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LAST SATURDAY IN NIAGARA SQUARE, A MOSTLY AFRICAN-AMERICAN CROWD DEMONSTRATED AGAINST POLICE VIOLENCE—AND WERE DISRUPTED IN THEIR PROTEST NOT BY POLICE BUT BY A GROUP OF MOSTLY WHITE PROTESTERS. READ ABOUT IT AT DAILYPUBLIC.COM. PHOTO BY MICHAEL I. NIMAN
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Newly elected state senator Marc Panepinto with a batch of cucidati.
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Even his political foes acknowledge Marc Panepinto’s baking skills BY NANCY J. PARISI Knocking with the elegant and heavy doorknocker at the home of Senator Marc Panepinto and his family on Bidwell Parkway, the sweet scent of baked goods is somehow, miraculously, wafting through the front door. Natasha, age 13, answers the door.
Dolce-Panepinto t-shirt. A quick greeting and he’s headed into the dining room to add more cucidati to the table. Firm partner Sean Cooney has dubbed Marc “SantaPinto” for his love of Christmas. “Yeah, Sean started that, that bastard. No, it’s funny,” says Panepinto.
This is their family cookie-making day and I am invited to come and participate. Full disclosure: I was hired to make images of Marc this past summer for his campaign. There were several wardrobe changes (as is done for this type of shoot), moving from location to location (throughout the extremely far-reaching 60th District), and friendly cajoling on my part to get the candidate to smile. Dolce-Panepinto, his law firm, hired me recently to make portraits of their principals; during these sessions, the subject of Italian cookies, specifically Sicilian cucidati, came up.
Among the several family members around the long kitchen table is Lucy, Marc’s mother, in Santa hat and snowman earrings. She estimates that she’s been baking for 50 years. ”They’re hard to make,” she says of cucidati. “We’re making Aunt Mary’s recipe.” Her son hands me the family’s photocopied recipe which yields 60 dozen cookies.
Cucidati, small rolled cookies with a fig-based filling, are glazed or frosted and finished, usually, with colorful sprinkles. They are divine. They can also be divisive: how much citrus in the filling, the shape, what type of liquor might be added to the ground dates/raisins/nuts. They are also said to be quite an undertaking, so many families bake together to lessen the workload. Beyond the front door, in the foyer of the Panepinto home, is a large folding table covered with loaves of biscotti, cooling after the first baking—and about to be neatly sliced by Marc’s brother Don. To the right the dining room table is covered with cucidati, a group of girls seated around the table with bowls of glaze and shakers of sprinkles. Rushing between the kitchen island to one of two ovens teeming with trays of baking cookies is the 60th District’s new senator, in shorts and
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Panepinto is moving constantly between rooms, depositing newly baked cookies to the two tables while also watching the Bills game on in the family room off the airy kitchen. Then he’s making more glaze at the KitchenAid. Other family members tell me that they’ll be making 10 types of cookies in all. Today it’s biscotti and cucidati and then they’ll begin pizzelles, working with two pizzelle irons. After that it’s dinner. “I’ve been cooking with my mom since I was seven or eight,” Panepinto says. “I would say you were five,” Lucy says. “We’ve always cooked and baked together.” “I always baked with my mom, I was always underfoot. I give out 50 or 60 tins of cookies to clients, judges, other lawyers. And now I’ll give cookies to Senate colleagues—there are 25 in the Democratic caucus.” Panepinto will be officially sworn in twice: at an unofficial ceremony locally for family and supporters, and then on January 7 in Albany. Presumably there P will be cookies served with the champagne.
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NEWS COMMENTARY
TORTURE We have seen all we will see of the Senate report on CIA’s torture program. It means next to nothing. BY BRUCE JACKSON
Just about everybody in the print press, broadcast press, and political blogosphere has sounded off in the past week about the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence executive summary report on the CIA torture program. Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Fox News on December 11 that the report was “full of crap,” and current CIA director John O. Brennan said at a December 11 press conference that the people who worked in the torture program were “patriots.” Those two utterances, if nothing else, should tell you the report is worth a look.
The story isn’t in so much in what the report says, but rather in what it carefully avoids saying. Since so much is redacted or blacked out it is not an easy read. It’s like a word-for-word transcript of a stutterer with Alzheimer’s. But knowing what people want to keep secret is factual and informative too. The full title is Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program, Findings and Conclusions, Executive Summary. Work on the report began in March 2009 after an investigation (that began in December 2007 and led to nothing) into the CIA’s destruction of torture interrogation videotapes. The summary report was approved on December 13, 2012; it was updated for release on April 3, 2014; declassified on December 3, 2014; we got to see it on December 9, 2014. The full report (that we will never get to see) runs 6,800 pages and cost $40 million. There was a lot of infighting, involving CIA, the White House, and the Senate, before we got to see this summary of governmental dysfunction and criminal behavior. Almost everyone involved wanted to keep it in the closet, both officials in the Bush administration, who initiated the torture program, and officials in the Obama administration, who inherited it.
WHAT THE REPORT SAYS Most of the report’s major points are known to anyone who, in the past decade, was a regular reader of New York Review of Books, New York Times, the Washington Post, or the better online political sites. It’s hard not to think of Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca “discov4
THE PUBLIC / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM
ering” gambling in Rick’s café: “I am shocked— shocked—to find that gambling is going on here.”
nor the 6,800 pages we don’t get to see are about the right guys anyway.
The Senate Select Committee reported 20 “Findings and Conclusions,” most of which had to do with CIA lying to oversight agencies and its own Inspector General about the nature and brutality of what it was doing to prisoners. The committee noted that the CIA farmed out 85 percent of the coercive work to contractors who billed $81 million for the service, and that it misrepresented the number of prisoners held and tortured.
It’s as if, after World War II, we looked into evidence about the people who ran the camps, not the people who ordered that the camps be built and run that way.
The last of the 20 findings is this: “The CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program damaged the United States’ standing in the world, and resulted in other significant monetary and non-monetary costs.” There’s a surprise. The program “cost well over $300 million in non-personnel costs.” It produced just about nothing. If the guys in charge of this worked in industry, they’d all be out on the streets. But the CIA “rarely reprimanded or held personnel accountable for serious and significant violations, inappropriate activities, and systemic and individual management failures.”
WAR CRIMES Basically, it’s like presenting the kind of evidence you would hear in a war crimes courtroom, only you’re not getting the 6,800 pages of evidence, but a summary of those pages, and the summary itself is so full of thick black felt-tip lines that some pages are hardly readable. And, more important, neither the redacted 525 pages we do get to see
The Senate Select Committee decided at the very beginning not to examine the behavior, the choices, and the orders of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of that crew that lied us into war. How could it not tear apart the convoluted legal memos of John Yoo (now a law professor at Berkeley) setting forth the rationale that Bush needed to put the torture apparatus into motion?
DETAILS They say the devil is in the details, and that is what makes this interesting: the details of the behavior of, incompetence in, and mendacity by the CIA, and the details of the report itself, which obscures as much as it reveals. We knew that the CIA waterboarded, sleep-deprived, beat, and did all sorts of horrible things to prisoners. We didn’t know how many and how much. It’s like suspecting that your lover is having an affair and then finding out it is indeed true, but the affair is not with one person but a platoon of them. CIA claimed that the torture program prevented attacks in the US and on US stations abroad. It didn’t. They learned nothing from the torture program they or the FBI or foreign intelligence
COMMENTARY NEWS
IT’S AS IF, AFTER WORLD WAR II, WE LOOKED INTO EVIDENCE ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHO RAN THE CAMPS, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO ORDERED THAT THE CAMPS BE BUILT AND RUN THAT WAY.
agencies hadn’t learned already through conventional, legal routes. In their process, they seem to have done as much as they could to prevent other US government agencies from latching on to real villains.
RAPE
The CIA wouldn’t use so vulgar a term, of course. They call it “rectal infusion.” They used that term in their reports on what they did to Majid Khan, who was “subjected to involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration, which included two bottles of Ensure. Later that same day, Majid Khan’s ‘lunch tray,’ consisting of hunmius[sic], pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins, was ‘pureed’ and rectally infused.” After several years of this kind of treatment they decided he didn’t know anything and hadn’t done anything so they transported him to another country and cut him loose.
