is she who comes up with the concept around which the annual show is built. This year it was the shapes found in Skok’s paintings.

“I don’t think the personality of a swirl is the same as that of a triangle, and a triangle is absolutely different from that of a circle or a line or a square,” she muses. “I began to wonder about what all of these different shapes’ personalities would be, and how we could portray those personalities through dance. The colors Sylvia chose to use for her shapes helped define their personalities for me.

“For instance, in one of her abstract pieces she has orange triangles. Triangles have very raw, sharp edges; orange is edgier than red, more punky, but it’s very energetic like red. So I started to listen to different genres of music to find the right music for this piece, and I finally hit upon a song called ‘Quirky Beatbox.’ So the personality I ascribed to the shape TRIAN-

GLES is cutting edge, razor sharp, new-school funk. Other times, it might be a piece of music that inspires the personality, along with the use of color.”

Two original musical compositions have already been written specifically for the show, and others may follow. Drummer Al Miele wrote the music for “SQUARES,” and Troubadours guitarists Joe Hoffman and Jeff Tagliaferro penned that for “RIBBONS.” All will be performed live on stage during the performance.

In addition to assigning a personality to each shape, the spoken word comes into play. “I have always used spoken word pieces in my dance projects because they serve to help thematically carry forward the story that we are telling,” Neville explains. The spoken word pieces for SHAPES are being created by Jennifer Bokal, company dancer and published writer. “Her poems are adding a flavor of ‘creation motifs’ to this dance project. Sort of like explaining how shapes came into existence.”

Members of the dance company have backgrounds that include jazz, modern, tap, ballet, hip-hop, and even Irish dance. For this performance, which has children in the cast, the age of performers ranges from “six to 65-ish.

Like all of our other dance projects,” Neville concludes, “SHAPES continues the community celebration of the art of dance.” uuu “Dance Stories: SHAPES” plays Friday and Saturday, February 20th and 21st at 8pm, and Sunday the 22nd at 3pm, at the Robert Eckert Theater, located at 102 Washington Avenue in Endicott. Tickets may be purchased at the box office (open daily 9 to 5, and evenings prior to the show weekend), online at endicottarts.com, or by phone (607) 7858903. Dance Stories may also be found on Facebook as DanceStories.

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 27

MISHAPS, MISTRESSES, AND MISTAKEN IDENTITY:

CIDER MILL LENDS A TENOR Heather Merlis Assistant Editor

up, he’s not well, and circumstances turn out that…” she stops herself, “Gee, I don’t know how much I should say.”

Six doors on one stage spell farce.

Such is the case in Cider Mill Playhouse’s production of Lend Me a Tenor, a show that, despite its title, is not a musical, but is certainly a comedy.

Kremer agrees with his director, “Because it’s a farce, if you want to keep the laughs coming, you don’t want the audience to know too much, because it’s the complications of the situation that keep people laughing. I have a line in the play, at one point, when I say, ‘Absolutely nothing can go wrong,’ but, because it is a farce, absolutely the opposite happens.”

The Ken Ludwig play, which takes place in 1934 Cleveland, had its premier in London’s West End in 1986.

The show opens with the sound of a very recognizable operatic solo straight out of Verdi’s Rigoletto, and it may leave audiences yearning for the opera once the show is through. Which is not to say that this comedy isn’t highly entertaining: it is, and it even features a few moments of truly beautiful singing, in no small part thanks to Andrew Simek, golden boy of the Triple Cities musical theatre circuit. This is, in fact, Simek’s first straight play, in which he still manages to get in some sweet notes.

Simek plays the role of Max, assistant to Henry Saunders, who represents the Cleveland Grand Opera Company. Max is an, “ineffectual, bumbling-type guy,” according to Carol Hanscom, who directs this production of Tenor. The character of Saunders is portrayed by Tom Kremer who, along with Hanscom, is a Cider Mill veteran of over three decades. His experience shows in his performance, as he walks onto the set as if he were walking into his own home. The ease with which he portrays his character is balanced beautifully by Simek’s plucky depiction of an obsequious gofer (who is also courting his boss’s daughter, played with grace and humor by Emily Goodell). With Kremer as the well-worn professional and Simek as the green and gifted newbie, the realness of this dynamic imbues this play with palpable heart and chemistry.

But the most endearing and hilarious chem-

Photo Provided.. istry is found between the characters of Max and Tito Morelli, who is played by Ted Nappi. Though Morelli is larger-than–life- he is the great opera star around whom the plot is entangled- he is perhaps the most human of them all, his lines delivered with a frankness that cuts to the heart of the matter without feeling overwrought. He teaches Max about singing and confidence, and Max follows his advice- perhaps too impeccably.

While there will be no spoilers here- although nothing terribly surprising actually comes to light in this sometimes raunchy, very silly show- there are some unsavory choices worth mentioning. For instance, the opera in question- for which the tenor must be lent- is Otello (also Verdi), based on Shakespeare’s tragic masterwork that centers upon the green-eyed monster that is jealousy. Jealousy is a theme in Tenor as well, but its plot is far closer to The Comedy of Errors than to that of Othello.

In fact, it’s a lot like The Comedy of Errors, but one must see the show to fully understand why.

What will be revealed is this: Othello was a Moor. In the operatic version, he is often depicted in a form of blackface, when the leading

role is not played by a man of color. And in this show? Well, let’s just say that you may see at least one Jheri curl wig in this production.

