CAROUSEL triple cities
free
september 2016
vol. 4 issue 8
your local arts and culture rag.
BaBing... never miss a thing! www.BaBing.events
food & drink local sports family events charity events live entertainment local business coupons The Greater Binghamton area has a lot to offer, yet somehow we all wake up each morning to find that we missed some great event last night, or missed out on an opportunity to save money at a local business.
BaBing solves this problem! Visit www.BaBing.Events or downlownload the BaBing App and be amazed by all there is to do in the 607 and surrounding area! Keyword Search: BaBing Events #NeverMissAthing 2 carouselrag.com
inside. editor’s note...4 music...9 art...16 poetry...21 porchfest recap...22 events calendar...24 theatre and dance...26 food and drink...31
cosplay...34 books...36 film...39 travel...41 fun stuff...43 star stuff...46 business directory...47
“Thank God for Mary Lee Shapee, a forward-thinking, modern woman who wore many skirts, smoked cigarettes, and let it be known, was an atheist in that conservative, little community.” -Page 27
CAROUSEL triple cities
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STAFF WRITERS Doctor B, John Donson, Ilana Lipowicz, Felicia Waynesboro, Phil Westcott CONTRIBUTORS Chris Arp, Natassia Enright, Andy Horowitz, Julian Kappel, Brian Lovesky, Paul O’Heron, Taze Yanick CALENDAR GURU Emmilie Urda
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Triple Cities Carousel is published monthly, 11 times a year (Dec/Jan edition is a double issue). Copyright © 2016 by Triple Cities Carousel. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent from the publisher. One copy of Triple Cities Carousel is free each month for regional residents and visitors. Anyone caught removing papers in bulk will be prosecuted on theft charges to the fullest extent of the law. Yearly subscription: $25. Back issues: $3. Queries and submissions should include a self addressed stamped envelope. Advertisers own/control all intellectual property rights to submitted advertisements and agree to hold Triple Cities Carousel, its agents, and assignees harmless from all liabilities, claims, losses or damage of any kind arising out of the publication of any ad submitted on behalf of the advertiser.
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editor’s note. Dear Reader, Maybe it’s the phase of life I’m in personally (though I don’t think it is); maybe it’s the astrological moment we’re at (Age of Aquarius, anyone?), but I feel like nearly everyone I’m close to is going through a major transition right now. The world is changing, always, but it seems like everyone I know is moving, changing jobs – even Barack Obama. The Carousel will be changing – I’ll be moving, and (hopefully) finding work – because, well, it’s just that time. I don’t know where the time went since I first laid my hands on a young arts rag and thought, “I could write for this thing,” but three years have passed, and I can’t do anything for longer than three years. So, while this editorial is not being written at the eleventh hour, this is my eleventh hour living in the Triple Cities. Now, don’t freak out! If you haven’t skipped to the end of this, this isn’t Chris writing; it’s Heather. Chris is staying with all of you loyal readers, wizard that he is. Right now, he’s working his frantic magic, making Porchfest happen for the second year in a row, and, somehow, creating this publication. A wizard, I tell you. I thought that I’d be writing this editorial to say goodbye to Carousel, but after a slightly distracted phone conversation (I believe Chris and I are usually at least a little distracted), I realized that I might not be able to cut the cord so easily. I’m trying to leave town. I’ve done my work here (sorry to sound cocky, but that’s kind of my shtick). I may still edit; I may still attempt to recruit poets (please – send poetry!). Maybe an interview here and there. But I probably won’t be writing any more food pieces, because I won’t be local, which is why I took it upon myself to review two of the best restaurants in town before leaving, for this issue. Get it while you can. I honestly have no clue how this will pan out, but typing is cheaper than therapy and you are all wonderful listeners. I do know that the greedy vortex that pulls artists into this valley has a hard time letting go, so when I say that I’m trying to leave town, that’s all I mean. I’m trying. Speaking of trying, so much great work has been done here, specifically in Binghamton, in the last three years. I fell into the Binghole at a magic time, and wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. But there is still so much work to be done. It can feel like an uphill battle trying to make things happen here, but when the things do happen – whether it’s plastering the town with tiny, shiny tiles, planting community gardens, or starting an arts paper – the impact is felt in a big way. I implore the people of Binghamton (and all of the places that surround it), to be the change you want to see. If you don’t like something here, ask what you can do to fix it. If you think something is missing, think about what you can do to fill that void, or if you know anyone who you think would be up for the job. And city government, if you’re reading, please don’t be afraid to put more funding into the arts. When a city has a healthy creative community, everybody benefits. Triple Cities: thank you so much for welcoming me with open arms. Thanks for reading my writing! Thanks for not having a Carousel bonfire when we printed naughty words. Thanks for supporting the arts. I’ll probably see you soon. Yours, Heather Merlis Managing Editor, Triple Cities Carousel
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music. to mention sounds from less conventional instruments. Their 2012 album, Funhouse, included, among their usual instruments, a kitchen sink and junk appliances, which they’ve been known to use on stage. When they can, they recruit musician friends to play additional instruments on stage. Some songs are reimagined for the stage under the limitations of live performance. Their song “Dead Wrong,” for example, was completely rearranged to be played live. Fuzz ventures to say it became even better than the recorded version: “It was just a cool moment in the show, because we’d never done anything like this, where we put all our instruments down and basically stand around a microphone together and stomp and clap and sing the song totally a capella. In a way, I like it better than the album version because - I don’t know, I feel like if you can get a song to work without any instruments, then it’s really a remarkable feat.”
Caravan of Thieves.Photo Provided.
Caravan of Thieves at Colorscape Gypsy swing faves co-headline Norwich arts fest by Ilana Lipowicz
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HIS YEAR, AT THE 22nd annual Colorscape Chenango Arts Festival in Norwich, Caravan of Thieves joins Professor Louie and the Crowmatix, and The Slambovian Circus of Dreams headlining the musical portion of the festival. Founded by Fuzz and Carrie Sangiovanni in 2008, Caravan of Thieves is a gypsy swing folk band based in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Having played Colorscape some years ago, they return this year to play a set on Saturday, September 10th. Carousel got a chance to speak with Carrie and Fuzz, who both sing lead vocals and play lead acoustic guitar. Caravan’s sound has always been based around their two guitars, an upright bass, and a violin. Earlier this year they brought on a new upright bassist, Rich Zurkowski, and violinist, Nicole Scorsone. In the spirit of gypsy swing, Caravan of
Thieves puts on a musical performance that tells stories and involves the audience, weaving subtle theatrics through a dynamic and precise musical sequence. In their own words, “If Django Reinhardt, the cast of Stomp, and the Beatles all had a party at Tim Burton’s house, Caravan of Thieves would be the band they hired.” Fuzz and Carrie began playing music together casually in 2003, having each come down a different musical path to reach that moment. Carrie, whose grandmother was a recording artist and gospel singer, got her start singing at a young age. She later learned piano and guitar and did a little theater in high school before going to school for music. She was doing the singer-songwriter thing when she met Fuzz. Fuzz had rock n roll dreams as a young musician, playing in garage bands in rock clubs and bars. Studying music in school opened him up to possibilities outside of rock, and he ended up playing with a funk and soul band called Deep Banana Blackout before meeting Carrie. When the two first started playing as a duo, they began to sculpt the vocal harmonies and acoustic dance that
would lay the groundwork for their future project. At first they played together for fun, not making plans to record or perform. “Then eventually we said, why don’t we put this to use somewhere, you know. We played a few gigs as a duo after that,” says Fuzz. Then, together with their original bassist and violinist, they began writing and performing as Caravan of Thieves, and released their first album, Bouquet, in 2009. Within their project, they try to create an experience for the audience that transcends place and time through their music. “We think of gypsy and stuff as being kind of part of the sound. It’s like that kind of free spirited, travelling, worldly, kind of timeless vibe where, when people come to the show, it’s like: What year is this? Where are we? What country is this? It’s just kind of our little bubble,” Carrie says. While the band is comprised of four core musicians, their recorded music often incorporates other instruments. A trumpet, banjo, accordion, tuba, sousaphone, as well as percussion, have all been on their albums - not
Since their inception, the band has sharpened its focus and intentions, making sure that the theatrics never overshadow their music. “We actually toned the theatrics down a little bit from when we first started, and just because we always wanted to be focused about the music, you know. First and foremost, we’re a band that writes songs. And it’s about the songs, and then the other stuff is just there to create a more fun and entertaining kind of vibe for the audience and for the show,” Carrie explains. Now, rather than banging pots and pans on stage, the appliances are melded into a wacky contraption built by Fuzz, which they use as a drum set on stage. The theatrics are still there, but they primarily serve the music. To get an idea of their particular brand of imagination, you can check out their music videos on YouTube. In the video for “Dead Wrong,” they brought together their artist friends for a production that recalls a kitschy bombastic Hollywood romance. Dressed in vintage clothing, they meander on bicycles down the street, followed by leaping dancers. In a lower budget, but equally inventive production for the video “Home,” the band members, wearing masks depicting different farm animals, are mirrored by matching tiny toys, wandering around lost. Their videos, albums, and live shows demonstrate their spirit of adventurousness and fun, as well as their desire to always bring new elements into the mix. After a few years away, they are excited to be returning to Colorscape. Says Fuzz, “There’s been some good memories We’re looking forward to coming back.” Caravan of Thieves is scheduled to perform on the on the Main Stage at Colorscape at 4pm on Saturday, although, as the festival site mentions, all times are subject to change. Colorscape will take place, rain or shine, on September 10th-11th in downtown Norwich. To get more information about the band, check them out at caravanofthieves. com. Detailed information about the festival can be found at colorscape.org.
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Several Sons. Photos provided.
Several Sons:
Local cats find their groove and deliver by Doctor B. 10 carouselrag.com
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branched out much further than that.
N LATE AUGUST, I saw Binghamton’s own Several Sons perform live at Zona & Co. in Binghamton. The music was performed not inside the club, but out on its patio facing Hawley Street. It was warm, a bit humid, and not quite sunset when I arrived in time to see one of the opening acts, Several Sons’ drummer, Bradford Allen, doing a rather excellent solo acoustic set. After he’d finished, the full band took the stage. While the noise of passing traffic got to be a bit much at times (why do some people have to blast their car stereos at full volume with their car’s windows open?), the experience was by and large quite pleasant. What we have here are three very talented songwriters and musicians playing not only covers, flavored their own unique way, but wonderful original tunes.
JB: I’m not sure what genre you’d classify this music as. It’s an acoustic jam band that’s very strong with the vocals. KL: That’s how I would classify it, because it’s many different genres blended into one. TCC: When Brad was playing solo tonight before your set, he played among other things - a Van Morrison tune.
JB: Yeah, Brad and I are from Vestal, Kevin’s from Maine-Endwell, so yes.
BA: Yeah, I think we’re all very influenced by so many different types of music, especially older music. I mean, it seems old now, but it doesn’t seem that old to me, growing up and listening to a lot of that music. You know – the singer-songwriters - Gordon Lightfoot, Van Morrison. I think we’ve all taken those influences, and on each of our instruments, we’ve been influenced by people who are virtuosos, too. I know that Jake listens to some of the greatest guitar players in the world. I’m a huge fan of really solid, good drummers. Guys that aren’t super flashy but really get the job done. My biggest thing with drums is, I think you should really never really notice the drummer. The only time you should notice the drummer is when he makes a mistake. Like, if I can go through a whole show, and no one really notices me, and they’re paying more attention to the guitar work and the vocals, then I feel like my job has been done, honestly!
TCC: Kevin, you were in MaineEndwell’s jazz band, weren’t you?
JB: You get a cajón solo now. You’ve earned it!
KL: No, I was in Maine-Endwell’s band. I played the tuba growing up!
BA: I think we should also mention the Westcott Theater show.
TCC: From the tuba to the guitar that’s quite a transition!
KL: Yeah, we have a big show coming up. We’re opening up for Everyone Orchestra at the Westcott Theater on September 15th.
I spoke with the band during the break between their first and second sets. TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSEL: We were talking about how your band was just finding its groove. Kevin Ludwig: Yeah, I think we’re finally starting to come together as a band, and starting to play more of the downtown scene. We’re really finding our groove as far as our arrangements, our dynamics. I think we’ve gotten to a spot where we really feel good about what we’re putting out. TCC: You played a lot of originals tonight. Even when you do covers, you put a very unusual spin on them. KL: Yeah, I think we try to make every song sound a little different than the original. We don’t want to just put out a song that everyone’s heard. We don’t want to play covers that most bands are playing. We want to try something different, and be different, because I don’t think Binghamton needs the same old same old. Jake Bucher: I like what we do in a lot of our music. There’s a lot of improvisation involved. We played “The Gypsy Song.” Tonight I feel like we played it differently. I like what we did because we were kind of improvising the different parts of the song until we reached that end point. TCC: Is “The Gypsy Song” one of your originals? JB: Yeah, it’s an original. It’s an instrumental song. We have a few instrumental songs. We’re looking to add some more. TCC: When did you guys get together? Bradford Allen: I met Kevin seven years ago. Me and Kevin instantly worked together arranging songs. He had written such a huge catalog of material, we actually released, independently, two solo albums. And then, it was one of those things where I went away. I moved to Georgia, Kevin went to school, and we all kind of pursued different things. I remember I met Jake. We used to play at Magic City Music Hall’s open blues jams. I think [Jake was] still in high school; I was in college. It’s amazing that we all kind of came togeth-
er a couple years ago. And we did some stuff in the summer; we played some festivals, but nothing serious. And then once we put this act together, we kind of deconstructed everything, tore it apart and started fresh with our approach - what we wanted to do and what we wanted to sound like. Because of that, I think we’ve come in and really been energized. It’s really helped. We all know each other; we’re from the same area, but it’s kind of awesome that we came together to form the band that we have because we’ve done so many other different projects. I know Jake’s done a ton of projects, I do a bunch, and I know Kevin’s done ‘em too. But this is the perfect band for us. KL: Funny little aside about how we came together. When I was growing up, my cousin knew Bradford and he went to school with Jake. They graduated the same year. And I was learning how to play guitar when I was about fourteen, and he told me about Brad’s solo music, because Brad, as you saw, is an accomplished songwriter himself. So I looked up his website, and to me, Brad was like an icon! He was like a music icon in my life and I was learning how to play. He was a raw acoustic singer-songwriter: just what I wanted to be. So I grew up having this vision of Bradford Allen being this god! And then I come down in my friend’s basement one day, and he’s down there drinking Scotch! I’m kind of like, butterflies in my stomach, like when you see a pretty girl walking by. My friend tried to introduce us, and I looked like a baby. I was eighteen years old. And Brad was kind of uninterested. He’s like ‘Yeah, maybe we’ll do something.’ We finally got together and played, and the rest is history! We’ve been playing together since! And obviously Jake - word gets around pretty quickly. I mean, I knew growing up how great a guitar player he was. We’re just lucky that we came together the way we did.
TCC: Are you all from Binghamton?
KL: Yeah, it is. I don’t talk too much about my tuba days, but I think it sparked a light in my ass as far as getting on music and actually learning time signatures and notes and whatnot. TCC: I see you guys have a live album out. Do you plan to go into the studio and make a record? BA: Yeah. I live up in Cortland now. I just recently bought a house, and in my guest bedroom I built a studio. I’ve acoustically-treated it and everything. So we’re ready to go. It’s just difficult; we have so many shows and things going on. But we do plan to get in and to definitely at least get some kind of EP going, where we have some really good, solid studio recordings. But we’ve decided that we want to keep it raw, kind of like what we do live. We want to keep that vibe as much as possible, but be able to add some extra things in to show that we do have versatility besides two guitars and percussion and everything. Probably around October we’ll look to get into it. Sometime later in the winter, we’d like to have the EP out, have it at our shows, have people get into it, and see where it takes us. TCC: When I saw your YouTube videos, I thought of you as an alt-rock or alt-country band. But from what I’ve seen tonight, you’ve obviously
TCC: That’s in Syracuse, right? KL: It’s in Syracuse, yeah. It should be close to a sold-out show. The Everyone Orchestra is a couple of members of Moe, two members of Sophistafunk, and the singer-songwriter Ryan Montbleau. We’re really, really excited to get up there and play with those guys! It’s our second time at the Westcott! You can contact us through our Facebook page for tickets, or at severalsons.com. I just want to say one more thing. For this month and the extended month we’ve set up a collaboration with Cameroon One. It’s a foundation that helps orphaned children in Cameroon. It helps them buy school supplies, notebooks, pencils and paper and helps provide them with an education. Ten percent of all of our merchandise sales will go towards that foundation.
Several Sons will be playing at McGirk’s in Binghamton on Thursday, September 1st, Thursday, September 15th at the Westcott Theater in Syracuse (opening for The Everyone Orchestra), and Sunday, September 18th at Binghamton University. For more information on these and other appearances, please go to severalsons.com.