LANGUAGE The Senate report consistently refers to the monumental deception at all levels connected with this program as “this representation was inaccurate.” No, it wasn’t inaccurate; it was lies, often in testimony or official reports, which means some of it was perjury. Some people in CIA lied to other people in CIA. They lied to Congress. They lied to the White House. Those blacked-out lines hide the names of a huge number of felons. There are other euphemisms here: prisoners are referred to as “detainees” and torture is consistently called some variation of “enhanced interrogation techniques.” President George W. Bush gave a speech on September 6, 2006, lauding the results of the CIA’s torture program. Both Time and The New York Times poked holes in that speech immediately, saying the torture program had produced no useful intelligence. This report says that the key points of Bush’s speech “are not supported by CIA records.” Abu Zubaydah, for example, provided the same information before he was tortured as he did while he was being tortured and after it. The CIA and Bush claimed otherwise and Dick Cheney still does. A February 2007 report by the International Red Cross on the treatment of prisoners held by the CIA said that what they’d found “amounted to torture and/or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” The CIA disagreed. The report was posted on the New York Review of Books website in April 2009. Rendering, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, deaths: None of this is news. Remember the Abu Ghraib photographs? Former detainees have given interviews about them for years. So far as I know, the only persons who got punished for the Iraq war, other than the countless people on all sides who were killed, mutilated, widowed, orphaned, and otherwise damaged by it, are a CIA covert operative whose career was wrecked by the White House because her husband wrote an official report saying that one of the foundational justifications for the Iraq war—Saddam’s pursuit of yellow cake uranium—was untrue, and another CIA employee who blew the whistle on the torture program: John Kiriakou, who was imprisoned by the Obama administration. The extent of the CIA’s illegal behavior, lying, and incompetence is dazzling. One fact in this report seemed to illustrate it all: The torture program seems to have been grounded in advice given by two psychologist consultants—it was their firm that got the $81 million—who themselves had no experience interrogating anybody. Long-time professionals in CIA objected to this foolishness, and they were ignored. There is a strange disjunction here. It is as if there are two CIAs, a good one and a criminal one, and the Senate report never distinguishes which one is which. The report tells us that the CIA deceived the CIA. After the fourth or fifth time that line came up I began to feel they’d been overdosing on Alice in Wonderland. That happens because the report doesn’t name anybody responsible for any of this: Who, or what directorate, hid information, lied to everybody, and overpaid hired hands, and who, or what branch, was trying to make the CIA the sort of agency you see on Homeland?
Most people I know, when they use the phrase “shove it up your ass,” are speaking metaphorically. Not the CIA. The CIA does it literally.
Did the CIA know what raping the ass of a Muslim man meant? Of course they did. But they didn’t call it that; they called it “rectal infusion,” so it was okay. It’s like Nazi documents referring to the killing program: They’re full of euphemisms that name everything but what they were really doing to people.
BLOWBACK The six Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee took no part in this, but they did join to write a 100-page rebuttal. So far, the only Republican in the Senate to endorse the report is John McCain, himself a victim of torture while a prisoner in North Vietnam. For the others, torture is just a theoretical matter and doesn’t hurt. John McCain has also pointed out that after World War II, the US hanged Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American prisoners-of-war. The CIA is fighting back: The website ciasavedlives.com, which the New York Times says was created by a dozen former top officials in the CIA, attacks the report in all sorts of unsubstantiated, innuendo-fueled ways.
FAILURES Not only does the report fail to examine in detail the choices made by the White House, but it fails to examine in detail the failure of the US Senate, which oversees the CIA, to do its job. Just as the CIA allowed the two psychologist consultants who urged torture to evaluate their own success, Congress allowed the CIA to evaluate itself. It never dug deep, until now, long after the program was terminated. And it didn’t dig that deep: The Committee’s staff went though millions of documents, but they didn’t interview anybody. A Senate committee has subpoena power. They could have hauled anyone they wanted into a closed-door session and asked the villains some hard questions. They didn’t do that. They didn’t want to embarrass anyone. They didn’t, for example, call in Dick Cheney and ask him, “What did you know and when did you know it?” They could have. They chose not to. George W. Bush fought to keep the torture program alive. The report suggests that was because he was misled by fraudulent reports from people in the CIA several layers below the director. CIA, the report says, lied in memos to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and others. Is that true? So who is responsible? We can’t tell, because all information leading to such things is redacted or blacked out or printed in capital letter pseudonyms. The only names that appear are those of some of the vic-
tims of the CIA’s torture program and high-level government officials, none of whom are faulted for anything. And, most importantly, we don’t know if the lying took place because some low-level thugs in the agency were trying to cover their collective asses or because the whole thing was really taking place at the direction of the president and vice president. We don’t know that because the Select Committee never asked such questions and none of the paper trails they turned up answered such questions. The absence of a paper trail proves nothing except no paper trail exists or has been found. That is the case with a lot of villainy. As I said earlier, this report is important for what it says and for what it does not say. One line struck me more than any other. It was a CIA memo from 2003: “…the WH [White House] is extremely concerned that Secretary Powell would blow his stack if he were to be briefed on what’s been going on.” That suggests that some people in the White House were fully aware of all of this this. So aware that they wanted to hide it from their own secretary of state. Colonel John Wilkerson, who was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff, told an MSNBC reporter, “I’ll go out on a limb and I’ll say the only person who was completely read in, and no one knows all the details, but the one who was read in on both the need to cover their rear ends and the need to continue the program because it was effective was Richard Bruce Cheney. He was the man in the shadows orchestrating all of this from the White House.” (You can see the interview at crooksandliars.com.)
WHAT HAPPENS NOW People are still dying in Iraq, where we started a war grounded on false premises. No one has been or ever will be held accountable for the countless deaths, mutilations and forever traumatized minds caused by that war. This was a chance to do it. Everyone bailed out. The Republicans took no part in it whatsoever, and the Democrats, who wrote the report, kept themselves on a very narrow trail: The only villains they point to are all lower level functionaries who are never named. What will happen now is nothing. Obama’s comment on the report was that it showed he was right to stop the torture program and close the secret prisons (no argument there) and that we should let bygones be bygones and move on. In a few weeks, the Republicans own Congress: They’re not going to do anything. This is where it ends. Nobody gets to see the full 6,800-page report except a few senators and staffers, all sworn to secrecy. The last words on this report on nothing new are not mine; they are Macbeth’s: …it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Bruce Jackson is SUNY Distinguished Professor and James Agee Professor of American Culture P at the University at Buffalo. DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / THE PUBLIC
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NEWS COMMENTARY
PHOTO THOMAS GALVEZ/CREATIVE COMMONS
THE SPILLOVER ECONOMY Upstate’s perverse incentive to root for Wall Street fat cats BY BRUCE FISHER Since last Friday, more than 300,000 folks have seen the YouTube of Elizabeth Warren’s speech protesting the budget deal that ended the prohibition of federal government bailouts of the complicated, risky, potentially disastrous financial-derivative transactions known as “swaps.” Congressman Brian Higgins, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Warren’s Senate colleagues Sherrod Brown (Ohio), and Bernie Sanders (Vermont) are among the many progressive Democrats who voted against this deal, for which our president actually lobbied.
sources would warrant were Albany to treat all New Yorkers on a per capita basis rather than shipping Downstate money here in crates. We put in less, we get more; because of Wall Street, New York City puts in far more and gets far less.
folks there spoke longingly of a stock-transfer tax worth $6 billion or more—as if financial-services firms that are already shedding thousands of employees would willingly foot the bill for the thousands of units of local government that Governor Cuomo vows must shrink.
Before he was elected in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama denounced Wall Street and criticized the very idea of a taxpayer-funded bailout of financial speculators. Six years later, President Obama rounded up the votes to beat the progressives down. Why? Ugly, but simple: Thanks to the budget deal of 2014, Democrats will now have access to campaign contributions from Citibank, Goldman Sachs, and the other mega-banks that wanted this regulation reversed, and the party of Hillary Clinton will use that money, plus the refreshed loyalty of Hispanic voters, to keep control of the White House. Had Obama not done what he did, Wall Street’s money would have stayed with the Republicans alone.
Upstaters are on the dole. Upstaters really should hurry up and get off the dole—quickly—because even as Wall Street keeps demonstrating that it can rewrite federal rules any time it wants to, Wall Street has every incentive relocate its cornucopia.
And at a Buffalo State College forum on employment in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2008-2011, all of the participants spoke about a multi-year New York State commitment to investing in new industry, new medical corridor facilities, new transit equipment, and other new infrastructure—because we are accustomed to the font of all project revenue, namely, Wall Street, continuing to gush forth, no matter what OPEC does, no matter what Vladimir Putin might do, no matter where in the cloud Wall Street may find a better return on investment.