And if you’re okay with that, and maybe some brown face paint, well…

It’s a funny show, albeit sometimes gratuitous and old-fashioned, and the quality of this production’s performances help the audience to suspend their disbelief. “There isn’t any one character who’s the straight man while the other characters are funny,” says Hanscom, “Every character in this play is funny.”

Maria Manzano-Johnson plays the perfect stereotype of the overbearing Italian wife to Mr. Morelli, with all the noise and drama that thinly veils a nurturing and vulnerable woman. The bellhop- who may as well be paparazzi- is played by the incredibly animated Brendan Gregory, who injects the set with buoyant energy every time he steps onstage. In terms of physical comedy, he elevates this play.

The overall production is a feat of staging and comedic timing. “It’s a farce, so things don’t go according to plan,” explains Hanscom. “ The opera star doesn’t show up when he’s supposed, to, and then, when he does show

Several years ago, Kremer himself directed a production of this show for the Cider Mill.

But, despite his seasoned approach, the play still presents its challenges. “It requires an enormous amount of energy,” he shares, “and an intense amount of concentration. The concentration required is insane; I mean- one second- just one second not paying attention, and uh-oh, trouble.”

“It’s a blast, putting a farce together,” Hanscom elaborates, “although it’s really, really hard work, too, because it’s got to work, eventually, like a well-oiled machine, and there are all kinds of bits and pieces that have to be timed down to the nanosecond. So it’s kind of grueling work, to rehearse it, but it’s also incredibly fun and silly […] we make each other laugh, all the time.”

This show is worth seeing, if only to escape from the dreariness of the winter and to see some serious showmanship. And as the run progresses, the timing is sure to tighten as the actors loosen up into their roles. “It’s among the top few funniest farces on the face of the earth,” Hanscom boasts. “It’s a lighthearted, whimsical romp. This show is for everybody.” uuu Lend Me a Tenor began its run on January 22nd and will play through February 8th.

Curtain is at 7:30pm on Thursdays through Saturdays and at 3pm on Sundays. Tickets are available at the Cider Mill Playhouse box office, by calling (607) 748-7363, or online at cidermillplayhouse.com.

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28 Vol. 3 Issue 1

poetry.

POET OF THE MONTH: DAN LIVINGSTON

Dan Livingston lives on the Far-West Side of Binghamton. He writes in his journal regularly using coded language meant to trigger his memory.

Occasionally this coded language will bring other readers to that same place in time. Dan hopes that these poems take you to another place while you are reading them.

No Pedestrians, Bicycles Or Motor-Driven Cycles Neon green winter rye the standard bearer of springtime just over my shoulder.

Interstate 80 West Down the road about a mile ahead damn it’s cold, feet feel like lead BMW, flashers on sky is a reddish hue won’t be long.

The distant horizon line is your shoulder I stand here marching towards the sunset greyline sky shedding memories adding layer after layer of warm obscenities.

I walk up to the car with a casual step he moves aside, offers me a ride since I’ve been on a bit of a trek I’m more than happy to oblige.

A police car waits on the overpass so i put aside my thoughts of forward motion, and I put my hands numb with cold into my warm pockets.

I take this moment and I drink from my canteen my memorial I bask in the moment forgetting to forget.

Impatiently, they drive off not accounting for the patience of a solitary man wind to his back.

I hike on hoping to meet the police down the road.

Creak of backpack straps settling into my shoulder nooks, and my boots frozen.

Windswept tears trailing from my eye and the winter rye knowing only the sun and the frozen flooded field.

Macon, Georgia December 2004 As I emerged from the gas station I knew even before I saw you, not there that you had left me and at first I was happy not for you but for my life, without you.

It took a while for the loss to set in.

I will always remember that first moment without you and the joyous sense of freedom that comes from knowing the weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Six-hundred dollars hidden in my belt Six-hundred miles to home.

I introduce myself, familiar Sean nods with a hand my bag, it won’t fit in there but he doesn’t understand.

I ask him where he’s going ‘Frisco-bound, he was everything was flowing I say, “We’ll make it fit.”

Federal cook Mary console bake Mind awake Merry stories, make.

Hotel nugget Fast-food high Can’t unplug it Why ask, “Why?” Across the desert from Salt Lake to Reno Lake Tahoe, to Napa: Green Valley Vine Bay Area pea soup recipe wino There goes my concept of time Parting with Shawn on Dolores Reddy’s happy art-party chorus My confusion finds its way back in Up the 101, where California begins.

The road was long and strange West Coast first impression methamphetamine Everything remains within my range but, I don’t know if this is really my scene.

Arcata redwood beach, brings Panhandler dream vacation, sings Djembe ganja dance, begins In the land where everyone wins.

Interstates merge and interstates curve manifest, and purge know when to swerve.

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 29

techworks.

INHERITING SOUTHERN TIER INNOVATIONS

AT BINGHAMTON’S TECHWORKS! Ilana Lipowicz Staff Writer

At the north end of Water Street, past the parking garage, beyond the Lost Dog, a little farther than the Double Tree, and under the train tracks to the left, stands an innocuous brick building with smoky windows that let through just enough light to spark curiosity.