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Thurs. 9/1 Humble Beginnings Band Fri. 9/2 Toy Box Trophies, Masterpiece Sat. 9/3 East West Blues Band, Miller & the Other Sinners Thurs. 9/8 David & Valerie Mayfield Fri. 9/9 The Gunpoets, Wreckless Marci Sat. 9/10 RUST, Last Call Wed. 9/14 Dan Forsyth Thurs. 9/15 Blackhat Fri. 9/16 Voodoo Highway, Watts on Tap Sat. 9/17 Hummels Jug, Tim Ruffo Thurs. 9/22 Dennis Winge Jazz Trio Fri. 9/23 Next to Kin, Hop City Hellcats Sat. 9/24 The Blind Spots Wed. 9/28 Scott B. Adams Thurs. 9/29 Daniel Fluegel Project Fri. 9/30 Digger Jones, Woodshed Prophets
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music briefs Woodshed Prophets, and Voodoo Highway. Information about East Coast Bigfoot can be found on carouselrag.com in last month’s article about their EP release. For the less ambitious, they play a rockin’ blend of folk-rock, powered by Devinne Meyer’s songwriting. CC Ryder plays acoustic folk rock filled with emotion and yearning. Her soulful voice begs you to stop and listen. The Woodshed Prophets play country, crafted in the hills of Binghamton, with an edge. Their original music runs the gamut from hard-edged rock n roll to more classic country twang. They describe themselves as “Power Twang,” and that’s probably the most apt description of their music. Voodoo Highway plays original music tinged by classic rock n roll, with more than a hint of the blues. Front-woman Dana Stewart’s incredible presence invigorates the audience, and you can expect soulful solos and maybe even a guest or two. The Ross Park Zoo is located at 60 Morgan Rd. in Binghamton. A full schedule and more information are available at rossparkzoo.com.
RICK IACCOVELLI AT MCGIRK’S IRISH PUB
On September 7th, starting at 7pm, hop on over to McGirk’s for Rick Iacovelli’s beautifully crafted renditions of classic rock songs. Iacovelli plays covers ranging from the Beatles to Simon and Garfunkel and the Stones. His twelve-string guitar fills the room, and his voice belies a presence and attitude that seem to expand far outside of his frame. The accomplished local bassist regularly plays with Strauss and Company, and has been known to sit-in with the likes of Ugly Dolphin and others. He also released his 3-decade in the making art CD, Mystery On the Beach, this past May. McGirk’s Irish Pub is located at 1 Kattelville Road in Chenango Bridge. More information is available at mcgirks.com Woodshed Prophets play Rock & Roar on September 4th. Photo Provided.
SING BING AT LUMA
On First Friday, September 2nd, before LUMA Projection Arts Festival, you can join hundreds of people in the joy of making song. Specifically, in singing, “All you Need is Love” by the Beatles. Devinne Meyers, of East Coast Bigfoot, and Ayana Del Valle will lead the song, and we’ll all be backed by a phenomenal band. If you’d like to be involved, visit singbing.org, where you will find sheet music for the song. The troops will gather by 6:30pm, followed by a quick rehearsal until 7pm, at which point the beautiful horde will be filmed singing the song! There’s also a whole roster of additional information on the site, where you can find out all about the fun that’ll go down before the sun does. So come join! The action takes place at Peacemaker’s Stage, located at 7 Court St. in Binghamton (right off the Court St. Bridge).
BAYOU BASH AT CYBER AND THE BELMAR
As we all know, Louisiana, especially the Baton Rouge area, has experienced terrible flooding in the past few weeks, and needs all the help it can get. Lisa DeAngelo, who
is from Louisiana and has friends who have been afflicted by the tragedy, joins her husband, local percussionist Greg DeAngelo, in putting on a series of concerts to help raise funds and supplies. The concerts take place the first two Saturdays in September. From 9pm-12am on September 3rd, the concert at Cyber Café West features Adam Ate the Apple, and Like Astronauts. Like Astronauts plays upbeat and infectious rock music. With catchy drums and lyrical guitar hooks, their beat invites you to groove. The vocals and bass add enough edge that there’s no fear of falling into bubblegum pop. Adam Ate the Apple plays all original roots-rock, and is fronted by local songwriter Dan Pokorak. Featuring driving drums, lyrical bass, Greg on percussion, the compiler of these briefs on saxophone, and local guitarist Taze Yanick, the band’s raw feeling has excited crowds all over Upstate. The second concert takes place at the Belmar on September 10th. Bands will play from 3-9pm out on the patio. Like Astronauts, and Adam Ate the Apple will reprise, but this time will be joined by songwriter Devinne Meyers, recent winner of Equinox Broadcasting’s Spotlight Sing-off. More than
just a singer, and coming off her band East Coast Bigfoot’s recent release, her songs are reminiscent of Alanis Morissette in their beauty and honesty. Thoughts as Devices will also join the mix, playing their expressive and intense experimental funk-rock-hip-hop with a twist. If that sounds confusing, you should just come here them play. Other artists have yet to be announced. The Cyber Cafe West is located at 176 Main St. and the Belmar is located at 95 Main St. (both in Binghamton). All funds and donations will go to support the Capital Area United Way in Baton Rouge. A list of acceptable donations, and more information about what you can do to help, can be found on Facebook - search Bayou Bash at Cyber Cafe West, or Bayou Bash at the Belmar.
ROCK & ROAR AT ROSS PARK ZOO
On September 4th, join the beasts at the Binghamton Zoo in a gigantic roar when rock invades the zoo. Rock and Roar begins at noon, and features a line-up including: CC Ryder, East Coast Bigfoot, Dirt Farm, the
VINE BROTHERS AT CYBER CAFÉ WEST
The Vine Brothers are returning to Cyber Cafe West on Wednesday, September 7th, and it’s an exciting moment in music. The trio formed in the South, but its members are spread all across the country. A classic string band, with a mandolin, guitar, and upright bass, they come together to form one of the best and most innovative bluegrass/Americana bands in the U.S. Their original material pushes the boundaries of Americana, with heavy influences from jazz and classical music, and their arrangements of cover tunes are on point: check out their cover of “The Ghost of Steven Foster.” Their shows are always high-energy and fun, sometimes including medleys of Star Wars tunes and other times incorporating spacey jazz improvisations. They are always locked-on to each other, and their love of playing with each other, and for others, spills off the stage. They arguably hold the mantle of current Americana music. Cyber Cafe West is located at 176 Main St in Binghamton, and the show starts at 8pm. More information located at cybercafewest. com (MUSIC BRIEFS CONTINUED ON PAGE 14)
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music briefs BLUES ON THE BRIDGE
On September 11th, prepare yourself to reroute, because Blues on the Bridge is coming back for its 15th year. With 11 acts, and a fun, family-friendly atmosphere, Blues on the Bridge is a Binghamton community event with an emphasis on everyone having a good time. Some highlights of this year’s line-up include: The Gunpoets, an Ithaca based hiphop band that separates itself from many other hip-hop groups by keeping their lyrics focused on spreading peace, love and understanding through the world; and Dirt Farm, singer-songwriter Jeff Stachyra’s band. You may best know Jeff as the proprietor of Newclear Studios, where he has recorded many local bands and albums (including the phenomenal Binghamton Rocks Vol. 1). Dirt Farm is American music with a heavy emphasis on rockabilly and country. Other bands include Pasty White and the Double Wide, The Tomahawks, the Parlor Cats, and, for good measure, the Edward P. Maloney Pipe Band. Blues on the Bridge will take place on the Riverside Drive Bridge at Water Street from noon to 10pm. In case of rain, Blues on the Bridge will take place on September 18th. The event is open to the public. Information updates will be on bluesonthebridge.org or on Facebook.
JOEL DIEGERT AND MARIAM VARDZELASHVILI AT THE PHELPS MANSION
Sunday September 11th is not just a great day for blues lovers, but also classical music aficionados. At 3pm at the Phelps Mansion, Joel Diegert (saxophone) and Mariam Vardzelashvili (piano) take the stage and open up the vast horizon of classical saxophone literature to you. Joel Diegart hails from Upstate New York and has studied under such venerated players as Steven Mauk and John Sampen. He’s won awards all across Europe and the United States, and is a member of the group FiveSax as well. Mariam Vardzelashvili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and by the age of eight was performing with the Georgian National TV and Radio Orchestra. She moved to the States at the age of 20 to continue her studies, and after completing her Master’s degree she moved to Paris to expose herself directly to the French school of piano playing. She has won many awards and competitions on both sides of the pond. Both players are incredibly devoted to expanding the current classical repertoire, and it’s a rare treat to see such wonderful, and young talent. Tickets are $15 for the general public, $10 for museum members, and $5 for children and students with I.D., and can be purchased online. Children under 13 attend free. The Phelps Mansion Museum is located at 191 Court Street in Binghamton. More information is available at phelpsmansion.org.
ABANDONED STUDIOS PRESENTS: PINX HEX
September 17th will see the return of art-rock to Abandoned Studios. Pink Hex describe themselves as experimental/avant-garde/ noise/drone/free-form jazz, and one can’t really find a reason to disagree with them. Based out of the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, the three-piece guitar/bass/drums/bells/noise
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The Gunpoets headline Blues on the Bridge on September 11th. Photo Provided. outfit asks listeners to revel in discomfort and to open their mind to the inherent truth that all music is just noise, really. If you’d like to preview their music, visit: freemusicarchive. org, search Pink Hex. Abandoned Studios is located on the 2nd floor of Spool Contemporary Arts Space at 140 Baldwin Street in Johnson City. There will be a $3 door charge. More information can be found by searching: Abandoned Studios Presents, on Facebook. Show starts at 7pm.
DOOLIN O’DEY AT THE CRANBERRY COFFEEHOUSE
On September 17th, starting at 7:30pm, the Cranberry Coffeehouse will put on the first show of its 44th season, featuring Doolin O’Dey. The sometimes trio, sometimes quartet, and sometimes quintet, plays a mix of traditional and Gaelic- inspired music. The foot stompin’ music includes jigs, aires, reels, and waltzes, and will make you think you’re on the British Isles. Band members
include Jerry Drumheller, who has 20 years of experience playing with the Greece (NY) Symphony Orchestra, and Susan Murphy, who you may more readily recognize from her tenure playing with Answer the Muse. As is the norm at the Cranberry, the group will play two sets, broken up by the “Middle Set,” during which audience members are invited to perform for a maximum of five minutes. The Cranberry Coffeehouse is located at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 183 Riverside Dr. in Binghamton. There is an $8 suggested admission fee. More information is available at cranberrycoffeehouse.org.
tribute in the East,” and, garnering audiences of over 5,000, it can probably be believed. Journey’s sound is emblematic and striking, and the Idol Kings have nailed it to a tee. One can only hope that their hair is as accurate as their sound. Joining the Idol Kings, will be the “definitive Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks Tribute Band,” Stand Bac. Bringing back the sound of Fleetwood Mac during their heyday, Stand Bac nearly perfectly emulates their world-renowned sound. From songs like “The Chain” to “Gypsy” to the power anthem “Rhiannon,” you’ll feel like you were part of the dance.
THE IDOL KINGS AND STAND BAC AT THE FORUM
Floyd L. Maines Veterans Memorial Arena is located at 1 Stuart St. in Binghamton. Tickets are $25-$35 and are available at ticketmaster.com. Further information can be found at musicfactoryent.com.
On Saturday, September 24th, you’ll wish the 70s were alive and kicking. The Idol Kings are touted as “the most accurate Journey
Music briefs compiled by Phil Westcott: music@carouselrag.com
EXPLODING
FINGERS
GUITAR DOJO
A monthly lesson in music theory from guitar player extraordinaire Chris Arp
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ELCOME BACK ALL YOU students and lovers of fall weather! Last month we covered the idea of embellishments and then focused on the trill. You can find that article, its accompanying instructional video, and all of our previous articles, at www.explodingfingers.com. This month we are going to present the term “guitar lick” and give you two flashy examples. A guitar lick is a particular group of notes, phrases, or specific techniques that are used when playing guitar. Generally speaking, these are found in solos or melodies. They are similar to the everyday idioms or catch phrases we use over and over again in our speaking language. Seasoned guitarists who have proficiency in playing guitar solos, especially within the improvisational paradigm, are known to have a “tool box” filled with licks. They are the cool little tricks that we learn from our friends. They are also the catchy melodies we learn and then use after transcribing our favorite musician’s solos. The seasoned guitarist might show up to an open jam night and chose from any of their life long collection of licks that seem relevant when their solo break comes. The first lick I want to show you in Figure 1 is a traditional, very full sounding, bending blues lick that all aspiring guitarists should know. It comes from the common pentatonic blues scale box pattern in the key of E minor. Notice the fingerings and pick directions suggested atop of each note in case you have a problem working this one out. Once you have it down feel free to play it over and over again whenever you feel the time is right.
The second lick found in Figure 2 is an economy picking pattern that comes from the C major scale pattern we looked over in previous articles. Again, pay attention to the fingerings and picking directions used above each note. Once you have it down this lick will add some blistering speed and dynamics to your playing.
For both of these exercises, as in most exercises requiring any form of practice to master, start out very slowly and develop the technique as accurately and as cleanly as possible. Take your time to play it correctly. Then, preferably with a metronome, slowly increase the tempo by which you play the lick until you can play it at your goal tempo in a relaxed, clean fashion. Again please visit my website www.explodingfingers.com to see an example of how to perform these licks. If you have any questions, comments, column suggestions, or are interested in getting guitar lessons in the Binghamton area, contact me at explodingfingers@hotmail.com.
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A glimpse of what’s to come at LUMA Fest. Photos Provided.
Binghamton il-LUMA-nated As the sun goes down, the light turns up by Phil Westcott 16 carouselrag.com
art.
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NE YEAR AGO ON September’s First Friday, folks spilled out of art galleries and restaurants into the dusk-drawn streets for what turned out to be one of the biggest art festivals Binghamton has ever seen. Around 25,000 people gathered to watch as buildings were rearranged and reshaped, their facades crumbling as cyberkinetic faces exploded from bricks and giant lizards crawled across windows. Our favorite childhood comic strip sprang to life, and Binghamton was showered in a glow of creative light. This year, we once again will be enveloped in that glow as the sun sets on First Friday, and the second annual LUMA Projection Arts Festival takes over the downtown streets. The festival will include four different buildings with five different projections, played multiple times throughout the evening. Co-founders of the festival Joshua Ludzki, director of Bingpop; and Nick Rubenstein, curator of Jungle Science, set out to expand and develop the size and scope of this year’s festival. They’ve teamed up with the international projection company Christie Digital to ensure that this year’s show will be bigger, better, and brighter. “One of the things that’s been really interesting about working with Christie,” says Ludzki, “is how interested they are in what we’re doing. We - so far as we know - are the only festival in the country that’s focused exclusively on the projection arts. Their interest in us is, I think, because of that. We’ve been able to learn a lot by dealing closely with them.”
Bringing a projection arts festival to Binghamton was by no means an easy feat. The idea was germinated by Tice Lerner. BingPop had thrown a New Year’s Eve after-party at Social on State, where they projected local artists’ work onto the front of the building. “I approached Joshua and said, ‘Have you ever heard of projection mapping?’ which led to the question ‘What is projection mapping?’” Lerner then proceeded to explain the difference between projection mapping, and just projecting on a building. “Projection mapping is generating an image or animation that is mapped specifically to a surface; not just the shape, but all of the topology. It’s building an animation that utilizes every feature: the texture, anything that exists on the surface. Once that animation is generated, you project it back onto the surface, using special software that makes sure it fits back on the surface just as is. Once the projector is turned on, anything that was utilized on that surface will seem like it’s moving or coming to life.” Projection mapping is like building on building. The artists involved in the festival must become a “second generation architect,” Lerner says. He explains it further in terms of his own work in practical effects. “You can go buy a rubber mask or generic prosthetics, but nothing will be the same as taking a live cast of someone’s face, sculpting something specifically to them, and having something that was made only for that one face. It’ll never move the same. The lifelike
feeling is there because that piece was created to accentuate and take advantage of that person’s face, not some generic idea.” Lerner continues, “It’s the same as a building. You have to look at the building and say ‘What does that building want to be, and what do we create to make this building look alive or different in some way, but still be identifiable to that building?’ It’s very important in finding a balance; just like when you create a monster. What makes it real is not the fake part, but the part that is true to the anatomy of what we already know.” After having the original idea of animating the courthouse, the duo of Lerner and Ludzki decided they wanted to aim bigger, but needed help to do so. Nick Rubenstein, who came to the area after a successful career doing post-production and animation in Hollywood and VJing for artists all across the world, was called in and became a co-founder of the festival. The logistics of pulling off the scale of the festival were intense. First, they needed to gather a team of artists. Luckily for Binghamton, the creative group Favorite Color, which does animation for ESPN and HBO, had ties to the area. Mason Mastrionni, heir to Hart Studios, was also willing to race ahead with their ambitious plans. With the help of Zach Mulligan, a Binghamton native who now lives in Los Angeles and works for Jim Henson Productions, was pulled on board, and Howie Mitsakos of Vestal’s Novel Studios also agreed to create a piece.