Here’s what the deal means to Buffalo and to the section of New York State that the Rockefeller Institute refers to as “rest of state”: Wall Street will continue to foot our bills. And until we ramp up our “tradeable sectors,” and get some serious import substitution going, too, we’ll need the dough. Up here in Paladino Country, we thus have a perverse incentive to root for Jamie Dimon, the CEO of CitiGroup, who is the ultimate author of the un-regulation of the financial monkey-business that Congress tried to cage after the global financial collapse of 2008—because even though the financial-services sector is shedding thousands of jobs for mid- and low-level Gotham employees, Jamie Dimon and his ilk still pay 20 percent of the taxes collected by the State of New York. And as the 2011 Rockefeller Institute study “Giving and Getting” showed, just as our own 2010 study and a previous CGR study showed, the area Rockefeller terms “rest of state” (meaning Upstate) gets more state jobs, more state road money, more state transfer payments, and overall more state dollars than an equitable distribution of state re-
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THE PUBLIC / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM
A SLIMMER BONUS SEASON? The industry that funds globalization, and which thus keeps us poor, may itself be struggling. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli began warning last spring about a slimmer bonus take this Christmas. Wall Street investment bankers, merger-and-acquisition specialists, lawyers, traders, and others may well be making their firms lots of profits, but DiNapoli warned that individuals whose average 2013 bonus was $165,000 apiece might see much smaller payouts in 2014. This is the year that European regulators started restricting bonuses for bankers in the European Union; many of those folks work for firms domiciled here. It’s an open question whether the big bucks will flow this year, and next year, as they have. Some are wondering whether taking the anti-bailout language out of the Dodd-Frank regulation package was more than a political peace offering by the White House: maybe it was a way to keep all the dealers in Ferraris and $30,000 wrist-watches and multi-million-dollar Manhattan condos going, too, with us poor sparrows feeding on what the prancing stallions leave behind. But in our New York State of mind, it seems that some progressives like the status quo, too. At a Saratoga conference last week, none of the public-sector union leaders, elected officials, policy intellectuals, academics or graduate students showed any interest in the difficult but potentially transformative policy initiatives that require regionalism, amalgamation, or consolidation of existing governments—not as a way of saving money, but as a tactic for the kind of economic refocusing that regionalized cities in Canada, the UK, Britain, and Germany have experienced. Instead,
GLOBALISM, LOCALISM, AND THE DOG-WHISTLE Meanwhile, what we’re enjoying today—Buffalo’s version of the Great Inversion, where suburbanites with ice-skates may now linger downtown longer thanks to Canalside’s skateable ice, and the cheap West Side real-estate immediately adjacent to the new Five Points Bakery, and the sparks of an entrepreneurial renaissance actually flying thanks to Jordy Levy’s 43 North competition—are notable, newsworthy, and getting Buffalo some of the buzz that Pittsburgh profits from. Favorable signs abound: the Buffalo Common Council weighed in unanimously against putting condos on the Outer Harbor. Kid-friendliness. Beer-friendliness. Renaissance in re-used spaces downtown. We could use an ECC solution in the tallest downtown tower. We could use Higgins money from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. But we really need to grow more of our own food, and import less; to make our own consumer goods (beer is a fabulous start!), and re-use rather than build anew—even as we use Wall Street’s money to help businesses based here to sell their stuff elsewhere. Out of town students will help, too—but that’s for next week’s sermon. Bruce Fisher is visiting professor of economics at Buffalo State College, where he is director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies. P
COMMENTARY NEWS
BUYING THE NEXT BAILOUT Root for Wall Street fat cats? No way.
Congressman Kevin Yoder of Kansas inserted into the federal budget bill language written by the mega-bank Citigroup undoing previous legislation that guarded against future bailouts of mega-banks—which, in turn, donated $510,200 to Yoder’s campaign war chest this year.
BY MICHAEL I. NIMAN
It always ends the same way. We avert a government shutdown at the 11th hour. But once again we suffer a shutout loss for democracy. This movie re-runs as predictably as Jimmy Stewart graces your TV on Christmas day. Republicans bring us to the brink of chaos, threaten to burn the house down; Democrats capitulate, and the Republicans sell us out to their corporate sponsors. This corruption is out in the open and now codified into election law. These politicians are owned. Watching them legislate is like watching dogs sit, roll over, and give you their paw. That this is our government is humiliating to all Americans. Let’s look at what Congress’s sponsors got this year, and how much it cost them. The biggest prize goes to Wall Street. Tucked away in the 1,600-plus page federal budget is a provision that, the New York Times documents, was actually written by the corporate lawyers at banking giant Citigroup. That’s the same Citigroup that went belly up in 2008 after gambling recklessly with investors’ money, ultimately staying solvent only because of a $50-billion-plus taxpayer bailout. The rationale for the bailout was that, as one of the world’s largest banks, they held the global economy hostage. If we die, they claimed, you die. This year they held the federal budget hostage. Of course it didn’t hurt that the finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE) sector gifted the incoming president’s campaign with $43,744,789. As a condition of the bailout, the government told the bankers that they would no longer be allowed to take the public’s money to the roulette table. Technically, this was done through the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, which is popularly known for the two legislators that authored it, Barney Frank in the House and Chris Dodd in the Senate. A major provision of DoddFrank prohibits banks from using money from federally insured deposits to invest in risky derivatives and commodities. But that’s also the kind of trading that makes bank executive uber-rich. Imagine yourself having the same privilege. You go to the racetrack and place your bets. If you win, you keep the winnings. If you lose, the taxpayers refill your bank account. It’s a sweet deal. But it’s only available to mega-banks. Dodd-Frank makes that illegal. It’s not a major crime, like sharing your cigarettes on a Staten Island street, but it’s still illegal. That little piece of plagiarized Citigroup prose inserted into the budget bill negates that part of Dodd-Frank, once again allowing financial titans to take our life savings to the casino. This is blatant corruption in service to the mega-banks. Unlike politicians’ stands on issues like abortion, where voices in their heads command them, or unlike much of the Tea Party agenda,
where they misunderstand what people in tri-cornered hats said or did a few centuries ago, none of the members of the House or Senate even attempted a lame or insane rationale for inserting this sweet deal into the budget and threatening to shut the government down if it didn’t pass. It just is what it is. There’s really no sense in trying to rationalize repealing a measure meant to prevent future bailouts of big banks. The bailouts, like the banks, were and are wildly unpopular. This is just business. While Citigroup authored the wording for the repeal, it was Republican Congressman Kevin Yoder of Kansas who landed the dirty task of inserting it into the federal budget. For his troubles, the FIRE sector gifted his campaign with $510,200 this year. Yoder was following in the footsteps of Texas Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, who shepherded a similar provision trough the Republican-controlled House last year, only to see it die in the Democrat-controlled Senate. For his troubles, FIRE corporations gave his campaign $2.3 million dollars this year. Despite the fact that Republicans control the House with a comfortable margin, they couldn’t muster enough Republican votes to pass the budget, due to a Tea Party revolt within the party. One would think that the Tea Party folks, who were swept into office capitalizing on anti-Wall Street sentiment, just couldn’t go along with such a handout to the reviled banks. But in the end, that wasn’t their issue at all. For their tastes, the budget bill just wasn’t sufficiently cruel to immigrants. Of course this is just the budget bill, not an immigration bill, but congressional politics is so reliably dysfunctional that such antics are the new normal. If toenail fungus is your issue, and you’re a Republican, then just hold your breath, stomp your feet, and go for it. Crash the government. What the hell. This Tea Party revolt, however, meant that getting the bill through Congress would be a fight. On the Republican side, Roll Call magazine reports that House Majority Whip Steve Scalia, Republican of Louisiana, and his deputy, Republican Patrick Henry, lobbied heavily for the bill. On the Democratic side of the isle, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer pushed members of his party to support the bill. This year the FIRE sector gave $555,000 to Scalise’s campaign, $767,000 to McHenry’s campaign, and $1.3 million to Hoyer’s campaign. In all, 57 Democrats crossed the aisle to support the Republican leadership. This included Hoyer’s deputy, the number three ranking Democrat in the House, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. The FIRE sector gave his campaign $605,200 this year. Most notable among the Democratic defections was Rep-
resentative Jim Himes of Connecticut. He was an author of the Dodd-Frank provision that is being repealed. FIRE interests donated $1.3 million to his campaign this year. The vast majority of Republicans who supported the bill don’t have to rationalize their vote. They were just following orders from their leader, John Boehner, who received $3.1 million this year from FIRE interests. And Republicans in the Senate were just following their leader, Mitch McConnell, who received just shy of $6 million this year from the FIRE sector. This minority of Democrats who crossed over to support Republican efforts to pass the bill, in pursuit of plausible deniability, denounced the bill they voted for, saying that Republicans blackmailed them by threatening to shut the government down before removing their corporate riders from the budget bill. Their argument is supported not by the Democratic leader of the House, Nancy Pelosi, but by the president himself, Barack Obama. In true Democratic fashion, Obama slammed the Republicans for trying to gut Dodd-Frank, then capitulated to their political terrorism. Obama’s tempered resistance might have been influenced by the well over $20 million his campaign received from the FIRE sector in his last election. But there’s more to this than meets the eye; they gave his opponent, Mitt Romney, almost $59 million. This represented a turnaround from 2008, when they gave Obama almost $44 million, compared to the paltry $31 million they gave McCain. Apparently, Obama served them well, bailing out their industries while mostly allowing their executives to avoid prosecution and continue eating with both hands. But they seem to have little use for him now and would rather invest in assets with better corporate pedigrees and less populist rhetoric. The take-the-banks-to-the-casino provision isn’t the only rider that Republicans snuck into the budget bill and are threatening to shut the government down to protect. Another important provision guts one of the last campaign contribution limits still in place after the 2011 Citizens United Supreme Court
ruling. It raises the current limit that an individual can donate to a political party (political action committee donations are already unlimited) from the current $97,200 to over $750,000 per year. Couples can buy a seat at the table by giving a party up to $3.1 million per year. There’s something for everyone in this budget bill. The coal industry will be allowed to dump toxic waste into Appalachian streams. The oil and gas sector paid their members of Congress for a rider that will allow them access to federal lands that would have otherwise been protected. Some of the goodies are actually budget-related, though corporate handouts nonetheless. For instance, tax cheats will be happy to learn of a $345 million cut to the IRS operating budget, impairing tax code enforcement and auditing, which will in turn cost the government billions, while protecting the sort of criminals Republicans traditionally like to protect. In a major concession to corporate eco-criminals, the Environmental Protection Agency, which has seen its enforcement abilities weakened by five straight years of budget cuts, will now suffer another $60 million cut. If you’re a CEO with a few bricks of spent uranium in the boardroom closet, now would be a good time to toss them in the wastebasket. And just to keep up appearances with the red meat crowd, here’s a Republican budget line that actually is not directly in service to any particular corporate lobby—a $93 million cut to the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program (WIC). Compared to what we’re giving away to corporate interests, this doesn’t even amount to pocket change. It’s just mean. Michael I. Niman is a professor of journalism and critical media studies at SUNY Buffalo State. His columns are available globally through syndication and are archived at mediastudy.com. The campaign donor numbers presented here come from the Center for Responsive Politics, a notfor-profit independent research organization dedicated to government transparency.