Standing outside of the old ice cream factory, you would never know that someone could be standing inside a room-sized pinhole camera, looking at a projection of your image against a wall. If you find yourself there, you’ve arrived at TechWorks!, a name you know you should be excited about, though you might not be sure of exactly what it is.

“We’re not a museum,” says Susan Sherwood, who has directed the center since 2003.

“When people think of museums, they think of being- well, bored. You can’t touch anything in a museum.” She opens up an old McIntosh record player and moves the needle, starting an old tune. If you remember the frustration of being a kid at a museum, constantly berated for touching things when you weren’t supposed to, then going inside of TechWorks! can feel like a second chance.

TechWorks! is a project of the Center of Technology & Innovation, which formed in 1996 to tackle the first part of its mission- to document and preserve technologies of the Southern Tier. In 2003, the center started TechWorks! to set forth on the second part of that mission: to share these technologies with the public.

My first visit was on the occasion of flight simulation event that took place in January.

Knowing next to nothing about flight simulators, I entered the building and to my delight, a group of antique Link flight simulators were spread out around the floor. So engrained in me was the “look, don’t touch” policy of museums that I was pleasantly puzzled to see a young man taking his turn in one of the planes.

It’s a little blue buggy of a plane, sitting on a round rubber accordion base, which allows it to rotate in every direction except for upside down. I try not to be too eager- you know, keep it cool. I grab some cheese and crackers before scurrying to get my turn. I climb in us-

ing a stepping stool and pretty soon, I’m lifting off. It takes a little while to get a feel for the machine, but it’s the closest I’ll ever let myself get to flying a real aircraft, and it feels pretty darn close!

Multiple languages can be heard around the room. The event has attracted a group of PhD students from the University of Leeds who have come for a short flight simulation workshop at BU. The professor and some of the students are from the UK, but others are from Iran, Japan, and Eastern Europe. One says he wish he could have spent his whole visit here.

Once I’m off the simulator and the next giddy adult takes his turn, I scan the room and one thing is immediately obvious: there are no kids around. And yet I can’t help but feel like I’m on a school field trip, and soon it’ll be time to break for PB&J (the refreshments table actually featured pesto and beer).

This one event is hardly representative of TechWorks! as a whole. Children make up a great many of its visitors and are of utmost importance to its mission. Preservation is not an end in itself; the point is to provide young people with an understanding of the technologies produced here in the Southern Tier so that they may be inspired by them, and use that inspiration to generate new ideas. In the words of Susan Sherwood, they aim “to document and place in context the inventions and industrial innovations of NY’s Southern Tier.”

To Susan, the wealth of innovation and technology that has grown out of this area in the past 115 years is a phenomenon so remarkable that it is perplexing. “It’s a goal to figure out why this area is so creative, has been for more than 100 years, and continues to be creative,” she says. “The patent rate today is double the national average- the second highest in the United States.”

The Link flight simulators are among these innovations. The Link Trainer was produced by Edwin Link, whose home and family company were in Binghamton since in 1927. Link sold the simulators to the Air Force in 1936, and in the field, they are considered the beginning of modern-day flight simulation. Ansco was another team of innovators based in Binghamton, whose claim to fame was film that was faster than Kodak’s.

Down the road in Corning, as is well known, a whole host of important inventions came about. When Edison invented the lightbulb, a glass blower could only make two bulbs a day. The machine that could blow glass into a thousand lightbulbs a day was invented by a man in Corning. “Now you can light up the

world,” Susan gleams.

After playing with the simulator, everyone makes their way over the other end of the center (it is huge), following the sound of a self-playing piano into a room whose major focus is antique IBM technology. There are only six places in the world that have a working vintage computer, and one of them is right here. It’s a messy looking thing to someone who hasn’t studied computers, with thousands of tiny wires weaving in and out of it. This isn’t off limits, and a staff member demonstrates how to use it. Also in this little IBM world are working printers, and machines which punch and sort cards. (For you non-computer wizzes, this is how all programming was done back in the day.) Their prized IBM printer is capable of printing 1,300 characters per second; its debut demonstration will be on May 16th.

CT&I doesn’t only contain material vestiges of past innovations. The center is staffed by some of the very people who worked on such machines while they were first in production.

Several of the men walking around used to work the Link flight simulators, and others worked at IBM. Towards the purpose of discovering what makes this area is so inventive, there’s no one better to talk to than the people who took part in the creating.

“We owe it to the thinkers and creators in this community to celebrate what they’ve done and show it to future generations,” says Susan. Here is where the definition of TechWorks! lies. It’s a meeting point for the old and the young, the old and the new. The childish excitement this place brings to adults is not a regression, but a bridging of the gap.

These technologies are fun and exciting, no matter how old you are.

One way in which young people are brought into the conversation is through employment.

Interns and apprentices are hired and learn by doing, right alongside the senior staff. One of a current intern’s projects was to write the code in Python that would provide instructions to a robot designed to take commands.

The robot is red and looks like one of those self-directing vacuum cleaners. When the intern sets her program running, the robot moves forward, turns, and takes a picture, which then appears on the computer screen.

Four photographs are standing around the table, and if the program is correct, it should snap a picture of them all. It does, and then it beeps the tune of “Oh My Darling, Clementine”.

The plan is to take the little bot around to all of the local elementary schools in order to spark the children’s interest in the STEM

subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) as they make their way up through the grades. They are particularly focused on young girls who are statistically less likely to choose STEM careers. Seeing the robot respond to lines of code shows kids how coding is interesting and rewarding in a way that looking at lines of code cannot.