With a stage full of artists, the next two hurdles would be acquiring the high-powered projectors needed for mapping, as well as the stamp of approval from the City of Binghamton, because it was going to be necessary to turn off the lights downtown. Once again, fortune was on their side, and they were able to find the projectors needed, and the city was fully on board. “Coming from bigger cities - I’ve always lived in bigger cities -” Rubenstein explains, “it’s always been really difficult to get things on a larger scale done. Unless you know everyone already. In Binghamton… you can introduce yourself, and over time develop relationships and trust. In particular, the Office of Economic Development and Bob Murphy, who is a very vocal supporter of the arts, were a big help.” Last year’s festival, despite a few snags, was a resounding success, and once the projectors were turned off and the street lamps again buzzed, the team started thinking of how to make this year bigger and brighter. One of the ideas was a juried competition. “Last year we had the crowdsourced art gallery,” Ludski recalls. “We had 20 people submit.” In order to more fully engage the public in the projection arts this year, they had artists submit proposals, and five finalists were selected. Judges include Wade Ryer from Dreamworks Studios, and the winning piece will be projected onto the front of The Shop on Washington Street. (LUMA FEST CONTINUED ON PAGE 18)
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LUMA 2015 brought more than 25,000 people to downtown Binghamton. Photo provided. (LUMA FEST CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17) The Binghamton Philharmonic also approached the team to see if they could be involved, and one of the new pieces this year was specifically developed for live symphonic accompaniment. The Philharmonic will be unusually seated on the back of the Forum’s stage, facing the open loading dock door, so as to be visible to the crowd watching the projection. Mason Mastrionni and Zach Mulligan were tapped to produce the feature. “The idea was to choose something iconic that hasn’t [yet] been animated. One of the things that inspired us was the idea of how Fantasia was done,” Ludzki remarks. “Our challenge was to make sure you hear the piece and you say to yourself ‘How is it possible that no one’s done an animation to this piece?’ because it’s so well-known and so iconic. [We wanted] to pay homage to not just Fantasia, but a century of tradition of associated animation to classical music. But also taking it to the next level, because it’s not just animation, it’s projection mapping. It’s something that I think we can safely say has never been done before.” This animation will feature both the classic B.C. characters, as well as the Wizard of Id. One of the main stressors for the artists is that, for the projection to be a success, the timing needs to be pulled off incredibly precisely. “The Philharmonic is known for figuring out impossible problems and doing it very well,” Mastrionni delivers, with a slight catch in his voice. Due to all of the moving parts, the real first performance will be the night of. For Mason, “it’ll be like watching a tightrope walker go in between two skyscrapers.” LUMA feels like something of a homecoming to Mastrionni. When his grandfather, Johnny Hart, unexpectedly passed away in 2007, Mason came home from Minneapolis to take the reins at Hart Studios and continue his grandfather’s legacy. Having been raised in the Binghamton area, Mastrionni remembers, “One of my favorite parts of growing up was seeing the B.C. Open, the B.C. Parks signs, and B.C. Transit. It was really cool to see the way my grandfather volunteered to be part of the community.” By bringing the beloved characters into a whole new atmosphere during LUMA, Mastrionni feels like he’s continuing that legacy.
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Other highlights of this year’s festival will include two projections by Favorite Color: one, on Atomic Tom’s, will contain an homage to retro video games, and the other will be projected onto a Cadillac in front of the same building. “We’re not entirely sure if the car isn’t going to explode when hit by lasers,” Rubenstein jokingly remarks, “but we can only hope the explosion will be contained.” The LUMA team also recommends that, if you find a large crowd at the car projection, to come back later as it is a more intimate piece. Rubenstein himself has teamed up with Howie Mitsakos and Novel Studios to create a piece that will be broadcast on the back of the downtown radio building, and visible from the Metro Center parking lot. Entitled “Virtual Architecture,” you’ll have to see for yourself what it’s all about. LUMA, in many ways, highlights the reformation of the Binghamton community from a former industrial town in the Upstate rustbelt into a creative area of its own design. It creates an opportunity to highlight both the work of local artists, and the way that the area can fit into the new world it’s suddenly found itself a part of. It invites national and international talents into the area, and shows the world that we can be more than what we were. “I wanted to showcase the strengths of our community,” Ludzki says. “What are the strengths we currently have? If we talk about economic development without the [impact of the local arts scene], we’re crazy.” Perhaps, in Binghamton, we are a little crazy. But maybe that craziness can take us into the blinding light of an illuminated future. The LUMA Projection Arts Festival will take place Friday, September 2nd, in downtown Binghamton. The event will start shortly after dusk (around 9pm) and continue until midnight. Admission is free. Most of the projection pieces will last between 3-5 minutes, and be played multiple times over the course of the night. The Binghamton Philharmonic’s piece will only be played three times. A map with specific timings for the Philharmonic, as well as further information about the festival, can be found at bingpop.com.
art briefs exhibits are on view: Keith Arnatt: Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (photography); The Wedgwood Revolution; Picturing Children at the Turn of the Century (photographic media); and The Kabuki Stage in Japanese Woodblock Prints. The Museum is located on the BU campus at 4400 Vestal Parkway East. All exhibits are open to the public at no charge. Current viewing hours and further information may be found at binghamton.edu/art-museum or by calling (607) 777-2968.
A MASTER BOOKBINDER’S TOOLS OF THE TRADE AT BUTTERNUT GALLERY
What could be more appropriate for display in a bookstore gallery than the art of the book? Through September 17th, bookbinding-related art takes center stage at Butternut Gallery & Second Story Books. Don Rash, a professional bookbinder in the German tradition, and Fine artist, has been perfecting his craft for more than three decades. Passionate about his work, for him, bookbinding goes far beyond the mere mechanics of putting together a book. It is art in and of itself. This exhibit showcases all aspects of his involvement, including paintings, handbound books, and traditional tools of the craft. Butternut is located at 204 Church Street in Montrose, PA. The Gallery is open from Wednesday-Saturday from 11am-5pm. Additional information may be found online at butternutgallery.com or by calling (570) 278-4011.
Detail from “The Imagination of Man” by Ken Weir. Showing this month as part of Separate Paths at Cooperative Gallery 213.
FIRST FRIDAY FULL OF LIGHT
On September 2nd, the First Friday Art Walk joins with LUMA Projection Arts Festival to provide a veritable buffet for the senses. 6pm kicks off the Art Walk, with a wide list of venues packed with art, music, and great food and drink to keep the energy flowing. LUMA kicks in at 7pm with a community sing-a-long at Peacemaker’s Stage, and, in a fortuitous turn of events, begins its official after-party at 9pm (at Lost Dog Lounge) just when the Art Walk concludes. It’s the Friday that never ends! The Visual Arts segment of the Walk include: From Brackney and Beyond, photography by Kirk and Lesli VanZandbergen at Yoga Body Studio’s new Court Street location; Separate Paths, a group show at Cooperative Gallery 213 highlighting the art of Ken Weir, David Saffer, Robert Lobe, and Morgan Taylor; Upstate New York Beasts In Residence, featuring the work of Johanna Husband and Jodie Mangor at The Gallery; Whimsical Glass Landscapes by Joanne Thorne Arnold at RiverRead; and two exhibits at HealthLinkNY: Galaxies at My Fingertips, mixed media by Caroline Guzewicz; and Abstract Art in Pathology by Dr. Jagmohan S. Sidhu. Musical offerings include: Voodoo Highway at Atomic Tom’s, Cans N Clams with Rooster and the Roadhouse at the Holiday Inn, Five and ½ Sopranos, a voice recital, at Phelps Mansion Museum, and Latinos United Latin Platinum Dance Party at The
Place on Court. First Friday Art Walk, presented by the Gorgeous Washington Street Association/GWSA, is sponsored in part by M&T Bank, Equinox Broadcasting, and Triple Cities Carousel. Check out gorgeouswashington.com for a full list of venues, schedule details, and further information. P.S. Don’t forget that Art Walk Owego also takes place every First Friday in the coolest small town in America. Go to owego.org for the full scoop.
COOPERATIVE GALLERY HOSTS SEPARATE PATHS
From September 2nd through the 25th, the Cooperative Gallery hosts a group show featuring the work of Ken Weir, Robert Lobe, Morgan Taylor, and David Saffer. Classmates at the New York Studio School in 1978, studying under famed figurative painter Paul Georges, each artist pursued a different path in the expression of his creativity. The show, dedicated to the late David Saffer, represents the first public showing of his work, which includes still life, cityscape, and figurative pieces in a style that has been compared to that of Matisse and Bonnard. Lobe, a photographer of urban settings, focuses his eye on the creation of urban still-life, abstraction, and collage. Taylor is a realist painter, whose work is characterized by the gallery as, “intimate and revealing character and light studies of ordinary folk.” And representing Weir is an
Art briefs compiled by Ronnie Vuolo: art@carouselrag.com
allegorical triptych painting entitled “The Settlement of Maine” (NY). An opening reception takes place on September 4th from 5-8pm, with an artists talk scheduled for the 15th at 7pm. The Cooperative Gallery, located at 213 State Street in Binghamton, is open Fridays from 3-6pm, Saturdays from 12-4pm, and by appointment. Further information can be found at cooperativegallery.com or by calling (607) 724-3462.
FALL EXHIBITS OPEN AT BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM
The BU Art Museum kicks off their fall season in a big way with six new exhibitions, all opening on Thursday, September 8th. The Main Gallery features Baseball in Cuba: A Photographic Essay by Ira Block. The exhibit represents the visual culmination of three years in which the famed National Geographic photographer documented the relationship between the Cuban people and their beloved national sport. The opening reception takes place on the 8th from 5-7pm, and includes a performance by the BU Nukporfe African Dance-Drumming Ensemble at 6pm. On October 13th at 5:30pm, Block will be on hand to give a talk about his work. The exhibit runs through December 17th. The Mezzanine Gallery opens the season with Shakespeare Posters: The Bard in Bold, showcasing a collection of modern posters by international artists. And in the Lower Galleries, four
COLORSCAPE CHENANGO ARTS FESTIVAL
On September 10th and 11th, the 22nd Annual Colorscape Festival convenes in downtown Norwich. With three stages full of music, magic, dance, and more, and over 125 juried artists, the event has something for everyone. More than 10,ooo visitors are expected at this popular event that also includes an exhibition of student art, a poetry slam, interactive demonstrations, kids projects, and great food. Musical highlights include: The Slambovian Circus of Dreams, Vance Gilbert, Caravan of Thieves, Professor Louie and The Crowmatix, The McKrells, The Jeremy Wallace Trio, Answer the Muse, Brother Sun, Upstate Rubdown, Taze Yanick, Rob Norris, LJ Gates, and the Meena Conant Singers. Dance will be presented by Phoenix Project Dance and Martha Ryan’s Tango/Ballroom dancers. For the kids, the Art Zone Stage will be filled with Magic by Michael, Zoomobile, Robert Rogers Puppet Theater, juggling by Hilby, and readings by local children’s book authors. And of course, there is a drumzone! Another highlight of the festival is the annual Color Dash Fun Run & Walk on the 10th. In this event, participants (no experience needed) find themselves transformed into brightly colored movable art as they are doused with colored pigment along their route. Admission is free and the event is rain or shine. A full list of artists, performers, event information, performance schedule, and accommodations may be found online at colorscape.org.
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poetry.
THE POETRY OF TAZE YANICK
Taze was born and raised in Seattle. He moved to Binghamton from Ohio to attend graduate school in philosophy at BU. He got his M.A. He taught as an adjunct professor for a few semesters, then moved around some more, eventually landing again in Binghamton. He is active in several local musical communities, e.g Adam Ate the Apple, Lutheran Skirts, Salsa Libre, and regularly attends poetry open mics.
JUST BECAUSE
I. Just because it’s on my mind doesn’t mean I have to unearth giants blind trying to present myself for the time being true and real eloquent green feels inventions waking up passing out windows and eyes looking through has-been postures holding back huge massive visions yearning to let go of oversized stuffed animals jotting down epigrams speechless something for nothing composing quips ditties and odes like sweet nourishing hush make improbable vows easy to hear. II. Just because it occurs to me doesn’t mean I have to say it out loud washing away other stories murmuring alternative explanations reeking of genuine enigmas barely bound in obstinate hieroglyphics leave puddles of telling quiet enables omens foreseeing sweeping cycles soothing those who take note of obscure outpost gathering fugitive silence wise to hilltop historians speaking thoughtlessly of lost worlds encased in dead books bartered for piercing insight. III. Just because I think doesn’t mean I have what I want to get across is one iota of spot on wisdom amassing evidence of stillness nurturing energy undetected precise notion summed up for the ages to consider starting over this enterprising waste turning out to be misery incomprehensible hungry humans to wipe the slate clean mop up corrupt arrangement self-destruction last on the list. IV. Just because it’s funny doesn’t mean I have to laugh out loud careening across details unseen by run of the mill
scenarios setting up humdrum exchanges weird character for spent routine swapping mere treasure for flickering comedy only just detected catastrophe on the horizon lifts me out of the course of events mirroring ordinary universes turn raw experience into rare collective momentum. V. Just because I ride a bike doesn’t mean I am balanced on the edge of a cliff waiting for girlfriends to complete me is a nice unnecessary convenience wishing for excess of gratuitous lust is my charm doomed for contentment lured out of hiding comes tongue-tied shy boy displaying his scratches wearing faces unrecognized but easily accepted as polite demons smiling the day away outfitted in the paradox of breakfast eaten and utterly honest always. VI. Just because we get dressed doesn’t mean morning is broken bread in the making rising earlier and earlier to taste distant intelligence given complete license to drive rhyme home at last intervals off the hook resonate and the slightest profession of lame deceit fools no one daring juicy elation quenching unprecedented craving dynamic multitude restoring reasons unimpaired and still figuring out a way just to be myself.
SEATTLE
The streets are crooked and the trees stay green all year – sunny and raining in the great Northwest. Sharp islands by the hundreds rise ancient ideas rest in icy horizons tides wash away castles made of sand whales and seals moan and bark green and white boats signal their departure. Home at last.
TESTAMENT AND INFLUENCE
If Monk or ‘Trane ever came around here and heard these necessary phrases of fury and nerve – heard the way such strings vibrate on this particular night time spilling out from this very porch into wet streets secret open air – he’d probably give me a bit of advice. I hope he would – in fact I believe he has. Then again, I believe my grandfather issues stern warnings when I’m half asleep I believe mom still passes through to tell how handsome I’ve become. I believe my music teacher laughs gently when I make a mistake I believe we are not dead to the world just yet. I believe my feet are giant melons and I will eat them if you don’t love me or at least my feet believe it. Then again my feet really do believe love is the most powerful force in the universe, now don’t they? Turns out they do. O.K. I’ll just come out and say it then: I am visited – by relatives, ex-lovers and friends yes – but also unborn spirits of the long-gone on the lookout, souls of departed musicians for sure all visit, stopover, call on me and stay; just so long they linger awhile leaving footprints traces of advice in my fingers heart brain and stomach doing it right now as we sit stand crouch slump lean and lie saying this prayer we’ll be something like that ourselves some day too. Won’t we be drawn to the living after we’re gone somehow choose to be best friends with a girl or a boy we never met breathing seeing jumping loving seek out the warmth of life somehow?
Won’t we also pay a visit now and then? Just so do I imagine myself making friends once again.
JUNGLE GYM
All my pals are loons. Goose on the loose is best for the cursed prize of course events feeling pretty turn gritty rough grainy incredible fool mute antibody insane fetish undeniable slack moose abandon cargo today unthinkable brother unite cool scattered hijinx everywhere swift monsoon feet leave gimpy doctor limping far away in place shaken but not for me to say whether together or up for gift mixing quick thinking with vinegar and wine and cry my dying at every moment. Notice what then happens about six forty acres across vast channels last night miracle wrapped in plastic eye glass, blue and green fruit-wild plant between speech reaches bats baskets and rogues at the station crash justice rusted, bent anchor joke looming large thrilling hot ions stop to gripe jackhammer jest twice ancient yellow birds combine elemental pyramid gender and number moot dispute spin grin then try to rebound slack dream. Gloveshine tarp trapper dangle your shingle, jingle your fang slang mambo.
Interested in having your poetry featured in an upcoming issue? Please email 3-5 poems and a short bio to Heather Merlis: poetry@carouselrag.com
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porchfest recap. Good lord, where do we even start? What an immensely beautiful day August 28th was. Thank you all, so, so much. When we started Binghamton Porchfest last year, we had no idea how big of a hit it would be. And it wouldn’t have been if it hadn’t been for the 26 hosts, 91 acts, 340 musicians, and 3000+ attendees that came and made it beautiful. The smiles, the sense of community, the kids dancing in the street… it’s almost too overwhelming to describe. You came together in a big way, Binghamton. Thank you. We can’t wait to do this all over again in 2017. Remember, though… talent exists here 365 days a year. There’s music in this town every day of the week, in bars and venues and church halls and living rooms. Please support your local music scene. All photos by Patti Schwartz, “Patti Loves Bing.”
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triple cities carousel carouselrag.com mon. sun.