LOOKING BACKWARD: CURTISS P-40
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BUFFALO HISTORY MUSEUM.
The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was among the best-known and most-produced aircraft of World War II. The P-40 was also the Curtiss model built in the greatest quantities, with 13,738 produced between 1939 and 1944. All were manufactured at Curtiss’s Plant No. 1 in Tonawanda and Plant No. 2 in Cheektowaga. The P-40 saw action from the beginning of the war to the end, from the Middle East and North Africa campaigns (where British pilots first painted the famous “shark mouth” nose art on the fighters); to Pearl Harbor and the Philippines in 1941; to China with the famed American Volunteer Group, or “Flying Tigers;” in the hands of Soviet pilots on the Eastern Front; to domestic defense of Alaska’s Aleutian Islands; as well as in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific. Maligned and praised by pilots, the P-40 more than held its own, producing many of the first aces of the conflict and some of the highest fighter kill-ratios, helping the Allies survive the first critical years of the war. What it lacked in climb rate and high-altitude performance it made up in dive speed, maneuverability, firepower, and especially ruggedness—the latter enabling the plane to absorb punishment and bring its pilots home alive. Curtiss-Wright employed 43,000 Buffalonians by 1943, fortifying the city as the center of the nation’s aircraft industry. However, by 1946, during the postwar drawdown, Curtiss shuttered all Buffalo operations. The Tonawanda plant, shown here at Vulcan Street P and Kenmore Avenue, still stands. DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / THE PUBLIC
7
ARTS REVIEW
DECLINE AND FALL Evan Hawkins at Nichols School Gallery BY JACK FORAN
Evan Hawkins’s art plays with conflicting ideas in the heady historical argument about decline versus ascent of human civilization. Two dozen or so of his superbly rendered drawings and lithographs are currently on display in the Nichols School gallery. They freely mix imagery of the Mayan and modern worlds, and Native American Indian, with its legacy notion of respect for the natural environment, and urban industrial, with its legacy notion of exploit the environment, leave it in tatters. The imagery is largely of ruins, ancient and modern. The amalgam is on one level comic, on another level not so comical at all. The funny versus not funny quality is another level of amalgam. The civilization in decline trope goes back at least to the ancient Greek poet Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer, who described how originally the world was golden, but then rapidly went downhill, to silver, then bronze, and finally iron, which rusts, decays, decomposes, which is of course our world. The world as rust belt. The decline idea wasn’t definitively refuted until the 19th century, by Darwin. Though lots of mostly Republicans reject Darwin. And lots of hard evidence that we’re destroying our own nest maybe refutes Darwin. Ambivalence is a core aspect of the argument and also of Hawkins’s works. Modern world references are often specifically to Buffalo and environs, poster locale for urban decline for the last 60 years or so, but now apparently on the rise again. Though the Buffalo references are more about age and decrepitude than renewal. A drawing basically of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at Lafayette Square calls it the Tomb of Soldiers and Sailors and shows it crumbling at the base. A work about Buffalo renewal—but also about decrepitude—is called City of Dawn. It features an iconic symbol and example of the city’s renaissance in terms of valuing and conserving the treasures of its past, the Darwin Martin House. Which appears rather as background, however, behind a foreground Mayan pyramid staircase and assortment of more local ancient artifacts— an old street lamp, an old Jewett Parkway street sign, an abandoned wreck of an old Buick—half overgrown with weeds and vines, much as the Mayan pyramids and other remains had been overwhelmed and hidden by jungle growth prior to their discovery/rediscovery at the beginning of the nineteenth century. So is the message about renewal or decay? About human cultural aspira-
HAWKINS SAYS HIS WORKS ARE ESSENTIALLY ABOUT METAL AND STONE. tion or the futility of the whole human project? Mayan civilization was rediscovered but not reborn. The Native American references are mainly second-hand or third-hand, by way of images of Buffalo City Hall with its American Indian inspiration art deco. In several of the works, City Hall looms hazily above and behind a Mayan staircase pyramid and/or altar. One work specifically about ruins includes a large section of broken obelisk. An ancient Egyptian reference, it seems at first glance, which would be appropriate enough in the context, until you come to notice this is not an Egyptian obelisk—not a monolith—but constructed of uniform fitted stone blocks—the Niagara Square obelisk. In the wake of whatever cataclysm, it’s a wonder City Hall is still standing upright. In addition to the growth and decay main thematic of these works, the mix of references broadly across ages and continents and cultures raises more time-limited satiric possibilities, which are touched on more than featured. A work called At the Feet of a God shows a towering mountain form that transforms above into a typical corporate office complex, and below, at the base of the mountain, into two huge stone feet, like the feet of a statue of a god. Another piece, called Sprawl, consists of a sculptural city model—like a model railroad town, but urban—on what might be a Mayan human sacrifice altar. In a statement on his website, Hawkins notes how his artworks are essentially about metal and stone, the foundational materials of civilization, and that they will outlast us. Interesting to note in this regard that the majority of the works on show are lithographs—drawings on stone—or drawings on aluminum metal. A few are ink or crayon on board, and one is a woodcut. The Nichols School exhibit continues through January 16. See more of Hawkins’s work on page 12.
Tomb of Soldiers and Sailors
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PUBLIC QUESTIONNAIRE THEATER
THE PUBLIC QUESTIONNAIRE:
LUCAS LLOYD BY ANTHONY CHASE
Lucas Lloyd, a relative newcomer to the Buffalo theater scene, is originally from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. He’s been acting since he was nine years old. At Lee University, a highly regarded, faith-based liberal arts college in Cleveland, Tennessee, Lucas earned a bachelor’s degree in Bible and Theology with a minor in theater. Seeking to expand his artistic horizons, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 2006, where he picked up a great deal of experience as an actor—though directing is his primary interest. In Boston, he performed with 15 theater companies over the course of six and half years, playing such roles as Tom in Glass Menagerie, Jerry in Zoo Story, and Paul in Barefoot in the Park. He also directed several short works as part of the SLAMBoston Festival, and William Nicholson’s play Shadowlands, about the relationship of C. S. Lewis and poet Joy Davidman, for the New England Repertory Company. He came to Buffalo in February 2013, and almost immediately began working as a stage manager for Road Less Traveled Productions, stage-managing every show of their 2013-2014 season and becoming an RLTP Ensemble member. He performed in a series of one-acts with ART of WNY as part of the Infringement Festival last past summer. Currently, Mr. Lloyd is appearing in The Guns of Christmas, a new play written and directed by Gary Earl Ross, at Subversive Theatre Collective that imagines the legendary Christmas Day Truce along the Western Front of World War I in 1914. In this real-life incident —previous to the advent of mustard gas and the execution of nurse Edith Cavell—small cease-fires were instigated by German troops and soccer matches were subsequently instigated by British troops. Mr. Lloyd plays Percy, the conflicted young officer who negotiates for the British side. The lean and good-looking actor distinguishes himself in this, his first leading role in a full-length play in Buffalo, with a focused and affecting performance. This spring he will appear in Angels Fall at the New Phoenix Theatre. What word would your friends use to describe you? Passionate.
What is your idea of hell on earth? Being emptied of any sense of
What quality in your current character is most unlike your own personality? Lack of faith. Percy is full of guilt from his
What is your greatest fear? Perhaps that in the end, I will prove to
perceived transgressions, and having no foothold in faith, can find no absolution. What quality in your current role is most like your own personality? Compassion for other people. When and where were you the happiest? This is a very personal
question. But I am always happiest when I feel that I am in the center of God’s will for me. That often comes when I am feeling the love of others, or sensing the love of God. Other times it happens when I am filled with a sense of mission, and can pursue that mission with all my energies. To those ends, I am very happy right here and now, working toward my calling, experiencing great things, building new relationships.
love or meaning.
be too undisciplined or reserved to make good on my own potential. Which talent do you most wish you had? Singing, in that leadingman kind of way. What would you change about your appearance? Ha! Bigger muscles. What trait do you most dislike in others? The tendency to attack
others, or carelessly tear them down, when they think or live differently, to see them as “other,” as the enemy or as lesser-than, instead of to value, to listen, to know, and to understand. What do you most value in your friends? Honesty/openness, and the mutual desire to strive for excellence and goodness (in craft and in life).