CT&I juggles projects like this throughout the year, from buying and restoring equipment to hosting events such as Annual Pinhole Photography Day. In this workshop, you are given the opportunity to build your own pinhole camera and take a long exposure photograph with it, and guests are also welcome to go inside of the giant pinhole camera. It’s a square room that is completely dark except for a small hole, which points to the street and projects its image onto the wall, as a lens does to a frame of film.

Several other events take place throughout the year, including an antique car show in May, displaying cars from the Southern Tier that are up to 100 years old, and a beer and food festival in October where you can get tastes from all around Upstate New York.

The old ice cream factory will soon take a big plunge into the future with its upcoming renovations. The south entrance will be redesigned, and solar panels, wind turbines, and other energy-tracking and -saving technologies will be installed. There will also be a second floor river view terrace and a rooftop sculpture visible from three highways.

If you can’t wait to check out TechWorks!, the next big event is Technology of Music from the Heart of NY on March 8th. Here, you can see master thereminist Eric Ross perform with the ERA avant-garde ensemble, which includes a dancer and musicians on theremins, synthesizer, didgeridoo, guitar, and bass. If you’ve not heard of a theremin, it’s an electronic instrument which is played without physical contact by the musician, who controls frequency and amplitude by moving his or her hands different distances from two antennae. These hand motions are ghostly and strange, and they produce a sound to match the image. In other words, it’s quite a sight to see, and this is a performance you don’t want to miss. uuu If you’re looking for a more casual encounter with the center, you can visit TechWorks! at 321 Water Street on Tuesdays between 12 and 4pm, or by appointment. Admission is $5 and groups are welcome. You can also visit their website at ctandi.org.

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February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 31

COLONIALISM COMES TO COURT STREET:

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE NEW GUYS IN TOWN Heather Merlis Assistant Editor

ily, can come and have a conversation, have a good time. Essentially, a place for everyone. Young professionals… a place where a student and a professor could grab a beer together and not be awkward about it.

Even in its nascent stage, the ambience at The Colonial is pleasantly surprising.

With its polished concrete bar, exposed brick walls, and reclaimed wooden doors, the atmosphere is perfectly suited to Binghamton, though it seems to be the only place around with its particular, of-the-moment vibe. Carousel got a sneak peek of this not-quite-ready-yet establishment, and spoke with two of its proprietors, Alex Jaffe (who also serves as manager) and Chris Kasmarcik (a Triple Cities native with plenty of local bar experience under his belt). uuu How did this all get started?

Alex Jaffe: We were all brought together through one of the four partners. We each have our role to play; we have all been involved in business in downtown Binghamton for a while, and have watched as it has grown through this whole revitalization process, watched it become what it’s becoming. We wanted to provide with that and continue to make downtown Binghamton a much better place. We thought a place on Court Street would be perfect, to really help to revitalize the city.

What kind of food will you be serving?

AJ: We are going to be serving higher-end bar food; essentially, bar food with a modern twist. We still wanted to keep the classic pub-type food, but we wanted to make it a little nicer, to have things people haven’t tried before, things that you generally don’t get when you come to a bar.

Is it a gastro pub?

AJ: we’re trying to shy away from that.

Chris Kasmarcik: We don’t want to be labeled as that.

Do you want to be labeled as anything?

CK: We’ll let people make their own decision when they come in.

AJ: We are going to be a bar with excellent, excellent food.

One of our signature dishes is going to be the béarnaise burger: a great hamburger, covered in toppings and smothered in a béarnaise sauce. It’s fantastic, really.

What about drinks?

CK: There will be a higher-end cocktail menu, but everything will be under ten dollars.

AJ: We have an excellent cocktail list, but one of our emphases, as you can see by the draught system, is draught beerwe’ll have 21 different ones on tap.

From where will you be featuring beers?

AJ: A lot are from New York State, actually.

CK: Beers from Albany, Binghamton- as much local as we can get. And from around the state: Ithaca, Brooklyn, Ommegang.

What kind of atmosphere are you trying to create?

AJ: So many people come downtown, and a lot of these bars are geared towards college students when the semester is around. We want to provide a place in the downtown area where people who do not want to be in a college bar, necessar-

Why did you name it “The Colonial”?

CK: Well, it’s a throwback to the Binghamton Colonials. We were trying to go for a bit of an older crowd than the college students, kind of keep it with a local theme, and BU’s mascot was the Colonial up until the nineties. It kind of just fit, once we started building. The building isn’t that old, but it’s over a hundred years old. So, the look and feel of the inside kind of went along with the name as we got going- that wasn’t planned. We built off the name, almost, with the structure we had to work with.

The ceilings are nice.

CK: They’re the original tin; we repaired what we could and painted it.

And the exposed brick?

CK: That was all there, as well as that wood wall.

AJ: Besides the painted part, all of these walls are original.

There’s a lot of fun things we put in: the entire back bar is made from the doors from the old Press Building, as is every door that’s in here.

And the caged, neo-Edison light bulbs…it’s somewhere between rustic and industrial. I don’t want to call it trendy, but if I were to go on Etsy, this is the kind of aesthetic I’d see.

AJ: that’s where our tap system came from. Found them on Etsy, then reached out to them.