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The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Masterpiece Energy (MGRX) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Rock and Roar (RPZ)
Crazy Cool Craft Show (BBW) The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Blues on the Bridge (DTB) The Dutchman (KNOW) Hi-Way Fruit Market (MGRX) Caroline Angell (MGRX) Chenango Colorscape Festival (NOR) Chamber Concert Series (PHL) All Nations Pow Wow (PIBF) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB)
When In Carthage (CMP) HAIR (EPAC) The Dutchman (KNOW) Bing City Limits Anniversary Event (MGRX) Medieval Larping (OTS) Cohen & Ginsberg: Ragtime & Vaudeville (ROB) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB)
Piano Trio Concert (AC) When In Carthage (CMP) Exit 65 Music Festival (HICK) The Dutchman (KNOW) Rum Runners (MGRX) Binghamton City Limits (MGRX) RoberCon (ROB) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Cars and Coffee (RPZ)
KEY (ABS) Abandoned Studios, Johnson City (AC) Anderson Center, BU (AMT) The Art Mission & Theater, Binghamton (ATOM) Atomic Tom’s, Binghamton (BBW) Black Bear Winery, Chenango Forks (BCFM) BC Regional Farmers Market, Binghamton (BCPL) Broome County Public Library, Binghamton (BEL) Belmar Pub, Binghamton (BSP) Blarney Stone Pub, Norwich (BTP) Blind Tiger Pub, Johnson City (BUAM) Binghamton University Art Museum, Vestal
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Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW) Vietnam…Through My Lens (CRT)
Tango Lessons (ATOM) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW) Gene Hummel (MGRX) LEGO Club (YHPL)
Tango Lessons (ATOM) Teen Coloring Club (BCPL) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW) Heart of the Arts (DBL) Kids Night Out (DPK) Vermont Cheddar (MGRX) Coloring Club (YHPL)
Tango Lessons (ATOM) Tots ‘n’ Toddlers (BCPL) Open Mic (BEL) Team Trivia (CCW)
(BUN) Bundy Museum, Binghamton (CAL) Callahan’s Sportsman’s Pub, Binghamton (CCH) Cranberry Coffeehouse, Binghamton (CCW) Cyber Cafe West, Binghamton (CIT) Citrea Ristorante, Binghamton (CLS) Clinton Street, Binghamton (CMP) Cider Mill Playhouse, Endicott (CRT) Chenango River Theatre, Greene (DBL) Double Tree by Hilton, Binghamton (DPK) Draper Park, Owego (DSC) Discovery Center, Binghamton (DTB) Downtown Binghamton
tues.
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Crafty Kids (BCPL) Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CCW) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK)
Intro to Yoga w/ Rick Gridley (BCPL) Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CAL) Karaoke (CCW) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK) Book Discussion (YHPL)
Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CAL) Karaoke (CCW) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK) Movie Night: Age of Adaline (YHPL)
Fresh Food Face Off (BCFM) Preschool Story Time (BCPL) Trivia (BSP) Team Trivia w/ Louie G (BTP) Open Mic (CAL) Team Trivia w/ Select Sounds (MGRX) ARTifact Painting Party (SCPH) Swing Dance Lessons (TCK)
wed.
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(DTO) Downtown Owego (EPAC) Endicott Performing Arts Center (EVC) Endicott Visitor’s Center (FHS) Firehouse Stage, Johnson City (FRM) Broome County Forum Theater, Binghamton (GXY) Galaxy Brewing Co., Binghamton (HICK) Hickories Park, Owego (HIDT) Holiday Inn Downtown, Binghamton (KNOW) KNOW Theatre, Binghamton (KOP) Kopernik Observatory, Vestal (LDC) Lost Dog Cafe/Lounge,Binghamton (MGRX) McGirk’s, Chenango Bridge
Busking at the Bel (BEL) Deep Cuts (CAL) Vine Brothers (CCW) Jazz Jam (LDC) Rick Iacovelli (MGRX) Open Mic (RST) Learn Hand Quilting (YHPL)
LEGO Club (BCPL) Busking at the Bel (BEL) Chris Mollo (BTP) Open Drum Circle (BUN) Deep Cuts (CAL) Claire Byrne & Brian Vollmer (CCW) Rob Stachyra (MGRX) Dan Forsyth (RST) Learn Hand Quilting (YHPL)
Tween Coloring Club (BCPL) Busking at the Bel (BEL) Alex Creamer (BTP) Deep Cuts (CAL) Devinne Meyers (CCW) Jazz Jam (LDC) Rob Stachyra & Robbie Perez (MGRX) Open Mic (RST) Learn Hand Quilting (YHPL)
LEGO Club (BCPL) Busking at the Bel (BEL) Open Drum Circle (BUN) Deep Cuts (CAL) Wishing On Stars (CCW) Budd Ash (MGRX) Scott B. Adams (RST) Learn Hand Quilting (YHPL)
(NOR) Norwich, NY (NYS) NYSEG Stadium, Binghamton (ORG) Original’s Bar and Lounge, Oweg (OTS) Otsiningo Park, Binghamton (OUH) Old Union Hotel, Binghamton (PIBF) Portal Institute/Belize Fund, Sus (PCM) Peacemaker’s Stage, Binghamton (PHL) Phelps Mansion, Binghamton (REN) Renaissance Floral Gallery, Bingh (ROB) Roberson Museum, Binghamton (RPZ) Ross Park Zoo, Binghamton (RST) Ransom Steele Tavern, Apalachin
thur.
01 08 15 22 29
Book Club (BCPL) Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP) Team Trivia (CAL) Ugly Dolphin (CCW) The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Karaoke (LDC) Humble Beginnings Band (RST)
Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP) Acoustic Brew (BTP) Baseball in Cuba opening (BUAM) Team Trivia (CAL) Ugly Dolphin (CCW) The Smell of the Kill (CRT) Karaoke (LDC) Ellen Street Muse (MGRX) David & Valerie Mayfield (RST)
Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP), Edgy Sketch (BTP) Team Trivia (CAL), Ugly Dolphin (CCW) When In Carthage (CMP) The Dutchman (KNOW) Karaoke (LDC) The Town Pants (MGRX) History Happy Hour (PHL) Black Hat (RST) Herb Class (YHPL)
go
squehanna, PA n
hamton n
Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP) Team Trivia (CAL) Ugly Dolphin (CCW) When In Carthage (CMP) Karaoke (LDC) Under the Rug (MGRX) Dennis Winge Jazz Trio (RST)
Tots ‘n’ Toddlers (BCPL) Adam Ate the Apple (BEL) Poetry Open Mic (BEL) Karaoke & Open Mic (BSP) Team Trivia (CAL) Ugly Dolphin (CCW) When In Carthage (CMP) Karaoke (LDC) String of Pearls (MGRX) Daniel Fluegel Project (RST)
02 09 16 23 30
fri.
calendar of events september 2016 sat.
Singer Songwriter Show Case (ATOM), John Truth Experience (BBW) Rick Iacovelli & ELIXIR (BTP), Inside, Inside (BUN) The Falconer & Other Stories (BUN), DJ Space One (CAL) Under The Rug (CCW), The Smell of the Kill (CRT) First Friday Art Walk (DTB/DTO), LUMA Festival (DTB) White Out Party (HIDT), Observing & Presentation (KOP) LUMA After Party (LDC), Lunch Box Sessions w/ Marv Williams (MGRX) Art Walk Party w/ Unity Group (ORG), Pete Ruttle (OUH) SingBing @ LUMA (PCM) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Masterpiece & Toy Box Trophies (RST)
(SCPH) South City Publick House, Binghamton (SLB) Spot Light Binghamton, Endicott (TCK) Tri-Cities Karate, Endicott (TNB) The North Brewery, Endicott (VMA) Veterans Memorial Arena, Binghamton (YHPL) Your Home Public Library, Johnson City
John Truth Experience (BBW) The Revelers (BTP), DJ Space One (CAL) Solar Garlic (CCW), The Smell of the Kill (CRT) The Dutchman (KNOW) Observing & Presentation (KOP), Werk! (LDC) Lunch Box Sessions w/ Steve Argento (MGRX) Melanie & The Boys (ORG), Pete Ruttle (OUH) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Gunpoets/Wreckless Marci (RST) The Stoutmen (SCPH) The Jam Factory (SLB)
John Truth Experience (BBW), DJ Space One (CAL) Funktional Flow (CCW), When In Carthage (CMP) HAIR (EPAC), Peppa Pig Live (FRM) East Coast Bigfoot (GXY), The Dutchman (KNOW) Observing & Presentation (KOP), DJ mj Duke (LDC) Lunch Box Sessions (MGRX) Deveroe (ORG) Pete Ruttle (OUH) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Voodoo Highway/Watts on Tap (RST) Park Avenue Revue (SCPH)
John Truth Experience (BBW), Toy Box Trophies (BTP) DJ Space One (CAL), WHRW Anniversary Show (CCW) When In Carthage (CMP), Annual Golf Tournament (DSC) The Dutchman (KNOW), Observing & Presentation (KOP) Joe Stento (LDC), Lunch Box Sessions (MGRX) Acoustic Brew (ORG) Pete Ruttle (OUH) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Next to Kin/Hop City Hellcats (RST) Doug & Eamonn Hubert (SCPH) Revenge of the Stouts 3 (TNB)
03 10 17 24
Bayou Bash w/ Adam Ate the Apple (CCW) The Smell of the Kill (CRT) DJ Space One (LDC) Hummels Mug (MGRX) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Vulture Awareness Day (RPZ) East West Blues Band/Miller & Sinners (RST)
Family & Teen Game Day (BCPL), Bayou Bash (BEL), Reprise (BTP) Fringe Films Returns (BUN), Pete, Bob, & Joe (CAL) Grace’s Ghost (CCW), Second Saturday: Kick-Off Event (CLS) The Smell of the Kill (CRT), The Dutchman (KNOW), DJ Space One (LDC) Pasty White & Doublewide (MGRX) Chenango Colorscape Festival (NOR) All Nations Pow Wow (PIBF), Secret Garden Party (REN) Summer Sky Series (ROB), Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Rust/Last Call (RST) Greg Neff (SCPH) th Star Trek 50 Anniversary Celebration (YHPL)
Pink Hex (ABS), Bark-9 (BCPL), L Ectric Brew (BTP) East Coast Bigfoot (CAL), Doolin O’Dey (CCH), MVT (CCW) When In Carthage (CMP), HAIR (EPAC) The Dutchman (KNOW), DJ Space One (LDC) Beard of Bees (MGRX) The Stoutmen (MGRX) Old Friends (MGRX) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) International Red Panda Day (RPZ) Hummels Jug/Tim Ruffo (RST) Binghamton Brew Fest (VMA)
Bill T Jones/Arnie Zane Company (AC) House on Ghost Hill Road (AMT), LEGO Club (BCPL) Raibred (CCW), When In Carthage (CMP) Stand Bac & Idol Kings (FRM), Sophistafunk (GXY) The Dutchman (KNOW), DJ Space One (LDC) Several Sons (MGRX) Binghamton Wingfest (NYS) RoberCon (ROB) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) The Blind Spots (RST) Dan, Pete & Joe Acoustic Show (SCPH)
John Truth Experience (BBW) Dusty Wayne & Rusty Pete (BTP), DJ Space One (CAL) The Good Hope (CCW), When In Carthage (CMP) Taking Sides (CRT), Men Who Cook (DBL) 50 Shades of Pink (EVC), Missing the Beat (EPAC) Adam Ate the Apple (GXY) Observing & Presentation (KOP) Tom Graham (LDC) Pete Ruttle (OUH) Digital Planetarium Show (ROB) Digger Jones/Woodshed Prophets (RST)
The Triple Cities Carousel Events Calendar is compiled by Emmilie Urda. Calendar entries are guaranteed only to advertisers. Open space available on a first come first serve basis. Submit events at carouselrag.com or to calendar@ carouselrag.com by the 20th of the month prior to publication.
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September 2016 triple cities carousel 25
Bill T. Jones returns to Binghamton University this month. Photo by Stephanie Berger. Opposite: Jones and Arnie Zane. Photo by Lois Greenfield.
Bill T. Jones
The master choreographer returns to B.U. by Andy Horowitz 26 carouselrag.com
theatre and dance.
O
too, was turned into a dancer here at Binghamton University. And they wanted us because they needed men, right?
N SEPTEMBER 24TH the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company will bring a daring, innovative spectacle of dance to the Anderson Center Osterhout Concert Theater. Bill T. Jones, director, choreographer, dancer and social activist, who received the MacArthur Genius Award, who co-created and choreographed Fela, and who is broadly regarded as one of the world’s most influential voices in dance, is coming home to Binghamton.
Yes. Even today in most small towns all across the USA, guys do Ballet for free. Yes, it’s true, it’s true. It’s another type of male privilege. There was a certain kind of cockiness, no pun intended, that young dudes would find themselves taking on because they were in such demand. You also had to be a kind-of special person because the other guys were on your case about being queer, and of course some of us were queer, but the dance world was one place where we didn’t have to worry about it. Is that little studio, the dance studio in the Binghamton University Fine Arts Building down at the end of the hall on the first floor, still there?
Born of migrant farm laborers, Mr. Jones grew up in the rural community of Wayland, NY and attended Wayland High School, where a gifted drama teacher recognized and nurtured his talents as a performer. He entered SUNY Binghamton in 1970 with dreams of being an actor, but a particularly dynamic and vibrant dance faculty turned him toward dance. Certainly not risk averse, Bill T. Jones’ appetite for dance took him from SUNY Binghamton to Amsterdam, to SUNY Brockport and to San Francisco where he, Arnie Zane, Lois Welk and others founded the American Dance Asylum. A need for permanent rehearsal and performance space brought them back to Binghamton, where ADA ultimately found a home in the Abigail Whitney Building on Frederick Street. There Bill T. and Arnie Zane developed duets that would become part of the early repertoire of their company. Bill T. speaks of Binghamton with love and nostalgia, citing people and places, some of which still stand and others long gone. His was a Binghamton of filmmakers, photographers, painters and musicians, of opportunities to collaborate and space in which to grow. We spoke on August 29th: Bill T. Jones, we have spoken in the past. We know each other through American Dance Asylum. I didn’t quite overlap with you, but I was there in 1982 and was in a piece choreographed by Lois Welk that we took to PS122. Arnie Zane also performed and you were in the audience. Was Arnie performing in Lois’s piece? No, his was a solo called Hand Dance. Now it’s coming back to me. You were a member of The Second Hand Dance Company. I saw you I think a couple of times in Binghamton, and you performed in our space. Did I see you at PS122 as well? Yeah, we played PS122 four times. It was early in our careers back in the 90’s or late 80’s. Mark Russell booked us. Right, yes, I remember you guys. It was a very surprising, post Moses Pendleton style. I remember the work was very witty and well made. Anyway, great! What would you like to talk about? Where would you like this conversation to go? Well, you’re going to be performing in Binghamton, NY on September 24th and I thought that the readers of Triple Cities Carousel, who I’m representing in this interview, would be particularly
interested in your Southern Tier roots. I know that you were a young boy in Wayland, NY. Right. Yes. It’s near Hammondsport, isn’t it? Sort of, but when I was a child Hammondsport might as well have been in Buffalo. The point is, you were living in a very, very rural place. We were migrant farm laborers. That’s why we were there. So how on Earth did it come to you to be a dancer? Well, I don’t think life comes in that way. I think you have a temperament. Let’s put it this way. My parents were ambitious, enterprising Black people and the business that was available to people of their educational level and social position was field work. My dad had an entrepreneurial spirit. He got a couple of trucks and an old bus and put sides on them and tarps and, just like the Grapes of Wrath all over again, he would trundle people up through sometimes six school systems a year including my older brothers and sisters. I’m number ten out of twelve. Wow! And because the potato crop was so lucrative at that time in the Steuben County region my Dad made a commitment to be a Black Yankee in 1955. I was the first of the kids who went K through 12 in an integrated school in the north. Thank God for Mary Lee Shapee, a forward-thinking, modern woman who wore many skirts, smoked cigarettes,
and let it be known, was an atheist in that conservative, little community. She encouraged me as a theatre person, even letting me direct The Crucible as a senior. I got to dance the Buddy Hackett role in The Music Man, but it was as a solo because it was such a time of tensions around interracial relationships that I couldn’t have had a girl dance with me. I was so jazzed by the experience of being a star in my school’s Drama Club that I went off and thought I would be an actor. I didn’t know of any other world. I certainly didn’t know about Dance. I do remember there was a flyer when I was about 8 or 9 years old that was sent around saying that in Danville, about ten miles away, there were Tap Dance classes available, but my parents were working in the fields, so the idea of someone driving me after school to take Tap Dance and coming back another 10 miles in the other direction was out of the question. They were tired when they got home, and so if you were going to do extra-curricular activities you were on your own. Sports, yes. There was a bus that would drop me at the end of a mile and a half dirt road that I had to walk in all sorts of weather to get home, but at least it would get me that close. Nobody was going to take me to Tap Dance classes. The first dance that I really saw was on television, that is, until I got to SUNY Binghamton and I saw the Graham Company and other things like that. I was hooked! Yeah, I was truly hooked! Yes. Yes. What you’re saying resonates with me in ways I can’t even explain. I,
Yes, in fact it now sports a plaque that reads, “The Percival Borde and Pearl Primus Dance Studio.” I think you must have studied with Percy Borde. Yes, I had Percival Borde for Afro and Afro-Caribbean, and Linda Grandy, a former member of the Doris Humphrey/Charles Weidman Company, for Modern and Ballet. Percival Borde had a lot of gifts, I mean, that’s where I first encountered Pearl Primus, and even Twyla Tharp, a young choreographer just getting her legs underneath her, had come on the invitation of Linda Grandy. Tywla was a crazy woman who had layers of clothes on that she would shed as she worked and got sweatier. She literally insulted people and some would leave in tears. She wasn’t suffering fools. If you couldn’t do the turn, you were out! I had a good education there, a good education. What year did you start? I came there in September of 1970. That fall I left with Arnie Zane and went to Amsterdam for almost a year. After that I went to school in Brockport. At that time Brockport had Dick Bull working there—Improvisational Dance—and that’s where we met Lois Welk. She invited us to join the dance collective that they were forming out in the Bay area. We went out to California—my family also lived out there at that time—and then we all came back to a place that I knew, Binghamton. A film and art student named Phil Sykas knew about a space on Washington Street that had been the old Elks Club. It was skid row if you will, and of course we were able to get that place for a song. The roof was leaking, there was toxic dust all over the place, but we made use of its big spaces and as time went on we were able to upgrade. We moved to the old, derelict Abigail Whitney House on the North side of town. It was a YWCA at the time—kind of a rough neighborhood on the north side of Binghamton—and that’s where the Dance Asylum began its presenting series under the leadership and genius of Lois Welk with Arnie Zane supporting it. Arnie Zane and I started making our duets there in that space and those duets were our entrée into New York City. (BILL T. JONES CONTINUED ON PAGE 28)
September 2016 triple cities carousel 27
(BILL T. JONES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 27)
sure the music will be first rate. I’m sure it will. So, when you perform with live musicians, where do you put them on stage? We usually have them in the pit raised so that their heads can peek above the edge to see the stage for certain cuing.