What is your guilty pleasure? Watching sports (and reading sports
articles; this season it’s been college football). Who is your favorite fictional hero? Maximus Decimus Meridius
[the character played by Russell Crowe in Gladiator]. Who are your real-life heroes? My parents; my brother; David
of Bethlehem. What do you consider to be the most overrated virtue? Success. On what occasion do you lie? When I perceive that my audience
would be harmed by the truth, or would use the truth to harm others. If you come back in another life, what person or thing would you like to be? Someone more childlike and open-handed. What is your motto? The most important things are the invisible
things, the eternal things.
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MUSIC INTERVIEW
PUBLIC SPEAKING: KEITH BUCKLEY Every Time I Die frontman on his new novel, the band’s new record, and Christmas shows BY CORY PERLA
PHOTO BY LINDSAY BUCKLEY
name was but it was some old fuckin’ jobber. They probably just said that because they didn’t even think to write a back story for him! Like they didn’t even care; he was probably just some dude off the streets they just used so he could get his ass kicked by Papa Shango or someone. But the name just kinda struck a chord with me like it would make a great name for a record because, to be honest, when I was writing Ex Lives I didn’t think I’d have another record in me at all. I was shot. I was mentally exhausted. So this record really came from somewhere that I was unaware was there. I know it sounds like new age hippy shit, but I started meditating a lot and it really really clarified things for me. That was what got me off that path of “I’m going to drink until I’m dead, I’m going to smoke until I can’t sing anymore, and I’m going to make some stupid mistake that’s going to cost me my life and job and relationships.” It wasn’t an epiphany, but once I started meditating I started finding purpose in things I previously thought purposeless. The fact that it worked was a huge surprise to me, so that’s also kinda where the title came from. Meditation is just about finding a quiet place. All of a sudden these things show up that have never revealed themselves to you before.
It’s the winter of 2013 and Every Time I Die frontman Keith Buckley sits in his home in Buffalo, New York, with his dog Lemmy curled up by his feet. He’s just spent the morning writing, but not the type of frantic, aggressive lyrics he pens for Every Time I Die. Over the last few years he has compiled tour stories and memoirs; combining these bits and pieces to create a storyline for a semi-autobiographical novel. The novel is called Scale and he’s been writing it in between sound checks; on the tour bus between shows in Bloomington, Illinois and Boston; and in the back of dark bars in strange cities. Now the novel is finished, his dog Lemmy has passed on, and the 35-year-old singer is beginning a new chapter of his life. Scale will be published by Rare Bird Books sometime next year, but not before Every Time I Die wraps up their winter tour in support of their latest album, From Parts Unknown. It’s the band’s seventh album but it somehow feels like a debut. It’s desperate, delirious, and full of some kind of new-found energy—of which even Buckley can’t quite identify the origins. This week we talked to Buckley about his new book, From Parts Unknown, and his tongue-in-cheek 1990s cover band. I saw your 1990s cover band, Soul Patch, play on Halloween and it was so much fun. What’s the story behind Soul Patch?
From Parts Unknown feels like a debut album all over again just because it’s so desperate and so urgent.
It seriously was like a drunk talk at four o’clock in the morning at The Pink like: “Dude, we gotta start a cover band. There’s a resurgence—it’s been long enough where the 1990s stuff is cool again!” Then we followed up only by booking a show the next day. Let’s talk about Scale. You just wrote your first novel. Why did you decide to write this book? I didn’t really decide to start writing it, it kind of decided for me. For a while I was just biding time by getting a bunch of old stuff that I had written together. I thought I would put out a bunch of short stories myself, but I was just looking for something to keep me active because I just saw myself drinking too much and sleeping too long. It was a dark time. I had to do something positive. I started going through all of my stuff and finding these little stories I had written and I kinda realized, thematically, there was stuff that tied together. Then one morning while we were on tour in Europe a few years ago I woke up out of a dream and I had this idea to do a book that alternates chapters where one side is like a musician descending into depravity, and on the other side he’s trying to fight out of it. He realizes that his ego is not the most important thing in the world. You follow him to rock bottom and then you watch him try to scale out of it. The main character’s name is Ray Goldman and he’s a burnout type. He’s burnt out on himself. He’s a nihilistic asshole who can’t find any order in anything. His senses are constantly exploited. He’s just after the next fix—not necessarily drug-wise—but he’s a scumbag. The point of the story isn’t really about this guy on tour, I only used tour stories to make it a little more authentic. I felt I could do that a little more thoroughly because I actually lived it. So those parts are very real.
What was a typical writing session for Scale like for you? It depends on how serious I got. At first I hated it because I knew what I wanted and I saw it, but I just couldn’t get to it. So I would write after sound checks and before doors for three or four hours and then I’d come back that night and I would just hate everything and delete it. I got really frustrated. Then I gave up on it for a few months, which gave me some clarity. Then it got really intense; I’d wake up and do it until I had to do something else, then I’d go back to it. Toward the end when it really started coming into frame it would be a good five or six hours a day. You wrote this book over the course of three years. In comparison, how long did it take you to write From Parts Unknown? A month. [He laughs.] Completely different processes.
A lot of your lyrics for Every Time I Die have to do with the same kind of subject matter, this burnt-out persona. But at the same time, you’re a very successful musician. How do you strike a balance between this persona and your actual success?
It’s a completely different thing. I’ve always compared [writing lyrics] to doing a crossword puzzle. The frame is there and all of the parameters are set and the margins are drawn and you have to fit the words and syllables in perfectly. There is a very limited space within which you have to work. I know how to do that because I’ve done seven or eight albums. When I sat down to write free-form it was a very different thing. I had to pump the brakes a lot. Trimming the fat was a lot of the process of writing this book. Whereas with lyrics I find myself struggling to just get it to the borders.
That’s the other meaning of Scale. It is a balance and there is a balance to it. [Goldman] doesn’t necessarily find it as much as it finds him, but he does struggle with it, a lot. The way that the book is set up is that the even chapters are kind of after this epiphany he has, and the odd chapters are before and leading up. It’s a constant fluctuation back and forth.
[Laughs] It’s not necessarily! But it does so happen to be that, and yes, it was inspired by a wrestling documentary we watched on a bus in Europe, but it wasn’t the Ultimate Warrior who was referred to as from “parts unknown” first. I honestly don’t remember what the wrestler’s
10 THE PUBLIC / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM
From Parts Unknown. I’m guessing that’s a reference to the Ultimate Warrior’s hometown.
Lyrically for me, it was the first honest album I’ve ever written. It was the first time I was genuine with what I was talking about. I wasn’t trying to mask it in all these idioms and metaphors. There is imagery but I’m not like hiding confessions or trying to fool anybody or be something else. I was feeling like a new person and if this album feels like a new band, I can understand that. It felt like a new band to me. There is one theme in particular that it seems like you’ve taken with you from Ex Lives—and probably even further back— which is this theme of being between life and death. Or in a sense, waiting for death but being stuck here. Being stuck was a huge theme for Ex Lives and I can say that it was the most bitter record that I’ve ever done because I felt like I was stuck and nothing in my life was changing. I was stalemated. I’ve been doing this band for 10, 15 years, and we were not getting bigger or smaller but just kind of staying the same, and who can I blame? Who is at fault? “Oh, it’s the label, it’s the kids, it’s my band, it’s me,” I’d say. It’s everything else except what it really was: I just didn’t care enough. It was just like: “Oh, ok this is working I’m not going to try and make anymore out of it. But [From Parts Unknown] just accepts the fact that something has to end for something else to start. It might sound stupid, but giving up smoking was a huge thing for me because it was so inexplicably tied to my image. When I quit smoking it was like I’m giving up the person that people think that I am because people think I’m just the guy that drinks and smokes all the time, but that’s boring. It wasn’t this huge profound movement, but there was a clarity I had that I didn’t before. This will be your 10th year doing the Every Time I Die Christmas shows. You’re doing three this year and they are all sold out. What is it like to come home after a long winter tour and end on that note? It’s the best. There is nothing like it. Bands say that but I really feel like the relationship that we have to Buffalo is just so special that I can’t see that happening in any other band. I’ve been around other bands playing hometown shows and the energy is nothing compared to what happens P in Buffalo when we play a Christmas show. We’re so grateful.
SPOTLIGHT MUSIC
BRIMSTONE BLONDES BY CHRISTOPHER JOHN TREACY There’s a certain tone you’d expect from an album recorded in a liquor store basement. Brimstone Blondes’ AGE OF CONSENT harnesses the productive buzz portion of a bender, when ideas flow freely and chemistry magically manifests. Hear for yourself at Sugar City’s Chanukah Bonanza blowout at 8pm on Monday, December 22, which also kicks off the band’s Red, White, and Blonde Xmas Tour. The Buffalo-born quartet is a serious musical endeavor once perceived as something less, making AGE OF CONSENT (Admirable Traits Records) all the more compelling since it’s exactly what the title implies: a rite of passage. “There’s a double-entendre,” frontman Matthew Danger Lippman explained during a recent phone call. “We never felt taken seriously because of our age, and we figured this was a nastier, much more in-your-face punk record that celebrates reaching our age of consent as a band. And yet, a lot of the songs revolve around the weird nuances of consent: realizing the hollowness of hookups, the hollowness of party culture. There’s a realization that you no longer fit into the scene, that you used to be a funny kid but that now it’s not cute anymore. Now you’re just a prick.” Brimstone Blondes have channeled their collective coming-of-age bummer into something both defiant and fun. AGE OF CONSENT references the original NYC Bowery punk bands while capturing the resounding “meh” that comes with realizing adulthood looked better on the cusp. Despite having been up for 26 hours dealing with final exams, Lippman walks me through the album’s oddball assortment of influences as documented on the band’s bandcamp page… PHOTO BY KENYON PARKS
LISTENING TO R. KELLY’S “IGNITION (REMIX),” DRUNK AND ALONE ON A FRIGID SATURDAY NIGHT “Our song “Afterparty” has an interpolation of that lyric, “…after the show it’s the after party/And after the party it’s the hotel lobby.” R. Kelly’s a genius and I love that song, but hearing it at tons of parties last year really amplified the feeling of being lonely and drunk in a crowd, being at odds with everyone, and that something’s definitely wrong. “Afterparty” goes down a different road with a sad, neo-country-punk sound.”