So you’re sourcing locally?

AJ: Yeah, these guys are located out of Hudson, New York.

I believe they’re called “Tapped.” They do a lot of black pipe draught systems: we custom-ordered it from them; they made it for us. We’re trying to go for something that you wouldn’t see a lot of other places: not many places can say that their back bar is made from old doors; we even left some of the old doorknobs on.

Why Binghamton?

AJ: It’s a great city.

CK: As the city builds and revitalizes, the better business will be. I remember when I was a little kid, my dad owned a business here and the streets were packed. It’s starting to get back to that kind of feeling.

AJ: I came here for school, initially, and when I first moved off campus to the downtown area, people looked at me like, “Why would you move downtown? That’s ridiculous.” All the buildings were abandoned. Within two years, I lived between town breweries. It’s amazing. You don’t see that kind of revitalization in a lot of cities. This is our first business venture, and the city has been so supportive.

What made you move downtown when there wasn’t much happening?

AJ: Me and my roommate wanted an apartment with big windows.

The Colonial is located at 56-58 Court Street, and opened pretty much right before we went to print. That’s why there’s more words to the right, instead of a sweet picture.

food and drink.

(AND THEN THEY OPENED UP THE KITCHEN AND SO THIS IS A WHOLE ‘NUTHER STORY ALL ABOUT FOOD AND ALSO LIQUOR)

Upon first opening, establishments often have some kinks to work out, often in the kitchen. Not so at The Colonial, where the dishes are already perfectly balanced in flavor and texture, meeting the bar’s atmosphere in craftsmanship. The immaculate kitchen, run by Executive Chef Jordan Rindgen and Head Chef Aaron Laughlin, churns out impeccable plates that elevate comfort food to a level that has yet to be seen in any nearby bar. In other words, this is no ordinary pub grub.

Among some of the most decadent dishes were the butternut squash risotto croquettes, served with a maple yogurt dipping sauce. The sauce tasted like the real thing, and based on the scheme of things at The Colonial, one wouldn’t expect less than real maple syrup. The croquettes are rich and creamy, without being too heavy.

In terms of bringing the most umami, the prize goes to the Brussels sprouts with pancetta, lemon-pepper vinaigrette, and blue cheese butter. Another incredibly savory number is their French onion grilled cheese, made with Gruyere and served with tomato basil soup, also for dipping. They do not skimp on their sauces here, and they are proving that they know how to update some classics.

Which brings us to the chicken pot pie. I thought, after a childhood of far too many defrosted renditions, that I would never want to even look at one again, for the rest of my life. But the pot pie at The Colonial is superb- with its puff pastry crust and incredibly creamy mashed (or, should I say, whipped) potatoes- this is not your mother’s chicken pot pie.

There will be more bar staples, like French fries, butof course- they’re taking it to another level, by giving diners the choice of chipotle lime, buffalo blue, and truffle parmesan seasoning. You could order them traditionalstyle, but why would you? Probably because their fries are likely to be amazing, with or without the truffle oil.

On the night I went, the mixed crowd at this prime location was made a little friendlier with the help of some choice libations. The Pimm’s Cup is a cocktail made with the liquor of the same name, and has a similar flavor profile to a tart iced tea (or maybe even a Long Island Iced Tea, but without the horrifying side effects).

Then there is the Prosperi, a drink named for its inventor, a friend of The Colonial who was tired of ordering the same old drink, and serendipitously created a new and improved gin and tonic. This version is just as light and refreshing, but with some more flavor and complexity.

There is some serious attention to detail evident throughout every element of The Colonial: from the food, to the drinks, to the hand-crafted atmosphere. Already satisfying hungry Binghamtonians, this place is sure to offer something for everyone, be it a nightcap or a delicious brunch, which they plan on introducing soon.

With the thought and care put into this endeavor, it is sure to be more than just the most accessibly classy joint in town.

join us for our first ever winterfest!!!

2/7 Chowder Cook-off 2/8 Tater eatin’ contest & Chili cook-off Live music all weekend long All proceeds to benefit RISE (formerly SOS Shelter) and CHOW. Seeking sponsors and participants.

Stop in to the Belmar or call (607) 724-5920 for more info

The most famous burger in town just returned to the most famous bar in town.

Belmar Pub

95 Main St. Binghamton

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 33

film.

TRAILER TRASH

Movie trailers aren’t always effective in giving useful previews of what a film is about. They’re usually a mess of disconnected images and phrases arranged in order to get the heart beating. Our resident cinephile, ILANA LIPOWICZ, deciphers these trailers each month, and here’s what she was able to deduce. This information is not guaranteed to be accurate, but it will most definitely save you from feeling like you spent two and a half minutes spiraling towards the earth in a burning aircraft and you still don’t know what to see.