So, you’re going to be performing here by way of Singapore. Have you been there before? This will be our second or third time. It’s a faraway place; very exotic. We did a USAID tour there in 1986 that went to Southeast Asia, including Singapore. We loved the food and we loved the mix of people. That was going to be my next question. We played Singapore, too, for the Singapore Arts Festival back in 2002 and I came back just glowing about the food; rings of food vendors out on the periphery with interior tables. You just buy whatever you want and bring it to the center. Yeah. Street food. Yes, street food in a very grand sense. Are there more stops other than Singapore? No. We did American Dance Festival this year, we did Spoleto, and we had some things to do in New York. We took seven weeks in our little house on a mesa in New Mexico. I went to Washington this week for a conference in planning an opera that I’m going to be directing in November with Opera Philadelphia, then we’re going out to Singapore and then we come back. Right after Binghamton I’m heading out to early workshops of a musical that is being mounted in Toronto, directed by Moisés Kaufman and written by Craig Lucas, that I’m choreographing. Finally, we will be back in New York for a Joyce season in the last week of October and the first week of November. That’s so vigorous! Yes, and fortunately we have a wonderful associate, Janet Wong, who makes everything happen. She’s so organized, it’s scary. We have four different evenings now in repertory that we’re touring and there’s a newish piece called A Letter to My Nephew that was made for a French tour. We happened to be performing in Paris the night of the attack on the Bataclan Nightclub. Oh my god. We were at our usual venue in Creteil, La Maison des Arts, and we did one wonderful evening. We got on the train; we heard that there were shootings in the center of the city. Little did we know the whole world had changed. And that piece, the second time it will be performed, will be in a version in Singapore called, A Letter to My Nephew, Singapore. You never know what confronts you, right? They keep asking me, Andy, the journalists of Singapore, ‘What’s the message of the piece?’ or ‘What inspires you?’ and I tell them this whole story: Initially it was inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, this essay in the New Yorker in 1964, which was explaining American racism to America in the form of a letter that he wrote to his young nephew about why his nephew’s father, James Baldwin’s brother, was so strict as a minister. My nephew, Lance, is a man who had quite a profligate life and was going to be a dancer, but instead he went off into drugs and into the sex industry. He and I have come back together as uncle and nephew, as men and as artists, trying to close the gap between us. I have the image of Lance, almost like a Frida Kahlo figure in his hospital bed, receiving postcards from the Eifel Tower, from the Concorde, places like that in
28 carouselrag.com
D-Man, from the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company. Photo by Paul B. Goode. France, so it was going to be a very tonguein-cheek take on a travelogue. Of course we didn’t know what we were walking into; that this thing, which had some politics in it, suddenly was in the middle of a true conflagration of political intent, and that is going to inform the Singapore piece. Now, you should know that Singapore is protest averse; it’s a very conservative community. Yes, it is. So they keep asking me, ‘Are you going to have politics in it?’ Well, I’ll have as much politics as the young, twenty-plus dancers we’ve been assigned, will. The work has as much Ferguson and Trayvon Martin as it does trans-gender rights, LGBT, ISIS; it’s like the CNN news cycle goes through my head; I see the image of my nephew floating in his bed. That is the piece that we are retrofitting and taking to Singapore. I love it! So, how about the Binghamton program? I understand that there will be live music. Will you bring your own musicians? No. In Play and Play we usually use area musicians and in this particular repertoire it lends itself to Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, which any halfway decent quartet probably has within its reach,
and of course the old warhorse, Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-Flat Major. The Schubert is to a piece called, Story, and the next piece is D-Man in the Waters. Yeah, D-Man in the Waters is definitely on the bill; the other two I’m looking at here in this printout say Spent Days Out Yonder and Continuous Replay. Oh, I see. One is a restaging of an Arnie Zane work, but of course now Arnie would barely recognize it, and the other one is a work of mine that is about ten minutes long. Continuous Replay will be to Jerome Begin’s score. He’s a really wild, experimental composer, someone doing mix-ups and mash-ups of kind-of John Cage-ian devices with Beethoven. It will be an octet configuration, the same Octet that would play D-Man in the Waters. Spent Days out Yonder is a Mozart Andante, a quartet, that I’m sure would be the same players from the octet. I remember Binghamton had a constellation of rather high level musicians. Is the symphony still in play? Yes, very much so. The Binghamton Philharmonic remains prominent and performs frequently. Wonderful. I’m
So, Bill T. Jones, you’ve shared choreographic insights, formative experiences, your voice as a social activist and so much more. I wonder, if you were to direct me, what should I ask you? What have I missed? Well, you certainly have an on-the-ground familiarity with the terrain that leads one from Binghamton out into the world. I don’t need to say this to a Binghamton audience, I mean, they’re sophisticated, but as it was in the beginning and as it is now, one of the most important things I could ask an audience is to watch themselves watching as they look at the work; the choices that are made, who dances with whom, and how, and to think about time in all its manifestations. When you see Continuous Replay, you’ll see the spirit of Arnie Zane on that stage. The slicing hands were a reflection of the work that he did studying karate with Hidy Ochiai. Throughout the work you see our concerns with form and time. Continuous Replay was also equally informed by the cinema. We used to audit the coolest courses on campus at that time—the avant-garde analytical projector classes of Ken Jacobs and Larry Gottheim, where important filmmakers came because they had so much respect for Jacobs, Gottheim, and the serious discourse around that Cinema Department. What does it mean that we’re coming back to Binghamton? I just want you to know and Arnie and I thought of ourselves as artists first, and returning as artists, we show respect to Binghamton. What do I feel about Binghamton? Binghamton gave us space; physical space, but also space to be young and experimental. My hat is off to Binghamton. Bill T. Jones’s returns to Binghamton University with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company on Wednesday, September 24th for a performance at the Anderson Center. Curtain time is 7:30pm. Tickets and more information available at andersoncenter. showare.com or by calling (607) 777-ARTS. uuu Andy Horowitz, of the internationally acclaimed dance troupe Galumpha, has performed his choreographic works at more than two thousand venues in thirty countries, including London’s Southbank Center, New York’s Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, The Seoul Arts Center, Berlin’s Akademie Der Künste, and countless others. He has been a featured performer on CBS’s Late Night with David Letterman, on the A&E Network, MTV, HBO, The BBC and Madrid’s Telecinco. Andy holds a BA in Theatre from Binghamton University and an MBA from Syracuse University. He lectures on entrepreneurship and offers choreographic workshops at schools and conservatories throughout the world. Andy is an artist-in-residence of Binghamton University’s department of Theatre, and lives in Binghamton, NY with his wife, Carol, and their two children, Talia and Elias.
KNOW Theatre. Provided.
Dutchman at the KNOW “A modern day racial Adam & Eve” by Ronnie Vuolo
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EPTEMBER 9TH-25TH, KNOW Theatre presents a seriously thought-provoking performance of the LeRoi Jones play, Dutchman. The Obie award winning play premiered at the Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village in 1964 - the same year Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The year hundreds of Project Freedom volunteers flocked to Mississippi to assist in voter registration, including three who never made it home, murdered for their participation in the project. It was a time of high emotion. A time of protests some peaceful, some violent. A time when the National Guard was called upon to bring order to mayhem. A time with many similarities with the recent climate of racial tension, protest, violence, and distrust. Into this climate came Dutchman, written by a man who, in addition to being a writer, poet, and teacher, was, and is, a political activist. The founder, in 1965, of Harlem’s Black Arts Repertory Theatre, he also founded the Black Community Development and Defense Organization. Formed in 1968, its purpose was to further black culture and political influence. That same year, LeRoi took the name Amiri Baraka, a name he found more suited to his Muslim faith. Dutchman, whose action takes place entirely in a subway car, has been compared to a modern day racial version of Adam and Eve. In the play, Lula, a licentious unprincipled blonde attempts to seduce a young black man named Clay. When he fails to respond to her advances, she goads and humiliates him until his outward decency is stripped away. A violent fight ensues with tragic results. It is a dark play, an examination of the baser layers of human behavior and motivations. Directed by Tim Gleason, with set design by Pat Morrisey, and lighting design by Bill Nurse, it stars Kymel Yard, in his debut performance at KNOW, in the role of Clay, and veteran KNOW performer Caitlin McNichol as Lula. Gleason founded KNOW out of a desire to to provide the Binghamton region with intelligent and thought provoking theatre. He continues this tradition with his choice of Dutchman: “I read this play 15-20 years ago, and the power and impact it had on me was astounding. KNOW Theatre has been in existence since ’93, and I, as the artistic director, have threatened many times to do this. And
I finally decided to call myself on it. Part of my hesitation was a type of fear of upsetting my clients. But when I stop to think of all of the productions I do, it’s really what I’ve been doing all along. It’s very volatile. It’s got some teeth that’s for dang sure. But in the world we’re living in, it’s too often ignored, I think. So I went ahead and put in for the rights almost a year ago this time, and then, ironically, or magically, the world of black/white relations exploded right before my eyes. And here we are in rehearsals. If I may, I’d like to certainly commend the bravery of my actors. I think it takes an enormous amount of courage to do any show, but to take on something that challenges our society, it takes an extra measure of courage. And both of these actors are doing just that.” Hailing from the Bronx, Kymel Yard came to Binghamton 10 years ago to attend BU, and remained after obtaining a degree in English. On taking on the prodigious challenge of portraying Clay, he says, “I am extremely excited to be in my first professional production, and to be reconnecting with Tim and the Folks at the KNOW. I guess the most difficult part of this production is the source material. It’s beautifully written, but it deals with a lot of things we honestly don’t like to discuss in society: so, race, sex, gender, and identity. Which at this time in our society, are all issues we really need to discuss and be open and honest about. I honestly hope that we can encourage and open discussion and conversation within our community.” Echoing that sentiment, Gleason explains, “We’re going to do a talk-back one night of each weekend after the performance (Saturday, September 10th; Friday, September 16th; and Sunday, September 25th) giving [the audience] an opportunity to talk about what they saw. I think a simple discussion between the two races would eliminate the fears we have about each other.” Audiences should be aware that the play contains racial epithets and cursing, and is very racially charged in content. KNOW performances take place at Binghamton City Stage, located at 74 Carroll Street in Binghamton. Show times are Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets are $20 general admission, $18 for seniors, and $15 for students. Additionally, a special pay-what-you-can performance is scheduled for Thursday, September 15th at 8pm. Tickets can be purchased by calling (607) 724-4341, or online at knowtheatre. org.
September 2016 triple cities carousel 29
theatre briefs
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Stu Richel brings his acclaimed Vietnam... Through My Lens to Chenango River Theatre on September 5th. Photo Provided.
HAIR GROWS AT EPAC
The Endicott Performing Arts Center Repertory Company is proud to present Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical. Hair celebrates the sixties counterculture in all its barefoot, long-haired, bell-bottomed, beaded, and fringed glory. To an infectiously energetic rock beat, the show wows audiences with songs like Aquarius; Good Morning, Starshine; Hair; I Got Life; and Let the Sun Shine. Exploring ideas of identity, community, global responsibility, and peace, Hair remains relevant as ever as it examines what it means to be a young person in a changing world. This production is directed by Patrick Foti, with musical direction by Kris Gilbert, and choreography by Emily Foti. The musical runs September 16th through September 18th at EPAC, 102 Washington Avenue in Endicott. Friday and Saturday curtain is 8pm and Sunday matinee is 3pm. Reserved seating is $20 for adults, $18 for seniors and children 12 and under. For the box office call (607) 785-8903. Visit endicottarts.com for more information or call the box office number for group sales for 15 or more.
VIETNAM…THROUGH MY LENS AT CHENANGO RIVER
Vietnam…Through My Lens is Stu Richel’s critically praised, poignant, and thought-provoking new play that explores his journey as a combat journalist and photographer to, through, and beyond his military service in Vietnam. It’s one soldier’s intimately personal and unique tale about friendship, trust, and tenacity that travels from the jungles of South East Asia to the “jungle” of Manhattan. The show includes projections of Stu’s work as a combat photographer. Stu has had principal roles in about a dozen TV shows, including
30 Rock (Alec Baldwin’s boss), Billions (with Damian Lewis and Eric Begosian), The Get Down (with Giancarlo Esposito), One Life to Live (fire chief), Michael and Michael Have Issues, and As the World Turns. He has appeared in dozens of plays Off-Broadway, OffOff-Broadway, and in regional theaters. The show is directed by Linda S. Nelson. The play is presented on Monday, September 5th at the Chenango River Theatre, 991 State Highway 12 in Greene. Curtain is 7:30pm. There will be no late seating. Admission is $12. For tickets or more information visit chenangorivertheatre.org or call (607) 656-8499.
WHEN IN CARTHAGE AT CIDER MILL
When in Carthage is a new farce by Santino DeAngelo. When an infamously unscrupulous Roman merchant gets shipwrecked on enemy Carthage, he has three days to get his ship - and his ragtag band of Roman sailors - back on the open sea before they inadvertently start an international war. Classic slapstick, madcap comedy, and true love get a brand new twist in this original farce by nationally recognized (and Cider Mill Playhouse favorite), up-and-coming playwright Santino DeAngelo. CMP is excited to be hosting the development and premiere of a brand new work by one of our local treasures! The comedy runs September 15th through October 2nd at the Cider Mill Playhouse, 2 South Nanticoke Avenue in Endicott. Show times are Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 7:30pm. Prices range from $26 to $35 for adult, senior, and student tickets, depending on performance evening and seating section. For more information call (607) 748-7363 or visit cidermillplayhouse.com.
Theatre briefs compiled by Felicia Waynesboro: stage@carouselrag.com
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SPACE RANGES FROM $50 TO $250 A MONTH Weekend enthusiast? Newly emerging professional artist? CALL JOE FIACCO AT (607) 372– 1647 Space is limited, so CALL NOW! Will help with online sales and forming an art festival on the 3 1/2 acre historic property. Also interviewing people who may be interested in forming a nonprofit to take over 175 year old church building badly needing loving restoration
food and drink. ian: when you’re in, you’re in.” Coming here is like stepping into the past; the entrance to the restaurant is at the top of a flight of stairs that look like they might be in someone’s home. There’s an old-fashioned cash register behind the bar – nothing digital, nothing ironic. There is a warm, personal feeling to the place; the staff is straightforward and authentic, welcoming without being obsequious. We made a couple of trips to Oak’s, because their food is delicious and the price is right, especially considering that each meal comes with bread (remember when that was a given?), along with a seriously good salad of Italian mixed greens. The portions are generous, and reservations are required; they seat in two-hour windows, so diners enjoy their meals at a relaxed pace.
P.S. Restaurant. It’s the real deal. Seriously. Photo provided.
Dig a little deeper:
Fine dining at P.S Restaurant and Oak’s Inn by Heather Merlis
C
LOTH NAPKINS AREN’T so hard to find in the Triple Cities, but some of the best restaurants in the area lie just slightly off the beaten path, in unexpected settings. I had been hearing about P.S. Restaurant high-end eatery that fuses French and Thai cooking - for a while, from everyone from my friend’s parents to Jim Buchta of Sach’s Tee House (another hidden gem). If no one had recommended this place to me, it’s doubtful I ever would’ve found it, despite my excellent restaurant-sniffing skills. It’s located off of Vestal Parkway in a little plaza with an unassuming exterior. When my companion and I entered, the room was full of diners who appeared to be seasoned professionals who had dined there before and would be dining there again. The staff was at once friendly and expertly knowledgeable. After reviewing the extensive and diverse menu, we ordered the Thai Pie appetizer (a pizza-inspired dish with a crust subtly sweetened with local honey); the pork chops, and, at the recommendation of our server, the bone-in Thai duck. I also, surprisingly, enjoyed a rosé with my meal. I usually avoid rosé, but this one happened to be quite dry. The wine list at P.S. is extensive, and the servers know their pairings, which may be why the restaurant was the first in the area to receive the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence in 1994, and has continued to accept that honor every year since.