THE HORRORS OF RURAL PENNSYLVANIA
“BANGERZ” BY MILEY CYRUS
PRINCE’S DIRTY MIND
“I spent a year at Allegheny before transferring to SUNY Purchase. I was thinking about the exotic names of some of these rural towns but how they’re actually desolate and sad. It ties into our song “Lithuania, PA,” with this fleeting idea of going someplace adventurous and how that sours so quickly. The State of Pennsylvania now terrifies me…lots of confederate flags and guys with Insane Clown Posse tattoos. I may as well be in a third world country.”
“Modern indie rock is so apologetic and humble, bland and whitewashed… skinny guys staring at their shoes, refusing to engage. I feel like trash rap and pop stars like Miley bring a level of excitement back to music. I want to inject more of that into indie culture, which feels like it’s totally lost its spirit and become a hipperthan-thou contest. I wanna be out there wearing lipstick and being way more obnoxious than everyone else.”
“Alex Mersinger—our bass player—loves punk…But when he discovered Prince, it changed the band’s direction. The bass got funkier and more pronounced; Prince took over our rhythm section. My writing about romantic/sexual concepts reads like a dark inversion of Prince, but I’m much more neurotic, like early Elvis Costello. So there’s this neurotic approach to being sexual, coupled with his funky influence, on this record.”
THE DISASTER ARTIST BY GREG SESTERO
XAVIER: RENEGADE ANGEL
THE COALITION FOR A SMOKE-FREE CITY
“It’s a book by actor Greg Sestaro about his experience making the movie The Room, which conventional wisdom dictates was one of the worst movies ever made, but that we hold as an accidental masterpiece. Both in song and in reality, I have an innate obsession with nostalgia and the feeling that something is lost in my current life. The book really touches on that, ‘best laid plans’ and all.”
“I think the show just fuels my inner anarchist. It’s like the TV version of “LA Blues” by The Stooges. Jacob Cohen thinks it signifies the decline of American culture, which is another excellent example of how he balances the band. Joe (Rambell) and Alex are selftaught. I had guitar lessons in sixth grade, but Jake is a classically-trained violinist…we need that anchor.”
“We have all these people only doing things for show in this “hookup generation,” smoking being one of them. I was being sarcastic about the Coalition, maybe throwing people off, because I think it’s a dumb idea. But at least it requires an allor-nothing stance: there’s no half-stepping going on, nobody’s involved in it just P for appearances.”
BRIMSTONE BLONDES / SUGAR CITY, 1239 NIAGARA ST / MON, DEC 22 / 8PM
HOLIDAY
SPECTACULAR AT ALLEN STREET HARDWARE
FRIDAY, DEC 19TH @ 11PM | 245 ALLEN ST. BFLO DJs
NATRON
RICK JAMESON JOSH YOURMOMS $5 COVER
CHRISTMAS VACATION • HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS • NBA DUNK HIGHLIGHTS DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / THE PUBLIC
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12 12 THETHE PUBLIC / DECEMBER 17, 2014 17, / DAILYPUBLIC.COM PUBLIC / DECEMBER 2014 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM
CITY OF DAWN/ EVAN HAWKINS is a former Buffalonian now pursuing an MFA at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
13 13 DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, 2014 THE PUBLIC DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, /2014 / THE PUBLIC
EVENTS CALENDAR PUBLIC APPROVED
IN PRINT
PHOTO BY ETHAN CALABRESE
T.M.M.C. “Too Many Eyes in the Crowd” (song) Recommended If You Like: Automatic for the People era R.E.M., early Counting Crows The devastating single from local heavyweight five-piece, which includes Mohawk Place old guard members Bill Nehill and Irving Klaw’s Dave G., is set to appear on the Hi/Lo recorded release in the near future.
RACKMASTAS SWEI2D (album) RIYL: 1990s television, nostalgia A follow up remix collection of classic
USS (UBIQUITOUS SYNERGY SEEKER) FRIDAY DEC 19 6:30PM / RAPIDS THEATRE, 1711 MAIN ST. / $15-$20 [ALT ROCK] Ozzy Osbourne bites off the head of a bat; Marilyn Manson simulates fellatio; and Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker (USS) blends a banana-raspberry smoothie on stage to share with the audience. When attending a USS show, after about 20 minutes you may be inclined to check and make sure you’re in the right arena because their live show is their studio album’s certifiably insane twin. In fact, when turntabilist Human Kebab starts scratching records with his head, you may question whether or not they were even spawned from the same parents. Though, even their album tracks—which are well written with pleasant instrumentation and polished production—are undeniably experimental, blending many different styles and genres. Their songs are catchy and unpretentious, as evidenced by their hit tracks “This Is the Best” and “Yin Yang.” Catch USS at the Rapids Theatre on Friday, December 19–weirdness, fun, and (maybe) free smoothies guaranteed. -KELLIE POWELL
television theme songs from the long running, Gates Circle Wine & Liquor bred project. Release includes takes on Twin Peaks, Home Improvement, and the jangle turned dream pop theme to Pete & Pete.
ANDY POTHIER “Oh, to the Coast and Over” (song) RIYL: Bright Eyes, Hiss Golden Messenger “Oh, to the Coast and Over” is the second bare-boned track from the Pine Fever drummer’s forthcoming In Headlights LP.
MILEHIGHMUZIK “Rollin” (song) RIYL: Wu Tang Klan, Dipset Infectious, stand-out track from rising local rap posse, featuring members M-A, Yo Leek, Karma, Bulls, and Bones.