Jupiter Ascending: Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) thinks she’s just a lowly housecleaner, but her DNA suggests that she is actually heir to the entire earth. And the earth, she learns, is under control of alien royalty who are trying to genetically engineer an immortal race. Modest human being she is, Jupiter insists to Caine Wise (the ex-warrior played by Channing Tatum) that it must be a mistake. She’s nothing special. But there’s no time for any of that, “I can’t be a wizard, I’m just Harry!” nonsense because Balem, a son of the most powerful alien dynasty, wants to destroy her, so as to inherit the earth himself. The film was made by the directors of The Matrix movies; so if this plot sounds a bit wacko, weird, and off-thewall- it’s probably because it is. (Feb. 6th)

The Spongebob Movie- Sponge Out of Water: When the Krabby Patty secret recipe goes missing, Bikini Bottom spins out of control. The city becomes a battleground: people looting each other’s homes and setting fire (somehowthey’re UNDER WATER) to buildings. It’s up to Spongebob and pals to overcome their poor critical thinking skills and restore social order. In a grand reprise of the 16 years of Spongebob so far, the gang comes up to surface, transforming into superheroes to take on the pirate supposed to have stolen the recipe. The film may lack the absurdist quality that made early Spongebob episodes so wonderful, but it’ll certainly be entertaining to see the gang boppin’ around with us human folk. I’m wondering how the auditions went for the part of “Fat Guy Who Rolls on Top of Spongebob on the Beach.” (Feb 6th) The Seventh Son: “You live in a world now where legend and nightmare are real,” is what people say to you when you graduate from college, and it’s also what Tom Ward is told in this film when he learns he is the seventh son of the seventh son and is destined to fight supernatural evil as a “Spook.” He becomes apprenticed to John Gregory, a young Gandalf type, who teaches him how to battle all sorts of slimy wicked creatures who constitute “The Dark.” The story is based on The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney, which spans over 13 books, so if you like this movie, there is a great possibility of a sequel. Stripped of all the beasts and magic and CGI, it’s just a sweet coming-of-age story about a very special boy. What a delight! (Feb 6th)

Fifty Shades of Grey: You would think that an erotic novel transformed into a film would result in a porn movie, right?

Well, Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James is evidently more than just an erotic novel, although as someone who never actually read the book, this came as a shock to me. While you’d never know it from the hype, there is a story between all of the detailed descriptions of sex acts. Boo, I know. What’s important is that seeing this movie will, for some of you, be the closest you’ll ever come to watching porn in a public place. I only recommend you don’t see this movie with your parents; that could get weird. It comes out on Valentine’s Day for single people to see what they’re missing out on and for not-single people who need help getting aroused or something. (Feb 14th)

The DUFF: You know how in high school movies, everyone is abnormally attractive except for one chubby, homely girl?

Well they’ve made a movie about that girl. This is what all us fatsos have been waiting for. The story is this: Bianca is merrily going through life in high school until some outrageously hot athlete named Wesley (barf) informs her that she’s the DUFF of her friend group: the “Designated Ugly Fat Friend.” What’s even more offensive than this term, is the fact that the DUFF is played by Mae Whitman, a beautiful, average-sized woman. What kind of message does this send to us true uglies and fatties? It’s nothing we haven’t seen before; in fact, it feels kind of outdated. So who knows? Maybe the moral of the story trumps the asinine idea that this girl is ugly or fat in any way. I couldn’t tell you though, because the trailer just ends with the hot athlete flexing his pecs. (Feb 22nd) McFarland: Kevin Costner plays a teacher who comes to a small, poor town to teach and starts a cross-country team.

The wonderful sport of cross-country running is finally getting its moment to shine on the big screen. It’s no surprise that in movies, sports like football and hockey are usually those that set troubled youths on straight paths and enliven sullen towns with winning streaks, not cross-country. It’s for the very same reason that not even by parents came to my meets in high school. Let’s hope this very inspirational story can hold your attention. (Feb 22nd)

Focus: Some movies about cons involve intricate schemes: helicopter landings, computer hacking, tricks of hand, smooth tongues, and strokes of genius. I can’t say any of this will appear in Focus. I can promise you cars crashing into each other, stacks of cash being poured into a suitcase, Will Smith getting punched in the face, and a hot girl with a lot of screen time. Okay, so the character played by Margot Robbie is actually more significant than I’m giving her credit for.

She becomes apprenticed to a con-artist played by Will Smith, but he nixes her when it gets too lusty between them. She’s as good a con-artist as he is, and with her added sex appeal, she becomes a threat later on when she’s working for the other side. That’s not to say Will Smith isn’t sexy, but he’s not the one whose cleavage is showing for literally the entire film. What was this movie about again? (Feb 27th)

34 Vol. 3 Issue 1

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

SOMETHING ABOUT ‘AMERICAN SNIPER’ THAT JUST TALKS ABOUT THE MOVIE AND DOESN’T GET ALL FREAKIN’ PREACHY BECAUSE DOESN’T ANYONE JUST GO TO THE MOVIES TO SEE A MOVIE THESE DAYS? Ilana Lipowicz Staff Writer American Sniper begins in the scope of Chris Kyle’s rifle.

He watches as a mother hands a grenade to her son, who starts to run towards the American soldiers. As soon as you have time to measure the weight of the decision the sniper must make, it cuts to a younger Chris shooting in the fields with his dad. What follows is a scene in which his father tells him that there are three types of people: sheep, wolves who hurt sheep, and sheepdogs who protect the sheep from the wolves. This begins to offer an answer to one question: how does one become a career military killer?

Clint Eastwood’s film does not judge its characters or take a stance on the questions it poses. Every time Chris goes back on tour despite his fading family life and growing PTSD, we are truly conflicted about the decision. There is then then the larger question of whether American military should be in Iraq. Rather than being answered, the question floats in all its complexity throughout.