When P.S. first opened in 1984, chef and owner Preecha Songprasit worked out of a small kitchen, served in a much smaller space, and had a selection of ten wines. When the restaurant was purchased in 1990 by Rick and Sylvana Dodd, they kept the French-Thai influence (though they now refer to their menu as “global contemporary cuisine”), and expanded the kitchen, bar, and dining room, and added a catering room. Sylvana, who runs the front of the house, explains the origins of their menu: “The FrenchThai cuisine is reminiscent of the French occupation of Thailand in the fifteenth century. The French chefs with their beautiful sauces married that with the Thai people and their fresh ingredients, influence of their spices, their Thai peppers… and that’s a long history of why a lot of cities have the French-Thai fusion.” While Songprasit was a Thai chef, Rick has a background in French cooking, though Sylvana shares, “He is self-taught. I always tell people he went to the school of hard knocks.” Our meal at P.S. was delicious – the pork chop was particularly outstanding, and Sylvana also recommends their Tuna Stack and Veal Ian. Aside from having a passionate chef who gives special attention to each dish he prepares, the ingredients are the true key to quality. “We have stayed loyal to sourcing locally, which we always have, before it became a thing,” says Sylvana. “Everything comes into this restaurant raw, and Rick preps it – all the sauces, all the desserts, everything: scratch. When we get our fish in, it’s the whole side of tuna, and we break it down. We’re very proud of what Rick creates and what we serve.”
The Dodds shop everywhere from the local farmers’ market to roadside farm stands, and they’ve sourced much of their meat from Butcher Boys for years. Because they are always updating their culinary offerings in accord with what’s available, they’ve had some interesting things on the menu, like alligator and emu. But their commitment to community goes beyond sourcing; along with partnering with VINES, they founded Southern Tier Independent Restaurants (STIR), and have held fundraisers for the American Diabetes Association and the newly opened Mercy House, a round-the-clock, ten-bed hospice facility where care is provided at no cost to the patient. While P.S. upholds a high standard of innovation and attention to detail, Oak’s Inn, of Endicott’s Little Italy district, stands on a pillar of tradition. What both restaurants share is a refusal to compromise on the freshness of their ingredients and the individual care put into each dish. Family-owned since 1932, the walls of Oak’s Inn are lined with black-and-white portraits of the different generations of Cerasaros who have run the restaurant over the years. One of the bartenders has worked there for literally half of her life, and the owner’s niece has been waitressing there “since she could walk,” says Dianna Ellis, Oak’s fabulous hostess. Our bartender shared that a group of men at the end of the bar were there for their 50th high school reunion; they used to frequent Oak’s when they were in high school, back when there was a pizza oven. The place is an institution, or, as Ellis puts it: “It’s very Ital-
Ellis explains that the last thing they want at Oak’s is for anyone to feel rushed. And that can be felt when dining there – the staff is subdued yet efficient, and each course is given adequate time and respect. “The owner, Richard Cerasaro, is also the head chef, and his right-hand man, Anthony Garzo, has been here for over a decade,” Ellis tells us, and goes on to explain why she loves the chicken parmesan and the fettucini alfredo: because, unlike so many other eateries, each dish is made “just for you, just to order.” But why is the chicken saltimbocca so good? Like, abnormally good. It was like nothing I’d ever had before – I’m accustomed to being overwhelmed and overstuffed by this dish, but it was perfectly balanced and portioned, served in a buttery broth. And the penne a la vodka was also outstanding; the sauce is much less creamy and heartier than the usual. Oak’s Inn redefined these dishes for me, which is surprising, being that they are served in a traditional style. “Old family recipes that haven’t changed in ages,” is how Ellis describes them. “It’s consistent, because it’s always Richard and Anthony cooking. Everything is super-fresh: homemade soup, homemade pasta, homemade desserts.” With all I’d heard about Oak’s Inn, cloaked in history and a bit of mystery, I thought I might be intimidated when I finally went. But it turned out to be one of the best dining experiences I’ve recently had, in what is now my favorite local Italian restaurant. Oak’s Inn is open from Wednesday through Saturday from 5-10pm, and on Sunday from 5-9pm. They will be closed from September 4th through the 13th. Reservations for tables are required; seating at the bar is first come, first served. Reservation calls are taken after 4pm, but can be made during any restaurant hours: (607), 748-2764. 122 Oak Hill Ave., Endicott. P.S. Restaurant is open Tuesday through Saturday, 5pm-close. Reservations suggested: (607) 770-0056. 100 Rano Blvd., Suite 8, Vestal. For their menu, wine list, catering, and more information, visit psrestaurant.com.
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food briefs BROOME COUNTY REGIONAL FARMERS’ NIGHT MARKET
We’ve come to the conclusion that, if you want to eat really well around these parts, you’re best off going straight to the source: local and regional farmers. With the ingredients available at the BCR Farmers’ Market, you can make a meal in your own kitchen that is unlikely to be paralleled by anything you find out on the town. And now, after their recent relocation, the farmers’ market will also be open on Tuesday evenings from 4-7pm (through the end of October!), for those of us who love the market but don’t keep farmers’ hours. And it’s less crowded than the Saturday market! The Night Market: we like the sound of that. And, of course, they’re still open year-round at on Saturday mornings from 9am-1pm. The Market is located at 840 Upper Front Street in Binghamton, conveniently off of I-81 with close access to I-88 and I-86/Route 17. Visit bcregionalmkt.com, or call (607) 584-5010 for more information.
FOODBANK OF SOUTHERN TIER’S ANNUAL FILL THE BUS CAMPAIGN
Now in its 9th year, Fill the Bus is a communitywide effort to collect non-perishable food items for children at risk of hunger across the Southern Tier. From September 11th-24th, the Johnson City Wegmans (along with locations in Corning, Elmira, Hornell, & Ithaca) will be collecting donations for the Southern Tier Food Bank’s BackPack Program. Wish lists will be available and signage will be posted throughout Wegmans to guide shoppers in selecting items to for the program. Donations will be collected inside of Wegmans and transported to the Food Bank, from where they will be distributed to children in need throughout the Southern Tier. For more information, visit foodbankst.org.
3RD ANNUAL BINGHAMTON BREW FEST
The Maines Arena is about to be transformed into giant celebration of hops and malt. Not to be confused with last month’s Bing Brew Fest, the bigger Binghamton Brew Fest will take place on the 17th of the month from 6-9pm. The event will be featuring Binghamton Brewing Co. (who threw the aforementioned smaller Fest), along with about 50 breweries and several wineries as well. Breweries from around the country will be featured, with a special focus on those based in New York State. This event usually sells out, so for tickets and more information, go to thebinghamtonbrefest.com. The website also has information about volunteering and participating in the Fest. And it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been throwing back brews, bring your ID – this is a 21 and over event.
ENDICOTT’S APPLE FEST
On Saturday, September 17th, the Apple Festival will take over Washington Avenue in Endicott. Since 1985, this local tradition has celebrated the iconic crop that is so dear to
New York State: the apple. There will be cider and pies for attendees to enjoy, craft vendors, and the Endicott favorite: fried dough! If you want to know more about this festival, visit Endicott Apple Fest on Facebook.
BINGHAMTON WINGFEST
If there’s one thing hungry people in Binghamton love, it’s judging bar food. We’ve already declared our winner for mac ‘n’ cheese, crowned the most creative martini of the year, and now, it’s time for the chicken wings. Presented by 100.5 The Drive, Binghamton Wingfest is the only event of its kind in the Southern Tier. Every time we read about it, we get hungry. Maybe it’s the sauce; maybe it’s the competition. Whatever it is, you be the judge on Saturday, September 24th from noon-6pm at the NYSEG Stadium. There will be wings, there will be beer, there will be music. Who will be crowned the King of Wings? Tickets are $15 presale; $12 with student ID; $20 in person day-of, and that includes 10 “taste test” wings, lots of live entertainment, and a wing eating contest with prizes for the top three gluttons – ahem – athletes. There will also be vendors and attractions. Tickets can be purchased at Equinox Broadcasting Studios, located at 101 Main St. in Johnson City, at the NYSEG Stadium box office, or at binghamtondrive.com.
FRESH FOOD FACE-OFF
September will feature one more food competition, but this one is more likely to leave you feeling energized and less like, well, like you just inhaled 60 chicken wings (go team!). Cornell Cooperative Extension presents 2016’s Fresh Food Face-Off on September 27th, at which over 15 Broome County local restaurants will engage in a “friendly competition” using locally grown ingredients. Returning champs Social on State and BU Campus Foods will be there vying to hold their titles, but it’s anybody’s game. Tickets are $40 per person, and it should be worth it, considering where the food is coming from. The Face-Off will be held from 5:30-7:30pm at the Regional Farmers’ Market. Visit ccebroomecounty.com for tickets and information.
50 SHADES OF PINK WINE AND FOOD TASTING
To kickoff Breast Cancer Awareness Month, ENCOREplus will be presenting 50 Shades of Pink, a wine and food tasting, on Friday, September 30th. The event will feature wine from the Finger Lakes, local food, and live music. Proceeds benefit ENCOREplus, an organization that helps uninsured and underinsured women receive vital medical care, particularly mammograms and cervical screenings, as well as the renovation of the historic Endicott Visitor Center. The event runs from 6-9pm at the Endicott Visitor Center, located at 300 Lincoln Avenue in Endicott. This is a great chance to enjoy some fantastic wine and food for a good cause. Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door. Call (607) 321-3219 or visit the Endicott Visitor Center, Thursday through Saturday from noon-4pm.
Food briefs compiled by Heather Merlis: food@carouselrag.com
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OLD UNION
HOTEL 246 CLINTON ST. BINGHAMTON 607-217-5935 open daILY
THYME & SPACE A featured monthly recipe from the kitchen of Galaxy Brewing Company’s Chef Brian Lovesky
Photo by Ty Whitbeck.
41 court street
binghamton
BAKED RATATOUILLE WITH PARMESAN CHEESE (Serves 4)
Ingredients: -2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil -1 medium onion, peeled and sliced -5 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped -1 pinch crushed red pepper flake -1 tbsp. tomato paste -1 medium zucchini, sliced in rounds ¼”- ½ ” thick -1 medium yellow zucchini, sliced in rounds ¼”- ½ ” thick -1 heirloom tomato, sliced in rounds ¼”- ½ ” thick -1 small eggplant, sliced in rounds ¼”- ½ ” thick -1 red bell pepper, de-seeded, and sliced thin -kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper -parmesan cheese, grated -fresh thyme, chopped -fresh basil, chiffonade Directions: 1. Preheat your oven to 425°. While oven is warming up slice and season the vegetables with oil, salt, and pepper. 2. In a medium skillet, heat 2 tbsp. of olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add sliced onions and cook until they soften. Add in the chopped garlic, red pepper flakes, and season with salt and black pepper. 3. Add the tomato paste to the sautéed onions and garlic. Sauté for 5 minutes.
9/16 East Coast Bigfoot Original roots rock from on the rise Binghamton locals
9/24 Sophistafunk
spoken-word artistry, old-school hip hop, & funky rhythms from Syracuse
9/30 Adam Ate the Apple whiskey soaked power folk from right here in Binghamton
galaxybrewingco.com FOR FULL EVENT LISTINGS AND MORE INFO
4. Spread onion and tomato paste mixture evenly around the bottom of the pan or if you wish you can transfer ingredients to a baking dish. 5. Begin layering the tomato slices to cover the sides and bottom of the pan. Then begin layering the slices of eggplant on top of the tomatoes. 6. Next, alternating by color, arrange the zucchini and squash slices on top of the eggplant. 7. Spread the pepper slices evenly over top the vegetables. 8. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 20 minutes. 9. Remove the pan from the oven, spread parmesan cheese and chopped fresh thyme on top of the cooked vegetables. Continue baking until the cheese is brown and the juices from the vegetables are bubbling. 10. Remove the pan from the oven again and let sit for a couple minutes. Garnish with basil chiffonade. 11. Serve on its own as the entrée or serve with a grilled steak and French bread. *All vegetables in the photo are from “Closer to the Heart Farms” in Binghamton, NY Born and raised in Broome County, Chef Brian grew up surrounded by the many flavors of the different ethnic cultures of our area. He is the Executive Chef at Galaxy Brewing Company in Downtown Binghamton (and former Executive Chef at Tranquil Bar & Bistro). A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America with 20 years of restaurant experience in Upstate NY, New Orleans, and Nashville, Chef Brian currently resides in Vestal with his wife, two sons, and a daughter.
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Robercon 2014. File photo.
The Art of the Con: Duct tape, paint, duct tape, repeat. by Julian Kappel 34 carouselrag.com
I
T’S TIME TO PUSH through those last few episodes of Walking Dead, unpack your vintage Spock ears, and dust off your custom forged Narsil replica. That’s right, it’s Comic-Con season. Comic-Cons are filled with fans ranging from the mildly intrigued newcomers to the ravenously obsessed zealots. However, some of the most interesting attendees are those who become so inspired that they take the time and effort to become their favorite characters, if only for a day, a ritual known as cosplay. Cosplay is part fashion design, part homage, part Halloween. When cosplay is done right it is absolutely awe inspiring. The amount of detail and work that some of the professionals put into their work is astounding. When cosplay is done wrong, It’s pretty hilarious. For Katelin Wilson, cosplay is an outlet for creative expression as well as a way to interact socially with people who share her interests. She discovered the medium almost a decade ago when searching through theatre projects. Katelin explained that anime led her to cosplay, but her interests in art and design were piqued much earlier. “I think my starting point was in high school with the play Little Shop of Horrors - they had the little plant puppet. And I thought ‘I can do that, I wanna do that.’ No one will see me they’ll just look at the puppet,” she laughed. “I spent most of my time just looking at them, trying to see how they were made.” Now, about 10 years later, Katelin has her own little plant monster that is sitting quietly on the table between us. She said she was inspired by Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy to create the baby Groot seen in the movie’s credit sequence. She spent nearly three months crafting the mini mono-syllabic tree creature and re-crafted the face over and over until it was to her liking. The sculpture, which stands roughly 12 inches, is made from felt, string, sculpting clay, and the cannibalized remains of a dancing flower toy that was made sometime in the 80s. Katelin said she regularly cannibalizes other objects and projects for things she’s currently working on. “I’ll have costumes I didn’t finish and I’ll use pieces that I see will work on current stuff, and it’s more cost-effective,” she said. “I’ll research online and [...] test things I already have, so I’m not going out and buying expensive stuff then realizing, oh, a paper bag works.” Katelin’s next destination is Robercon, which will take place September 24th-25th at the Roberson Musuem in Binghamton. She has been attending Cons since 2012 when she went to New York Comic Con for the first time. Although she said she was excited to make the costume, the crowd made her nervous due to some issues with social anxiety. Cons started as a place where people with a unique and shared interest could get to-
cosplay. gether to sell, trade, sign, buy, and generally celebrate their favorite four-color medium. They were usually held in smaller venues and would attract no more than a few hundred people. Today some of the largest, including NYCC, are held in stadiums and amphitheaters bringing in more than 160,000 attendees. Despite the sheer numbers, Katelin said she ultimately enjoyed herself. “What I found I really liked was when I’m dressed up people are concentrating on my costume and not me.” Ever since, Katelin has attended numerous cons dressed as a variety of characters. Her latest project is a cyborg named Genos from the anime One Punch Man. She explained that since the general attire of the character is pretty much everyday clothes, her focus will be on the mecha-cyborg arms (which, by the way, look totally cool). To do this, she built dummy forms of her arms to save time and energy. And what did she use to create these masterful time-savers? “Duct tape!” Minimalism is definitely a recurring theme in her work, which defines the needs of a modern cosplayer. Ingenuity is Katelin’s greatest tool and she uses it liberally. Most of us are holding down at least one full-time job to pay the rent, but does that mean we can’t get dressed up and rub elbows with a few Klingons on the weekends? Katelin doesn’t think so, and neither should you. With that, I present to you: CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: THE COSPLAY STARTER’S GUIDE 1. “With conventions, always put comfort really high up on your list. You’re not going to enjoy the con if you’re really uncomfortable. When you make a costume make sure you wear it around the house or to a local thing like Robercon before you go to a large con.” Amen to that! I have seen some absolutely astounding cosplays where fabric is being stretched into places I wouldn’t even let a significant other go. Katelin reminisced on one of her early cons, when upon removing her boots after a day of trekking she discovered her foot to be a mass of blisters and blood. Gotta break in those new shoes, boys and girls. And don’t forget: the bigger it is, the cooler it is. However, you’re the one who has to carry those epic pauldrons around for eight hours. 2. “Always check your closet first.” Sure, it’d be fun to have an uberrealistic recreation of the Hulkbuster armor like the one Katelin saw at New York Comic Con last year, but think of the shipping costs! Before you go prowling through every Salvation Army, Goodwill, Thrifty Shopper and whatever backwater consignment shop you can find on Google Maps, take a quick glance in your
own private collection. Once I found a hockey mask I’d never bought in a closet on the second floor. That closet is forever nailed shut. Speaking of thrift stores... 3. “I spend a lot of time in thrift stores.” These places are great, not only are they a nearly inexhaustible resource for all your cosplay needs, they also usually give all the profit to homeless shelters or other benefits for the needy. You can look dashing and be a bonafide hero - how great is that? 4. “Always do your research.” This doesn’t just mean Google image search the character you’re trying to pull off and waste all of your parents’ color ink cartridge so you can set up a D.Va collage or a Mal Reynolds shrine. When you start getting into some of the more dynamic aspects of the costume such as props or prosthetics, you really need to be careful. Katelin explains it better than I ever can: “I got sclera contacts that completely blackout cover your eyes. I actually got them through my doctor, got recommendations for a class because of how big they are... that’s something that cosplayers really need to focus on... if you do something like that always go to a doctor first because I’ve seen people who get them, stick them in, and permanently hurt their eyes.” That’s right, kiddies. Safety first. 5. “If you get frustrated, walk away from [the project] and take some time so you don’t walk away permanently.” Cosplay - like any art form - can be tedious, time-consuming, and will most likely tax your patience more than once. However, if you stick with it and see it through to the end, you will be rewarded handsomely. Katelin remembers a particularly frustrating moment when she decided to make a Rocket Raccoon cosplay to match her Groot sculpture: “My Rocket Raccoon got really frustrating because I’d made Groot first but I’d get so frustrated I’d stop but then I’d see [Groot] and think, ‘I have to finish, I have to get it done.’ And I got this brain wave reader head band and the ears will turn and respond. I almost walked away but I didn’t and he’s one of the best things I’ve made.” As a side note, Katelin was later offered a substantial chunk of change for her custom Groot. She declined, but her reasoning goes beyond the check. “When I took Groot I was getting stopped constantly by people wanting to get pictures or videos of them dancing with him. It was great because it built self-confidence. I actually had a vendor at the con offer to buy him. I said I’ve grown really attached and it would have to be in the thousands and he was like ‘Well, how many thousands?’ A small part of me is still kicking myself about it but [Groot] really helped me keep going with making
things like, ‘I made this and somebody offered me thousands of dollars!’” Funny thing, sometimes art is worth more when you hold onto it. 6. “If people come up to you and ask to take a picture you have every right to say no, you’re taking a break. Don’t ever feel bad to tell someone no.” Cosplayers tend to get a lot of attention, for better or for worse, and just because you’re all dressed up doesn’t mean you don’t have someplace to go. Walking, talking, smiling and posing can get pretty exhausting after a few hours. Katelin recommends taking a break and ACTUALLY taking that break. This can also be extended to the “hands off policy.” “Occasionally people will be a little too close that will feel like the wrong type of attention and you can by all means tell them to not stand so close.” She explained that over the years this type of behavior had gotten much better thanks in part to the Cons stance of “Cosplay is not consent,” and Cosplay being so accepted by the public. 7. “Do it for your own fun, for your own enjoyment. Don’t be afraid to go online and ask people, ‘how do I do this?’” Not much to say about this one. Have fun and explore. In particular Katelin recommended Tumblr and Cosplay.com as great resources for cosplay advice. So now that everyone has the building blocks needed to explore the wide world of cosplay, where do we go? Well, first of all is Robercon which, as mentioned above, is September 24th-25th. If you’re interested in seeing more of Katelin Wilson’s creations, she plans on having a booth with many of the other ideas she has brewing between cosplay designs. If you can’t wait, you can also visit her Etsy page at etsy.com/twowolves. And if you’re looking to travel you can always check out conventionscene.com for all upcoming cons. Until then, remember... Now is the time of the fans. Some rise up for the great house of Marvel, whose kingdom stretches across every medium and conquers wherever it goes. Some raise the banner of DC, a kingdom on a tenuous footing but who have at the ready great armies of characters, names that will live forever. Others flock to the call of Game of Thrones, everlasting despite the innumerable deaths of its most celebrated warriors, while others celebrate the return of the mighty house Star Wars, an ancient land almost collapsed by corruption and infighting, only to rise up upon the crowning of a new king. The age of superfandom is upon us, friends, and we shall worship in the Church of Cons. For info on Robercon, visit roberson.org.