LOCAL SHOW PICK OF THE WEEK
THURSDAY DEC 18 The Tins 8pm Buffalo Iron Works, 49 Illinois St. free
[INDIE ROCK] With the release of their latest EP, Young Blame, seasoned Buffalo indie rock band, the Tins have taken their straight forward rock music and implanted richly layered strings and synthesizers. The three-piece band comes to Buffalo Iron Works on Thursday, December 18. -CP
Owen Benjamin 8pm Helium Comedy Club, 30 Mississippi St. $15-$27
[COMEDY] Oswego’s own Owen Benjamin once opened for Julio Iglesias. Owen Benjamin sang opera as a kid. Owen Benjamin followed Jimmy Fallon around on tour to help him hone his stand-up chops before Fallon took over the Tonight Show. Owen Benjamin has done a lot of interesting things, and as a stand up comedian the more diverse your experiences, the more you have to work with on stage. Benjamin will perform on stage at Helium Comedy Club for five shows; Thursday, December 18 through Saturday, December 20. -CP
FRI, DEC 19 / 8PM / $10
Broccoli Samurai 10pm Nietzsche’s, 248 Allen St. $5
[FUNK] This Friday, December 19, Broccoli Samurai, SkyPilot, and Haewa will take the stage at Nietzsche’s. Haewa hails from Rochester and fuses various genres into their own unique blend. SkyPilot, while new in name, is a mix of musicians who have been around the block in various bands and put a solid spin on jam music. Cleveland’s Broccoli Samurai—who have been coming to the area here and there— have a very unique sound that mixes jam with electronic music. All and all, the three acts will make for a fun night of full of dancing and energy. -JS
Knight Patrol 9pm Buffalo Iron Works, 49 Illinois St. free
FRIDAY DEC 19
CACTUS TRUCK NINTH WARD
Public Good, a local watchdog organization that combs data to provide both guidance and counterpoints to government and business groups. Backing them in this effort on the dance floor of doing good things are PUSH Buffalo, the Ujima Theatre Company, Community Health Care Worker Network of Buffalo, and the Foundry. The charge on the turntables will be lead by DJ Projex. -AARON LOWINGER
The Movement 2014 9pm The Foundry, 298 Northampton St. $10
[PARTY] Probably the only thing better than hanging with a group of civic-minded folks on a Friday night is having some killer dance tracks to back you up. It’s a benefit for the Partnership for
14 THE PUBLIC / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM
[ROCK] Classic rock outfit, Knight Patrol, has already shaken Rochester all night long, and on Friday, December 20, they’re bringing their soaring vocals and classic guitar punch to Buffalo Iron Works for a free show following the Sabres game. The trio—who are all freshly 21-years old—formed in 2011, agreeing that they must preserve true classic rock music. Their age has zero impact on their keen ability to pump out classic hits from rock staples like Van Halen, Boston, Aerosmith, and more. -KP
CALENDAR EVENTS PUBLIC APPROVED
LIVE MUSIC EVERY NIGHT FOR OVER 30 YEARS! WEDNESDAY
DEC 17
Susan Peters Jazz Band 9PM FREE
WED 12/17 97 ROCK & BUFFALO IRON WORKS PRESENTS
AN EVENING W. JICKSTER » Before & After Bob Seger at First Niagara Center
UPCOMING TICKETED SHOWS THURSDAY
DEC 18
A Bobby Angel Christmas time Tribute to the Music of Fleetwood Mac & Stevie Nicks W. TONY DEROSA, KEITH SHUSKIE, MELANIE KLAJA, KATIE ANN AND MC ZILL, SIKA, MAGICTONZ, CHRIS ABBEY, & KALIFORNIA KIM
9PM $2
THU 12/18 @ 9PM KERFUFFLE AFTER PARTY W.“THE TINS” » FREE 9 PM » 21+
FRI 12/26 @ 9PM FRIDAY
DEC 19
SATURDAY
DEC 20
DELBERT MCCLINTON FRIDAY DEC 19 8PM / TRALF MUSIC HALL, 622 MAIN ST. / $39-$54 [COUNTRY ROCK] Three-time Grammy award winner, and a legend amongst Texas roots music aficionados, Delbert McClinton, will perform at the Tralf Music Hall on Friday, December 19. The 74-year-old singer/ songwriter has been writing music and performing for almost 50 years, and has yet to tire. Over the years, his blend of howling soul and country rock has amassed him a quite a few “Delbert Devotees”—his fiercely loyal cult following who are willing to travel to foreign countries just to hear him play. His hauntingly beautiful vocals and growling grooves won him a Grammy Award in 1991 for his duet with Bonnie Rait—“Good Man, Good Woman”—and then again in 2006 for his album The Cost of Living in the “Best Contemporary Blues Album” category. Whether he’s wailing into the microphone or gently crooning, he does so with unparalleled conviction. Mick Hayes opens the show. -KELLIE POWELL
WEDNESDAY
DEC 24
Broccoli Samurai, Sky Pilot, Haewa 10PM $5
SPACE JUNK & SONDER
» Christmas Party » Jamtronica » $5 Presale/ $7 Doors » 18+
Randle and The Late Night Scandals, the primate fiasco (VERMONT) DOORS AT 9PM $5
WED 12/31 @ 9PM AQUEOUS & FUNKTIONAL FLOW
» NYE BASH » $10 ADV/ $12 DOS » $7 w/ Sabres Ticket Stub » 21+
Christmas Eve Show
Kathryn Koch 8PM
FRI 1/16 @ 9PM DREAMING TREE DAVE MATTHEWS TRIBUTE
THURSDAY
DEC 25
Erie Lackawanna Railroad Band 9PM FREE
BROWN SUGAR PHISH TRIBUTE
» 18+
FRI 2/13 @ 9PM FRIDAY
DEC 26
Kurt and the Loders
Ugly Xmas Sweater Show: 1994 Edition 10PM $5
A NIGHT OF BURLESQUE
» $10 ADV / $15 DOS / $25 VIP » 21+
TICKETS: BUFFALOIRONWORKS.COM OR TICKETFLY.COM CAN BE PURCHASED AT: BIW BOX OFFICE OR TERRAPIN STATION
WEEKLY EVENTS EVERY SUNDAY FREE
6PM. ANN PHILLIPONE 8PM . DR JAZZ & THE JAZZ BUGS (EXCEPT FIRST SUNDAYS)
49 ILLINOIS STREET • BUFFALO, NY
716.200.1893 • BUFFALOIRONWORKS.COM
EVERY MONDAY FREE
8PM. SONGWRITER SHOWCASE
9PM. OPEN MIC W. JOSH GAGE
EVERY TUESDAY
8PM. RUSTBELT COMEDY
10PM. JOE DONOHUE 11PM. THE STRIPTEASERS
EVERY WEDNESDAY FREE
The Bards
Reset
8pm Pausa Art House, 19 Wadsworth St. $5-$7
9pm Electric Avenue, 300 Ellicott St $5
[POP] Local Buffalo trio Igna Yanoski, Brian Walnicki and Michael Yanoski—or as they are better known, The Bards—are a unique group of musicians who specialize in playing an assortment of popular music, movie tunes, and folk music from European countries like Ireland, Scandinavia, and Latvia. Often described as a “dynamic trio,” the three musicians are classically trained and all have degrees in music performance. The Bards will perform at Pausa Art House on Friday, December 19. -NAJEE WALKER
[ELECTRONIC/DANCE] Buffalo bass heads take over Electric Avenue this Friday, December 19, for the latest installment of Reset. This time Basha, Neckbrace, WZA, Jah MC, The Verdict, Matthew Scott, and All Day will spin a mix of drum and bass, breaks, dubstep, and hip hop to keep the crowd grooving all night. -CP
5PM. TONY DEROSA
EVERY THURSDAY FREE 5PM. JOHN & BILL
SHARE YO U R EVENT
(ACCORDIAN & SAX)
248 ALLEN STREET 716.886.8539
NIETZSCHES.COM
EVENTS@DAILYPUBLIC.COM
CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / THE PUBLIC 15
EVENTS CALENDAR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15
PUBLIC APPROVED ’Twas the Comedy Night Before Christmas 8pm The Buffalo Irish Center, 245 Abbott Rd. $10 or 2 for $15
[COMEDY] The Irish Center and Tim Joyce are presenting a holiday-themed comedy night in the fabulously appointed Irish Center where studies have shown it is literally impossible have a bad time. Also headlining the bill, Tim Joyce is so proud to be from South Buffalo that during the last month’s snowfall he hitchhiked a snowplow from downtown along Seneca Street and didn’t leave the Blackthorn until the streets were cleared. “We all have to do our part,” a very inebriated Joyce commented from a phone booth on day two of the storm. Also appearing will be another South Buffalo talent, Billy Whalen, but “all bets are off on the rest of ’em,” Joyce offered before trailing off. Matt Clark will MC and Liam O’Malley, Lyla Cerulli, Jeremy Kaplowitz, Odeya Pinkus, and Mike Amory will also be cracking wise. “There’s literally nothing funnier than the birth of the baby Jesus,” a suddenly somber Joyce managed to add. -AL
Longform Improv Showcase 8pm Dnipro Ukrainian Cultural Center, 562 Genesee St. $5
[COMEDY] Pause the music, the shopping, and the cookie decorating for a second and head down to the Dnipro Ukrainian Cultural Center to check in for an evening of hilarious, improvisational routines hosted by the Queens Cit Art Guild. $5 will secure your entrance. -JC
SATURDAY DEC 20
PIERCE FULTON FRIDAY DEC 19 10PM / LIFT NIGHTCLUB, 257 FRANKLIN ST. / $10 [ELECTRONIC/DANCE] Though, as a New Englander DJ/dance music producer Pierce Fulton is probably used to piles of snow, Buffalo’s snow storm a few weeks ago kept him from making his debut at Lift Night Club. He’s making up the date, though, this Friday, December 19. If his latest single, “Kuaga,” a multilingual electro house banger, is any indication of the amount of energy the young bass music producer puts into his live show, then Buffalo is in for a treat. Don’t get me wrong, “Kuaga” is big room EDM, but it’s a powerful track, which he balances out with the more tech heavy b-side “Noon Gun.” This week, Fulton took a moment to run down five of his favorite tracks of the year: Porter Robinson—“Lionhearted (feat. Urban Cone) (Arty Remix)”, Kryder & Still Young feat. Duane Harden—“Feels Like Summer”, Pierce Fulton—“Kuaga”, Tom Staar & Ansolo—“Totem”, Tommy Trash & Wax Motif —“HEX” -CORY PERLA
PUBLIC APPROVED
Brian Freeman & Friends 7pm Tralf Music Hall, 622 Main St. $22-$25
[JAZZ] On Saturday, December 20, head to the Tralf Music Hall to catch Brian Freeman & Friends Part III: Holiday Edition. Freeman is best known for his trumpet work in local jazz outfit, Taylor Made Jazz—Buffalo’s most esteemed jazz group from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. Beginning earlier this year with two great shows, Freeman’s concert series promises a night of delectable jazz, played by some funky local musicians, and of course Brian Freeman on trumpet. -KP
Friends Helping Friends 8pm Sportsmen’s Tavern, 326 Amherst St. $7
[ROCK] A slew of veteran Buffalo bands are coming together at the Sportsmen’s Tavern this Saturday, December 20 to play a benefit for an Allentown institution: Friends of the Night People. The show, titled Friends Helping Friends will benefit the soup kitchen located at on Wadsworth Street in Buffalo. It’s much more than a soup kitchen, though; it’s also a medical care center, an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting center, and a veterans assistance center. Buffalo bands including McCarthyizm, Andrew J. Riemers Country Punk Extravaganza, A Potter’s Field, Random Abstract, and Cosmic Kat will perform. Sponsored by Left Bank and KegWorks. -CP