While we feel very poignantly the conflicts Chris faces, there is a certain distance kept between us and his character; we don’t forget that this man isn’t quite an everyman. What makes him exceptional is not his marksmanship but his unyielding certainty in everything he does. There are, in Bradley Cooper’s performance, moments when glimmers of doubt cross his character’s face. These feelings are shut down with force, so quickly that they

never warrant a dialogue. We are not quite in his shoes, but we follow from a short distance with nipping perplexity. Importantly, we like him.

Easier to empathize with is his wife, who he meets during training and who crumbles emotionally trying to raise their two children with a father who is ghost-like during his short bouts of leave. The scenes between Chris and his wife wonderfully express their mental disconnect. We flip between their perspectives; she with her comfortable everyday thoughts and concerns, he trapped in that state of intense clairvoyance and fear required of him overseas. We feel her frustration, we understand his silence.

That is because although his thoughts are impenetrable, we are right there in his sensory experiences. What makes the film memorable is the feeling of proximity, of being inside of the action. Chris is often posted high up and out of sight, but through the lens of his scope, we are brought closer than is comfortable to what, to most Americans, feels very far away.

We get a sense that it is not the distance but the lens that is his armor; through the glass, it all looks like a video game, like sport. The feared sniper of Al Qaeda has an Olympic gold medal for shooting.

But the members of the military aren’t allowed that disconnect for long, and Chris learns this when the war starts to come home with him by embedding itself in his mind. And so the question is asked: how much disconnect is necessary to tolerate war? Is it our distance from the reality of war that allows the average American to accept it? No clear answers, but a lot to think about.

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 35

coitus.

If you or a loved one has a drinking or drug problem...

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

SEX in the southern tier Sally Ride Contributing Columnist As Valentine’s Day approaches, I want to remind you all that sexual pleasure is for everyone, not just couples. Partnered or not, learning to enjoy your own body through masturbation is both an end in itself and a means to a greater end- understanding your own sexual response and desires.

You don’t need sex toys to masturbate, but they can be really fun! Although sex toys for women have gained social acceptance in recent years, some people still think of men who use sex toys as creepy or sad. Why the double standard, folks? Sex toys are fun, and using them says very little about the rest of your sex life. Regardless of your gender, sexuality, or relationship status, if you’ve never used a sex toy, I encourage you to give yourself a Valentine’s Day gift this year and try one. uuu Dear Sally, I love sex and I am very curious about experimenting with different options for pleasure. However I wonder if using sex toys will ruin good old-fashioned sex for me.

Sincerely, Curious Dear Curious, Masturbation will never be the same as partnered sex. Interacting with another person adds a different dynamic. Your vibrator or butt plug can’t kiss you, look into your eyes, talk dirty to you, or pull your hair. Most of the avid sex toy users I know enjoy masturbation but still desire partnered sex as well.

You can also use sex toys with a partner, although sometimes an insecure partner thinks that means you’re unsatisfied with the sex you’ve been having. It’s okay to acknowledge your partner’s insecurity and offer reassurance, but don’t let it get in the way of both of you exploring new types of pleasure. Sexual desire and enjoyment tend to lead to more desire and enjoyment, not less. But be warned, insecure folks- if you make someone feel uncomfortable exploring their desires, you will definitely create less desire... at least for you.

If you want to explore sex toys, there’s a lot to choose from: vibrators, dildos, butt plugs, anal beads, and more. Vibrators are a pretty common first sex toy for women and come in a wide range of styles. For your first one, it’s best to get something with variable speeds and settings that can be used internally or externally so you can figure out what you like. If you want to use toys during partnered sex, a small vibe can be held on or near the clit during penetration or oral sex.

Men may want to start with a masturbation sleeve and some good lube. Some men like vibrations on their perineum, and a vibrating cock ring can be pleasurable for men and their partners. Small anal toys can also feel good for both men and women, though anal play deserves a whole column to itself. For now, just be sure that anything you put in your ass (or someone else’s) has a flared base so you’re not one of those hospital horror stories that nurses love to retell. Websites like selfservetoys.com, babeland.com, or smittenkittenonline.com offer a wide range of high-quality toy options with a lot of good information as well.

But if you still want to have “good old-fashioned sex” in addition to experimenting with sex toys, you can, and most likely will want to.

Sally Ride flies through the air with the greatest of ease. She’s also a second generation sex educator. Send her your questions at southerntiersexadvice@ gmail.com.

36 Vol. 3 Issue 1

tarotology forecast.

Stars & Cards A brand new monthly insight from our friend ANVILE at Water’s Edge.

Tarotology is the combining of Tarot Card Interpretation and Western Astrology Fundamentals to create a unique forecast for each astrological sign.

Aquarius (January 21 - February 19) You need to start your month out by being the one in charge. Practice what you preach and be a leader. As you near the middle of the month you will need to regain your focus and get your eye back on the prize. This month ends with you being content for now, you may want change but not right now.

Pisces (February 20 - March 20) The month starts with the women in charge, know which side of the fence you’re on and adjust accordingly. At mid-month you will need to have all the mental strength that you can muster, hunker down and focus. On a positive note near the end of the month you will be making some new friends.

Aries (March 21 - April 20) Sorry but you need to start the month with some compromise, stop being a stubborn ass and give a little. Mid-month is nothing but distractions, distractions, distractions ... smell the coffee and stop smelling the flowers. By the end of the month you will need to show some tough-love and stop enabling those around you.