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welcome back students!
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books. based the character of Grendel on the philosophical writings of Jean-Paul Sartre. A captivating look into the psyche of one of literature’s best-known monsters, and a metaphor for the necessity of a dark side.
6. LORD OF THE FLIES
by William Golding Golding’s 1954 book was written as a response to the tradition of imperialist British adventure stories. In it, a group of English school-boys becomes stranded on a tropical island in the midst of an unnamed war, and quickly descend into savagery and violence, giving lie to the myth of Western exceptionalism and raising unsettling questions about the nature of human evil. This one is often assigned in high school English classes, but if you haven’t encountered it yet, it’s wellworth a read.
7. THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
by Zora Neale Hurston One of the seminal works of the Harlem Renaissance, this 1937 novel was controversial in its day for its refusal to conform to the ‘Racial Uplift’ concept of black literature. In vivid, poetic prose, Hurston celebrates the adventurous, free-spirited, and sometimes scandalous life of Janie Crawford, who winds up marrying three very different men in her search for love and meaning.
8. 1984
Ten books every B.U. student should read, from a former B.U. Student by Natassia Enright, ‘08 Your Home Public Library Johnson City, NY
1. I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS
by Maya Angelou This iconic first volume of the autobiographical series by the late poet Maya Angelou reads like a novel, and is one of the most banned books in America for its frank discussions of racism and sexual violence and its irreverent attitude toward religion. Despite—or because of—its difficult subject matter, it is considered one of the most important works by an African-American writer.
2. ADULTING: HOW TO BECOME A GROWN-UP IN 468 EASY(ISH) STEPS
by Kelly Williams Brown ‘Adult’ is not a noun, it’s a verb: virtually all
of us wander into it with no idea what we’re doing, and the learning curve can be steep. Brown’s humorous book, curated from her popular blog by the same title, gives the kind of advice that your parents probably didn’t think of, from breaking up with frenemies to fixing your toilet. A must-have for anyone who’s about to be living on their own for the first time.
3. THE KNOWLEDGE: HOW TO REBUILD OUR WORLD FROM SCRATCH
by Louis Dartnell Have you ever wanted to know how to can foods, use a sextant, or make gunpowder? Then this is the book for you! Lewis Dartnell’s tongue-in-cheek instructions for surviving the end of the world are packed with fascinating information on the history of science and inventions that the modern world takes for granted.
4. FREAKONOMICS: A ROGUE ECONOMIST EXPLORES THE HIDDEN SIDE OF EVERYTHING
by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt “If morality represents how people would like the world to work,” write the authors, “economics show how it actually does work.” In this 2002 work of popular economics, Dubner and Levitt explore the riddles of everyday life, from the whimsical to the life-or-death. They are not—necessarily—trying to answer all of life’s questions; what they do instead is create a new framework for looking at the world around us.
5. GRENDEL
by John Gardner This 1971 novel retells the Old English poem Beowulf from the monster’s point of view. Gardner, who taught at Binghamton University until his death in 1982, claimed to have
by George Orwell Winston Smith lives in the totalitarian state of Airstrip One, which was once known as Great Britain, and spends his days altering historical records and newspapers so that they conform to whatever the autocratic Party leader Big Brother is saying. One day he meets a woman who, like him, has doubts about the Party’s actions and who encourages him to rebel. Orwell’s chilling dystopic novel is as relevant today as when it was first written in 1949.
9. ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY
by David Sedaris In this bestselling collection of essays, Binghamton native David Sedaris ruminates with wry humor on such wide-ranging topics as speech therapy classes (he claims that the speech therapy lab could more accurately have been titled ‘Future Homosexuals of America’) unwanted guitar lessons, and summers spent as the ‘village idiot’ of a small French hamlet when he spoke precisely one word of French.
10. AS I KNEW HIM: MY DAD, ROD SERLING
by Anne Serling It’s impossible to live in the Triple Cities for any length of time without hearing about Rod Serling, Binghamton’s favorite son and the creator of the classic sci-fi/horror series The Twilight Zone. This biography, written by his younger daughter Anne, gives a fascinating insight into the man behind the imposing figure who intoned cautionary observations about fate, chance, and humanity.
September 2016 triple cities carousel 37
Between the World and Me by Natassia Enright
(on loan from Your Home Public Library)
I
T SEEMS ALMOST superfluous, at this juncture, to write a review for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. Published in July of 2015, it has topped bestseller lists for months and had an integral hand in shaping the national conversation on racism in America—a conversation that is in many ways long overdue. Coates is a familiar name in journalism, as a national correspondent for The Atlantic with a long list of contributions to other publications, but in this work he does not write with the distance of a journalist. Written as a letter to his teenaged son, as a memoir, as an exploration of the experience of being black in America, it is brutally intimate. “You must always remember,” he writes, “that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.” The body in this sense is a recurring theme. Coates is not interested in talking about racism in theoretical terms; his experience of it, as he writes it, is visceral. It is the experience of a boy who spent a childhood feeling un-
safe, for whom the very concept of security was foreign. He recalls the easy comfort of the white children in television commercials with the memory of a child’s baffled envy— as “dispatches from another world.” It’s the experience of a man who does not believe in God, who cannot see any salvation beyond the present world, who could not be comforted by forgiving the police officer who shot and killed a college friend. “I could see no higher purpose in Prince’s death,” he writes. “I believed, and still do, that our bodies are our selves, that my soul is the voltage conducted through neurons and nerves, and that my spirit is my flesh. […] For the crime of destroying the body of Prince Jones, I did not believe in forgiveness.”
Coates is an eloquent writer, and a provocative one; one of the many strengths of this book, as has been noted by numerous other reviewers, is that it is not written for an imagined audience of white people. Coates makes no effort to sanitize or soften his outrage, to make his fear palatable to those he is afraid of, and his writing is all the more effective for it. This is an exploration, not just of what it
OPEN TUES-SAT (7am-3pm) (607) 217-4134
means to be black in America, but also in the construction of whiteness. Whiteness, he observes, has always been created as an opposition to blackness, to the “other” that could then be called inferior. In America, the concept of whiteness has become inextricably linked to the American Dream, a sort of soft-focus nostalgia that allows so many white Americans to believe without irony that the history of our country is entirely honorable. “The new people were something else before they were white—Catholic, Corsican, Welsh, Mennonite, Jewish—and if all our national hopes have any fulfillment, then they will have to be something else again. Perhaps they will truly become American and create a nobler basis for their myths.” Coates is concerned with his experience of blackness, with the impact of our national myths, with the history of institutional violence both on the streets and in the school system—but mostly he is concerned for his son, Samori, who is the true audience of the narrative. His intention seems less a call to arms than a plea to be soft, to be kind, to be less wounded than the author feels himself
to be. He recalls the impulse to pull his son back from playing with strangers— “We don’t know these folks! Be cool!” He remembers the teenager’s shocked grief when Michael Brown’s killers were not indicted, a shock he could not share. In a sense, this book is both a plea to the world—do not destroy my son— and a plea to his son—do not allow yourself to be erased, do not let this world keep you from being your truest self. “I wanted you to have your own life,” he writes, “apart from fear—even apart from me. I am wounded. I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next. […] We are entering our last years together, and I wish I had been softer with you.” This is not a particularly happy book, and it certainly doesn’t subscribe to the uplifting narrative of many “message” books and movies, but it is ultimately—if not hopeful, at least willing to admit the possibility of hope. Highly, highly recommended. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about cultural, social and political issues, particularly as they regard African-Americans.
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film. The Bromp Brothers return! Photo provided.
HAPPENING AT THE BUNDY
Fringe Films the Return (September 10) In 2006, Fringe Films started life as an independent film production company, founded by James Osterhout and Mark Beretta (also known as the Bromp Brothers). Since then, they have produced 80 short and seven feature independent films. Their mission states, “Fringe Films is not here to impress teenagers or to kowtow to the tastes of children and adult buffoons. We seek mainly to impress ourselves and the increasing number of intelligent people who are weary and worn by the endless parade of lifeless pop-culture detritus. Our lives are dedicated to the art of independent film. We are here for those ‘who get it.’ Here’s to a literate and enlightened future.” In 2014, Fringe Films paused production, but now they are back with new material that airs at the Bundy on September 10th at 7pm. Admission is $5 at the door. Find out more at thefringefilms. com. The Bundy Museum is located at 127-129 Main St. in Binghamton. More info at bundymuseum.org.
VIEWINGS AT YOUR HOME PUBLIC LIBRARY
Star Trek 50th Anniversary Celebration (September 10) “The first episode of Star Trek aired 50 years ago this fall! To celebrate, Your Home Public Library will be hosting a special Star Trek showing on Saturday, September 10. Stop by to watch some classics, try tasty snacks, and make crafts. We hope to see you there!”- YHPL Space Seed In this 1962 episode, USS Enterprise encounters a deteriorated ship called SS Botany Bay, which is inhabited with humans who have been alive in a state of suspended animation for 200 years. When the group’s leader awakens and introduces himself as “Khan,” Officer Spock identifies the group as the result of a 20th century experiment in selective breeding, intended to create perfect humans. They ended up becoming warlords and conquered a third of the world, sparking the Eugenics Wars, Earth’s last major global conflict. Once they’ve been rescued, they’re ready to conquer the Enterprise as well. Viewing begins at 1pm. (TV-PG) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan In the
1982 feature film, Khan returns from a 15year exile to seek revenge on Kirk, who he blames for the death of his wife. The Enterprise must stop Khan from acquiring all of the materials for the Genesis Device, a technology designed to reorganize all matter in the nebula in order to create habitable worlds for colonizing. They ultimately fail to deactivate the Genesis, but Spock is able to restore power to the warp drive on time to save the Enterprise, though it costs him his life. Viewing begins at 2:30pm. (PG) Other Screenings: Age of Adaline (September 20) – Adaline (Blake Lively) has been 29 for nearly eight decades after an accident miraculously caused her to stop aging. She resists close relationships, knowing that time will reveal her secret to anyone who got to know her. Her only confidante is her daughter Flemming (Ellen Burstyn), now an old woman herself. At a New Years Eve party, she meets Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman), and although they immediately take interest in each other, she struggles to allow herself to engage in an affair she believes is doomed for disappointment on either side. However, the two grow closer, and a visit to the home of Ellis’ parents leads her to an unexpected run-in with an old acquaintance. (PG-13) Your Home Public Library, located at 107 Main St. in Johnson City, hosts regular movie nights and film screenings throughout the year. More info is available at yhpl.org.
BINGHAMTON BABYLON MUSIC FESTIVAL CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
The Art Mission and Theater has announced the debut of the Binghamton Babylon Film Festival, to take place October 12-16. The festival is to celebrate Binghamton’s central role in the development of avant-garde cinema and will showcase avant-garde films from across the world as well as a retrospective of films made in Binghamton. More details are to come in next month’s film section. For now, we’re letting you know that the submission deadline is September 15. You can submit your work and find more information at binghamtonbabylon.com. The Art Mission & Theater is an art cinema and located at 61 Prospect Ave. in Binghamton. Screening schedule at artmission.org.
Film briefs compiled by Ilana Lipowicz: film@carouselrag.com
September 2016 triple cities carousel 39
WEDNESDAY! 9/7
The Vine Brothers 9/14
Claire Byrne & Brian Vollmer
MONDAY!
a binghamton tradition
starts at 8:30
TEAM TRIVIA!
9/21
Coffee! Lattes! Steamers!
FRIDAY!
Devinne Meyers
9/2
9/28
Under the Rug
Wishing on Stars
9/9
LIVE MUSIC!
Solar Garlic
FIRST TUES.
sign ups start at 7:30pm
music starts at 8
OPEN MIC!
22 Beers on tap!
9/16
Funktional Flow
Free Wifi! Study Nooks! Comfy Couches!
THURSDAYS!
start your weekend early
with ugly dolphin!
LIVE MUSIC!
9/23
WHRW Anniversary 9/30
The Good Hope
LIVE MUSIC! 9/13 & 9/20
SATURDAY!
on the cyber stage
Bayou Bash w/ Adam Ate the Apple
sing your little heart out
KARAOKE!
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9/10
Grace’s Ghost
Sandwiches! Soup! Salads!
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MVT 9/24
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OFF THE BEAT: There’s diamonds in them there hills! Photo provided.
travel. A monthly look at quirky nearby places, people, and things HERKIMER DIAMOND MINING SITES Herkimer Diamond Mines herkimerdiamond.com 4626 State Route 28 Herkimer, NY (315) 891-7355 Season runs through October 31st / KOA campground / gift shop / museum / café Ace of Diamonds Mine & Campground herkimerdiamonds.com NYS Route 28 Middleville, NY (315) 891-3855 Season runs through October 31st / campsites available right where you dig / “guided mining” available for the serious mineral collector Diamond Acres Mine 1706 Stone Arabia Road Fonda, NY (518) 762-7960
Mining Herkimer Diamonds by Felicia Waynesboro
I
T IS OFTEN SAID THAT a certain mineral is a girl’s best friend. You know which one I mean: diamonds!
Well, the quartz crystals known as “Herkimer Diamonds” are not exactly diamonds but they are certainly beautiful, fascinating, have exceptional clarity, and can be valuable. They could possibly turn out to be a girl’s best friend, whether for jewelry, display, or holistic purposes, if she found out that someone mined them exclusively for her – or if she’d enjoy the adventure of mining them herself. In the 18th century, workmen, cutting into an enormous rock formation in the Mohawk River Valley of New York state, discovered curious crystals in the outcroppings that were as clear as water, pointed on both ends, and naturally faceted. The crystals must have begun forming about 450 million years earlier when parts of what is now Herkimer County were under sea water. The distinctive characteristics of the quartz are almost unique to this area and such crystals are found in abundance in only a few other spots of the Earth such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tibet.