Taurus (April 21 - May 21) This month is all about choices, indecision and breakthroughs for you. The time has come to make those decisions that you have been putting off. Know when the epiphany hits and act on it. Third parties causing problems, stand up and be your own person. That which does not kill you will make you stronger Gemini (May 22 - June 21) Tackle the challenges that face you at the start of the month, DO NOT let them build up by procrastinating. Make nice with those around you, try and be a good neighbor in the middle of the month. Don’t give up on your ideas, as the month comes to an end your inspiration is just around the corner.

Cancer (June 22 - July 22) This month is about you standing your ground. Challenges will be made to you and your ways and you will be tempted to give in and give up. The secret is to defeat each challenge as it happens and not fight the war on more than one front at a time. Win the individual battles and you will win the war.

Leo (July 23 -August 21) Step up to the plate; greater responsibility will bring greater rewards. Do not expect help from those around you this month, you and only you are the master of your fate. Hold fast to the course you have set, the end is not near and more work is yet to be done.

Virgo (August 22 - September 23) It may seem like the same old same old, but you’re in a new place which will make all the difference. Disappointments of the past are in the past; new day, new dawn new month. Bring it; all those energies that made you great before will make you great again.

Libra (September 24 - October 23) Relationships are strained because of an unwanted influence; find the truth and find what is important. The second half of the month has you moving in a positive direction because you have taken control and now are the captain of your own destiny.

Scorpio (October 24 - November 22) You’re run down, beat down, at the end of that rope; hope is near but you need to move to somewhere new to find it. Get yourself out of a toxic environment and do not be afraid to ask for some help or accept help when it is offered. This month is about healthy, positive change.

Sagittarius (November 23 - December 22) Caution is called for this month. Know that the argument you enter cannot be won. You will be on the wrong and stand the chance of alienating close acquaintances that means more to you than the issue at hand. Think before you speak, and know the damage that words can do.

Capricorn (December 23 - January 20) This month you need to take inventory of what you have built. Foundations and walls are not as strong as you think they are. Doors will not open no matter how hard you try, take a step back and look at things from a different perspective. What is the plan “B” to the situation, what is the other answer to the question being asked?

FREE DELIVERY ON ORDERS OVER $15.

VALID WITH COUPON ONLY. EXPIRES 3/31/14

February 2015 Triple Cities Carousel 39

“15x8” by Paul O’Heron

B.C.

DOGS OF C-KENNEL

Across 1. Where you might find a Tiger OR a Cardinal OR a Marlin OR a Blue Jay. 9. Major city/province of Belgium OR a feudal lord entitled to service from a subservient.

10. Animated teen adventurer Johnny OR Ahmir Khalib Thompson: “_____love” of The Roots.

11. A female lobster OR a female octopus OR a female chicken.

12. Middle Eastern country OR 1982 hit song by Flock of Seagulls.

13. “One of these days, Alice, POW, right in the _____!” OR one who is enamored of osculating.

14. A clothing company targeted to teenage girls OR a Hawaiian wreath.

16. 1954 movie where Terry Malloy “could have been a contender” OR where you might find the most expensive vacation houses.

18. Strictly speaking, 3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3, BUT NOT 8+8+8.

21. Anchorman Burgundy OR child star/ director Howard.

22. _____ No More, parental control phone app OR to refuse to pay attention to.

23. The first “letter” in the WWII Army/Navy phonetic alphabet OR Cain’s biblical brother.

24. Gives the go ahead OR shorthand for no strikeouts.

25. Capital of Nebraska OR Peyton Manning’s favorite pre-snap word.

26. Childhood home country of Jerry Seinfeld’s mother OR Middle Eastern country headed by Bashar al-Assad.

27. Dickens’ character played by George C. Scott OR Bill Murray OR Patrick Stewart.

Down 1. A small icterid blackbird OR Cal Ripkin professionally.

2. Actress Kristin OR home expert Martha OR (for older folks) actor James.

3. Spelling contest OR sewing klatch OR a stinging insect.

4. Event often held on Overstock. com OR what the ice cream store had when the freezer broke down.

5. Pre-opening night play requirement OR what the bride and her attendants may have.

6. A computational entity that, in response to a message it receives, can concurrently: send a finite number of messages to other entities, create a finite number of new entities, or designate the behavior to be used for the next message it receives OR the profession of George Clooney.

7. A Shakespeare play OR board game based on Reversi.

8. Alice and Henry Mitchell’s son OR 1993 movie where Christopher Lloyd played Switchblade Sam. 15. Landlord’s due OR musical based on La Boheme.

17. Nickname of famous “Minnesota” pool shark OR singers Domino and Waller.

19. Beer brewed in Rochester, NY OR river through Rochester, NY. 20. Baseball Hall of Famer Clemente OR boxer Duran.

22. “_____ _____ New York” (slogan) OR Joan Jett’s 1982 hit “_____ _____ Rock and Roll”.

26. Lancelot OR Galahad OR Paul McCartney OR Elton John.

THE FANCY RESTAURANT

WIZARD OF ID

fun stuff.

by MASTROIANNI & HART

by MICK & MASON MASTROIANNI

by CUVELIER & HOWARD

by PARKER, MASTROIANNI & HART