Each year, all around the Herkimer mining district - just a couple of hours drive from Binghamton - the public is invited, for a small fee, to come and mine for a day, or camp out and prospect for a more extended time at several mining sites, kids included! The mines open in early spring and operate, in most cases, until mid or late October, and the endeavor can be as casual or as strenuous as the individual miner desires. All of the mines recommend that you wear clothing that would take to rock climbing, boots that can stand up to mud, gloves, hat, sunscreen or rain slicker as appropriate, and safety glasses. You can bring your own tools (even gardening tools will suffice for casual mining) and your own containers for collecting, or you can rent or buy prospector’s tools at most of the facilities. The Ace of Diamond Mines & Campground even offers “guided mining,” if you so choose, which involves a bulldozer and a $1500 fee – in cash, thank you very much. You always keep everything you find! With all this public chipping away, I asked Dr. James Ebert, Chair of the Earth Sciences
Department of SUNY Oneonta, if there is a danger of the supply being exhausted. “Minerals are not renewable resources,” he told me, with a notable exception of table salt. However, “the Little Falls Dolostone - the rock formation that hosts the quartz crystals known as Herkimer Diamonds - is a very extensive layer of rock. It is unlikely, with current rates of ‘mining,’ that the supply will be exhausted in our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of our great-great grandchildren or even beyond that time frame.” If you find a crystal with a water bubble trapped inside it, that’s special. If you find some with black specs (decayed plant matter) floating inside the trapped water bubble, believe it or not, that’s even more special. Since mineral collecting and trading is a popular hobby – not to mention a lucrative business for some – you can check with the mine’s lapidary experts to determine whether or not you have collected something of high value. But mostly, Herks - as they are sometimes affectionately called - are simply lovely, hard enough to scratch glass like diamond diamonds, and will forever evoke memories of a fun adventure.
Season runs through October 1st / very small fee of $2 per person Crystal Grove Diamond Mine & Campground crystalgrove.com 161 County Highway 114 Saint Johnsville, NY (518) 568-2914 Season runs through midOctober / spacious campground next to the mine / camp store / nearby attractions
September 2016 triple cities carousel 41
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fun stuff. “SCRABBLE® CHAMP”
by Paul O’Heron
B.C.
DOGS OF C-KENNEL
by MASTROIANNI & HART
by MICK & MASON MASTROIANNI
*Of the 20 seven-letter words in this puzzle, 13 come from the list of Scrabble® words that score at least 24 points (using only tile points). Identify these words, and choose the one that scores the most points. Not included in the puzzle is MUZJIKS which, at 29 points, is the best you can do. 31. A slender candle. 33. Compress. 34. Make a person into one of the undead. DOWN 1. Audacity. 2. Hop on _____:1963 children’s picture book by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel). 3. Crossed off. 4. Cheap and of poor quality. 5. A machine that automatically plays a selected musical recording when a coin is inserted. 6. Menagerie. 7. Instrument used on a diamond. 8. Flunkies. 13. _____ complex: the unresolved desire of a child for sexual gratification through the parent of the opposite sex, especially the desire of a son for his mother. 14. The scientific analysis and study of interactions among organisms and their environment. 16. Judaism’s day of rest and seventh day of the week. 17. Gwen Stefani’s band with hits Don’t Speak (1995), Just a Girl (1995), and It’s My Life (2000). 20. Soft, gentle breezes. 21. A form of entertainment in which people take turns
WIZARD OF ID
by HART & PARKER
singing popular songs into a microphone over prerecorded backing tracks. 22. Offer unwelcome advice, especially at a card game. 23. The study or practice of fermentation in brewing, winemaking, or distilling. 28. Computer brain. 29. Word accounting for around 4% of all English spoken or written words. 31. Actor Cruise or baseball players Seaver and Glavine. 32. ψ, the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet.
(The highest scoring word in the puzzle is Jukebox at 27 points.)
ACROSS 1. Suffering from a (partial) lack of oxygen. 5. A scheming and shamelessly evil woman. 9. Showing little enthusiasm. 10. Bother. 11. Pertaining to the eye. 12. Demonstrate the truth of. 15. “I get knocked down / But I get up again / You’re never going to keep me down.” - _____thumping Chumbawamba (1997) 16. The Sixth _____ (1999), where Cole Sear sees dead people. 18. Alpha _____ acid refers to a group of natural acids added to skin care products. 19. Kisses and hugs? 20. A two-part plastic strip along an opening that can be pressed together and readily reopened. 22. A communal settlement in Israel, typically a farm. 24. Actor Parker or baseball player Buster. 25. Actor Lowe or baseball players Nen and Deer. 26. Actor Channing or football player Jack. 27. A recreational boat or ship, derived from the Dutch word for “hunt”. 30. A broad sash worn with a kimono.
September 2016 triple cities carousel 43
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I need a mom. by Krissy Howard
I
RECENTLY HELPED a friend out by pet sitting his dog while he and his family went on vacation, and by “vacation” I mean “Phish tour,” and by “helped out” I mean “resisted the urge to choke on my own spit while laughing at the band Phish.” He and his wife graciously left me with a tip of cash money (and a nicely stocked refrigerator and pantry), and although I was stuck out in the boonies for a week in relative isolation, I hadn’t felt that well-cared for since the last time I paid a doctor to physically care for me. Upon wondering what was so different about a week spent at this place compared with my own, I came to the simple realization that this house was no ordinary house: this house had a mom living in it. This house had doormats, and a shower curtain liner that isn’t covered in equal parts mildew and hair dye. This bathroom had a towel just for wiping your hands, and more toilet paper to replace the toilet paper you just used. Band-Aids, sunscreen, toothbrushes that didn’t look like they’d been flattened by a Looney Toons anvil... this place had it all, and when I came to the realization that my dear friend and his family were living like god damn royalty - or maybe more like people who had just checked into a Comfort Inn - it became obvious to me: I need a mom. Not literally. I have a mom. I just mean I need someone with common sense and basic knowledge of the food pyramid who can help keep me alive on a daily basis, now. Someone who can tell me to step away from the Teen Mom 2 marathon already, because it’s almost four o’clock in the morning and my dog has been licking this sticky film of sweat and Doritos dust that’s accumulated on my hands, arms, and neck over the last five or so hours. I just need a little help with a couple of things. I need a mom to help me buy groceries. I love eating, and cooking, and I even don’t mind grocery shopping, but the thing is - I don’t know what the hell I’m doing in any of those situations (other than the eating one). I usually end up cooking the same three things: spaghetti, mashed potatoes, and some other form of potatoes. Maybe I’ll hard boil an egg
or eat peanut butter straight out of the jar if I’m protein deficient and actually feel like doing something about it. At this “mom” house, there was so much variety in the food choices I felt like my childhood fantasy of being locked in a store overnight had actually come true, minus the part where I get discovered the next day and the whole town showers me with sympathy, which I then proceed to milk for the next three to five years. There was fruit, and vegetables, and things to drink other than water. The foods came in colors other than “cheese yellow” and “bread beige.” I need help learning how to buy those things when I don’t necessarily feel like eating those things, or in other words, learn foresight. I also need a mom to help me do laundry. I know how to do laundry; I just need someone to help remind me how much the quality of my life improves when I take care of that type of boring-ass stuff more often. Someone needs to help me get on a laundry schedule which at no point includes a stage labeled “Completely Runs Out of Underwear.” I would like to not find myself standing naked, just out of the shower, attempting to figure out some way to MacGyver three tube socks into the world’s most uncomfortable thong. Blessed be the day that I do not rejoice upon locating the oldest most disgusting pair of panties in the back of my dresser, a garment that is somehow both dysfunctionally loose and painfully tight at the same time, because that feels like the ultimate success to me. That’s my, “Let’s hang this up on the refrigerator” moment. Every month, I find myself looking up toward the sky and mouthing the words “Thank you, God,” for allowing me just one more sweet, sweet day of putting off washing all of the clothes I currently own. I need some help with that. Or maybe I just need to place myself in more settings that would require a teacher to call any adult after I show up to class wearing an oversized football jersey as a dress for the third day in a row. I think the solution to all of this is just to grow up and stop being such a piece of shit, but if there are any moms out there looking to help an adult human out by allowing her to exist in this state of arrested development for just a little while longer, don’t be shy - hit a girl up!
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 September 2016 triple cities carousel 45
star stuff.
HOROSCOPES Cosmic guidance from Uranus. By Heather Merlis.
Aries (Mar 21- Apr 19) Embrace your confusion. If you can’t write the horoscopes this month, another Aries will. Go back to school, even if you’re learning to listen to the voices in your head. Just listen to someone. Taurus (Apr 20- May 20) Just because it smells good doesn’t mean you should put it in your mouth. Rekindle your relationship with your slippers, and meditate. Gemini (May 21-June 21) You are so smart and handsome! Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, please take some time to marinate on the importance of being quiet. You have nothing to prove.
FRI-SAT UNTIL 1A
M
Cancer (June 22-July 22) The Notorious C.R.A.B! Please teach some classes on how to commune with the earth and make a perfect home. We all envy your skills and are sorry that we can’t commit to attending. Leo (July 23-Aug 22) Your big heart will keep you out of trouble, as long as you don’t blind yourself with that mascara wand. Do something healthy, and do it better than everyone else, because you can. Virgo (Aug 23-Sept 22) Hey there, sexy birthday person. Time to turn down the lights, open a bottle of the best wine (something you’re not allergic to), put on some Barry White, and spend the whole night doing your favorite thing: checking items off your todo list. Libra (Sept 23-Oct 22) Ooh! Shiny things! Made you look. Please, put down the bottle (and for those of you who don’t drink, step away from the looking glass), and dig deeper. Who knows – there may be shiny things down there. Scorpio (Oct 23-Nov 21) Chess isn’t just a game; it’s also a 1984 musical written by half of ABBA, with lyrics by Tim Rice. Harness those magical powers of strategy and really freak people out this fall. But do it for the greater good. Sagittarius (Nov 23-Dec 21) It’s totally cool, man, I get it that you couldn’t come to my party. You get invited to a lot of things, and you spend a lot of time in bed – we don’t want to know whose. Just wake up and do your damn job. Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 19) You’re a Capricorn, and you’re still in Binghamton? Maybe you’re still young, or you’re living in one of the nice houses on the West Side. If not, it’s time to put that business plan into effect. Time waits for no one. Aquarius (Jan 29-Feb 18) Your math skills can’t fool people into not thinking you’re a raging conspiracy theorist. Take that strange contraption off your head and make some friends. And this time, do it with feeling. Pisces (Feb 19-Mar 20) I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know, except that you know everything that you need to know. Except for that one thing. Remember that time, when you remembered that thing? That’s it. Do that.
Heather Merlis is a local writer, singer, and glutton for assignments. She misses the old days, when Carousel used to print horoscopes written by random people each month. As far as we know, she’s kind of obsessed with astrology.
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directory listings. arts organizations BROOME COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL Where the arts mean business! 81 State St. #501, Binghamton, NY (607) 723-4620 broomearts.org TIOGA ARTS COUNCIL Inspiring & supporting Tioga County 179 Front St. Owego, NY 13827 (607) 687-0785 tiogaartscouncil.org
art studios THE SPIRAL IMAGE STUDIO Affordable abstract art for any space. 2328 Colesville Rd, Harpursville NY (607) 349-2760/alla.boldina.art@gmail.com www.allaboldina.com KAPOW! ART STUDIO Unique Quality Art Classes for All Ages 186 State St. 2nd Fl, Binghamton, NY (607) 237-8246 kapowartnow.com
bars BELMAR PUB West Side World Famous 95 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 724-5920 belmar-bing.com CALLAHAN’S SPORTSMAN’S CLUB Drinks, food, and good tunes! 190 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 772-6313 Find us on Facebook! FITZIES PUB Music, pool, and cheap shots! 9 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-5446 Find us on Facebook! McGIRK’S IRISH PUB Music 5 nights/wk. Curated whiskey bar. 1 Kattelville Rd. Binghamton, NY (607) 648-9988 mcgirks.com
WATER STREET BREWING CO. Fresh. Local. Uncomplicated. 168 Water St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-4546 waterstreetbrewingco.com
carousels ROSS PARK Undergoing renovations 60 Morgan Rd. Binghamton, NY (607) 772-7017 binghamton-ny.gov/carousels RECREATION PARK Round and round we go! 58-78 Beethoven Street, Binghamton, NY (607) 772-7017 binghamton-ny.gov/carousels C. FRED JOHNSON PARK Round and round we go! 98 CFJ Blvd. Johnson City, NY (607) 772-7017 villageofjc.com HIGHLAND PARK Round and round we go! 801 Hooper Rd. Endwell, NY (607) 786-2970 townofunion.com GEORGE W. JOHNSON PARK Round and round we go! 201 Oak Hill Ave. Endicott, NY (607) 757-0856 endicottny.com WEST ENDICOTT PARK Round and round we go! Maple St. at Page Avenue, Endicott, NY (607) 786-2970 townofunion.com
dance instruction MANDALA BELLYDANCE & FLOW ARTS Classes/Fusion Bellydance /Fire & LED (607) 759-7551 www.facebook.com/mandalaflow mandalaflowarts@gmail.com
OLD UNION HOTEL “King of Wings” 3 Years in a Row! 246 Clinton St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-5935 oldunionhotel.com
PURELY TECHNIQUE DANCE INSTRUCTION Ballet/Contemporary/Jazz/Tap Dance 32-36 Washington Ave. Endicott, NY (607) 245-6366 Purelytechniquedance@gmail.com
OWEGO ORIGINALS BAR & LOUNGE Music, pizza, drinks: Owego’s newest venue 25 Lake St. Owego, NY (607) 687-9510 Find us on Facebook!
TANGO MY HEART Argentine Style Classes/Practice: Mon. 7pm Atomic Tom’s, 196 State St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-8731 tangomyheart.com
breweries GALAXY BREWING CO. Craft beers & great food in downtown Bing 41 Court St. Binghamton, NY (607) 217-7074 galaxybrewingco.com
dining CHROMA CAFÉ & BAKERY Artisan breads & pastries. breakfast/lunch. 97 Court St. Binghamton, NY (607) 595-7612 chromacafeandbakery.com
CITREA RESTAURANT & BAR Woodfire Pizza & Tapas 7 Court St. Suite 3, Binghamton, NY (607) 722-0039 citreapizza.com GROTTA AZZURA Late Night Pizza Delivery Fri.-Sat. 52 Main St. Binghamton, NY 13905 (607) 722-2003 grottaazzurraitalianrestaurant.com LOST DOG CAFÉ Global fare, specialty cocktails, music 222 Water St. Binghamton, NY (607) 771-6063 lostdogcafe.net MI CASA Authentic Latin Cuisine 58 Henry St. Binghamton, NY (607) 237-0227 Find us on Facebook! VILLAGE DINER Check out our menu on Page 38! 255 Floral Ave, Johnson City, NY (607) 217-4134 JCvillagediner.com
hair salons ORION BEAUTY & BALANCE, INC. Hair, nails, body waxing, hair color. Aveda! 118 Washington St. Binghamton, NY (607) 724-0080 orionbeautyandbalance.com
home improvement BUTCH’S PAINTING Residental, Commercial, Interior, Exterior Binghamton, NY (607) 222-9225
jewelers CAMELOT JEWELERS Coins/repairs/custom designs. We buy gold and silver! 48 Clinton St. Binghamton, NY (607) 722-0574
medical practices NY SKIN AND VEIN CENTER Natural good looks & healthy legs! 75 Pennsylvania Ave. Binghamton, NY (607) 417-0040 info@NYSVC.com
museums BUNDY MUSEUM Explore local Binghamton history! 127-129 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 772-9179 bundymuseum.org ROBERSON MUSEUM Exhibits, Events, The Mansion, & More 30 Front Street, Binghamton, NY (607) 772-0660 www.roberson.org
music instruction BANJO AND FIDDLE LESSONS with Brian Vollmer Binghamton, NY (301)385-4027 banjoandfiddle.com brian@banjoandfiddle.com
music venues CYBER CAFÉ WEST Binghamton’s home for live music. 176 Main St. Binghamton, NY (607) 723-2456 cybercafewest.com MAGIC CITY MUSIC HALL Back in action, bigger & better than before! 1040 Upper Front St. Binghamton, NY (607) 296-3269 themagiccitymusichall.com RANSOM STEELE TAVERN Do some dancin’ with Ransom 552 Main St. Apalachin, NY (607) 258-0165 ransomsteeletavern.com
specialty GARLAND GALLERY Custom framing, cool gifts, zany cards 116 Washington St. Binghamton, NY (607) 723-5172 garlandgallery.com
video production STEPHEN SCHWEITZER Video production and editing (607) 222-9281 vimeo.com/stephenschweitzer stephen.schweitzer@gmail.com
wineries BLACK BEAR WINERY NYS fruit wine. Stop by our tasting room! 248 County Rd. 1, Chenango Forks, NY (607) 656-9868 blackbearwinery.com
Be Inside Us! 18,000 discerning monthly readers. 200 regional distribution locations. 3 years of unrivaled arts coverage in the Triple Cities. Get in touch today! (607) 422-2043
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