I’ve Been Everywhere With You
PUP FRIDAY DEC 19
6pm Dreamland, 387 Franklin St. free
[ARTS] Burgeoning Buffalo based photographer, Christopher Pierce McCleary will be unveiling the fruits of his long running project this Saturday, December 20 evening at Dreamland. “I’ve Been Everywhere With You,” a sprawling collection of portraiture featuring toll-both workers McCleary has shot across the nation. The event will further feature food, drinks, and a live DJ set by Chauncey Tails. -JC
7PM / STUDIO AT THE WAITING ROOM, 334 DELAWARE AVE. / $10-$12 [ROCK] Toronto has always been rife with talent in many different areas of music. The city has spawned acts that span from Drake to Protest the Hero and everything in between. When you come out of that city, one thing is for certain; you’ve earned the right and have paid your dues. If punk is your go-to and you’re in need of something new to check out, Studio at Waiting Room has you covered. This Friday, December 19, Toronto’s PUP will be cranking out a sonic blast of energy. The name stands for Pathetic Use of Potential, and while that might seem misguiding, these Canadians have made a lot of noise in a short amount of time. Although they’ve only been around for just over a year, the foursome have won various awards, played some major festivals, and have even made a trip across the pond to play in London. Don’t miss these guys as they’re loud, fast, and everything else you’ve come to love about punk with a fresh spin. -JEREMIAH SHEA
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CALENDAR EVENTS PUBLIC APPROVED
Primate Fiasco 9pm Nietzsche’s, 248 Allen St. $5
[BLUES] There are a lot of blues fans in Buffalo as it has a deep tradition in the city with homegrown acts and a dedicated following that doesn’t pick favorites. If you’ve never heard or seen Randle and the Late Night Scandals though, you are truly missing out, blues fan or not. The group has only been around for a few years, yet churns out raw and emotional music that is charged with passion and power. This Saturday, December 20 the group will be hitting Nietzsche’s for a show with Primate Fiasco. The first 50 people through the door get a copy of the Scandal’s sneak peek, two-track release. For those unfamiliar with the headliner Primate Fiasco, be prepared to get your energy fix for the week. Their seriously unique blend of Dixieland, jam, funk, and jazz can only be understood in a live setting. Featuring members on banjo, sax, clarinet, sousaphone, drums, accordion, and piano, how else would you expect them to pull off that sound? -JS
Igloo Music: Vinyl Classics Chrismukkah 10pm Gypsy Parlor, 376 Grant St. free
[ELECTRONIC/DANCE] In anticipation of their New Year’s Eve party: Reanimate, the Igloo Music guys chose some of their favorite club tracks of the year. You can check that out on our website, dailypublic.com. If that’s not enough anticipation, you can get a taste of what the Igloo crew has to offer at their Vinyl Classics Chrismukkah party at the Gypsy Parlor on Saturday, December 20. -CP
SUNDAY DEC 21
MOHAWK PLACE XMAS PARTY SATURDAY DEC 20 8PM / MOHAWK PLACE, 47 E MOHAWK ST. / $5 [ROCK] An Xmas show at Mohawk Place is always something like the final scene in Christmas Vacation: Someone passes out, a SWAT team breaks down the front door, and Beverly D’Angelo’s hand is frozen on someone’s crotch. With some of Buffalo’s favorite hard rock band’s decked out in their ugliest Christmas sweaters, the Mohawk Place Xmas Party, this Saturday December 20 should be no different. Mohawk Place resident psychotic rockers the Irving Klaws will lay down some snow-surfing garage-rocking tunes along side Buffalo anti-consumerist rockers Soul Butchers, who will surely put the Satan in your Santa. Hopefully Poison Arrows don’t exacerbate your holiday blues to the point of suicidal thoughts, but if so, fear not: Facility Men will pick you back up with some raging three chord hardcore tunes. The band with perhaps the best name in Buffalo, Bass Pro and the Water Front Revivalists, will open the show. -CORY PERLA
PUBLIC APPROVED
Elf: Free Family Film Series at Shea’s 2pm Shea’s Performing Arts Center, 646 Main St. free
[SCREENING] For its holiday installment of the popular family-friendly series, Shea’s will be screening Will Ferrell’s classic, Elf. Come early if the kids want to kick it with Santa; Old Man Christmas will be available from 12:45 pm to 1:45 pm. -AL
Carousel Kings 5pm Broadway Joe’s, 3150 Main St. $10-$13
[ROCK] Pop and punk rock come together with Carousel Kings, a Lancaster, PA band who got their start in 2008. The band, described as a neo-pop punk quintet—known for being pizza lovers—have made fans all across the globe and have been making international visits as well. In November, the band even toured China and Japan. Fans will be happy to know that Carousel Kings will finally be making a stop in Buffalo to perform at Broadway Joe’s Bar & Grille on Sunday, December 21 -NW
TUESDAY DEC 23 Festivus at Hydraulic Hearth 9pm Hydraulic Hearth, 716 Swan St. $5
[PARTY] Once you’ve correctly answered questions like “what country does George call to cure his baldness?” (China) and “who gave Kramer the balm to heal his coffee burns?” (The Maestro) then stick around for the Festivus After Party at Hydraulic Hearth. If you haven’t secured tickets for Seinfeld Trivia earlier in the night, you’re out of luck because it is sold out, but you can still prepare for the feats of strength and admire the secular aluminum pole at the after party. -CP
BUFFABLOG HOLIDAY PARTY SATURDAY DEC 20 10PM / DUKE’S BOHEMIAN GROVE BAR, / 253 ALLEN ST $5 [HOLIDAY] Gatherings curated by buffaBLOG—the city’s most extensive online music blog—are exactly what you would expect: live, streaming Google chats in which staff members share their favorite local youtube videos from the year. Just kidding, of course. They’re venue packing festivities that showcase a lineup of the region’s most promising up-and-coming musical acts. And this year is certainly no exception: Radarada, Newish Star, Pleistocine, the Slums, and DJ Pizza Pizza have been summoned to ride—his holiday season into the sunset. So head down to Duke’s Bohemian Grove Bar this Saturday, December 20 and experience a diverse array of the region’s finest. Jazz inspired hip-hop? Check. 1990s pop-punk? Check. Shoegaze? Hardcore? Buffalo’s favorite pizza-loving DJ? Check, check, and check. P -JEANETTE CHIN DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / THE PUBLIC 17
FILM REVIEW
IN CINEMAS NOW: BY M. FAUST & GEORGE SAX
PREMIERES ANNIE—Latest remake of the musical adaptation of the 1930s comic strip—or was it a radio serial first? It’s been a long run. Starring Quvenzhané Wallis, Jamie Foxx, Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale, Directed by Will Gluck (Friends with Benefits) Area theaters FOXCATCHER—Drama based on the true story of millionaire John E. du Pont and his involvement with Olympic wrestlers Dave and Mark Schultz. Starring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave and Sienna Miller. Directed by Bennett Miller (Capote). Reviewed this issue. Amherst THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES— Peter Jackson finally finishes up with the work of J. R. R. Tolkein. Starring Martin Freeman, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Ian McKellen, and Christopher Lee. Reviewed this issue. Area theaters. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: SECRET OF THE TOMB— Larry (Ben Stiller) is off to the British Museum for the final film in the series. With Dan Stevens, Dick Van Dyke, Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, and Robin Williams, but no Amy Adams. Directed by Shawn Levy (the remake of The Pink Panther). Area theaters WILD—Novelist Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of Cheryl Strayed’s memoir about her hike along the northwest trail that runs from Mexico to Canada. Starring Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski, and Michiel Huisman. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club). Reviewed this issue. Eastern Hills, North Park
Channing Tatum and Steve Carell in Foxcatcher.
TRUTHY STORIES FOXCATCHER AND WILD
Foxcatcher and Wild, both opening this week and both Oscar contenders (it’s that time of year), are based on true stories. Of the two, Foxcatcher is more fascinating as well as more maddening. It is based on the story of millionaire John du Pont, of the du Pont chemical family, and his involvement with Mark and Dave Schultz, brothers who both won gold medals for wrestling in the 1984 Olympics. You may know the outcome of this story, which occurred in 1996. I didn’t when I saw the film. I’m not sure if viewers are expected to: So much tabloid sleaze has come and gone in the ensuing two decades. Does it make a difference? In this case it does. The film is the product of producer-director Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball, both also based on fact), who spent years researching it before turning his work over to two consecutive scriptwriters (E. Max Frye, Dan Futterman) to mold to his satisfaction: That Miller isn’t also credited as the writer is probably mostly due to Writer’s Guild directives. It’s his baby all the way. And a thought that started nagging me about halfway through the film was that maybe Miller was so involved with his story that he started taking for granted that the audience knows much more about it than we do.
No wonder that Mark believes everyone credits his medal to his brother’s coaching. Mark is lifted out of his doldrums by an invitation to live and train on the titular estate of John du Pont (Steve Carell), a patron of sports who wants to back the underfunded US Olympic wrestling team. It’s a dream come true for him, and he jumps at it. Does du Pont strike him as a bit odd? Mark isn’t one to notice: People skills are not his strength. All three lead actors wear facial prosthetics to make them resemble the characters they’re playing. That’s not always a good idea; often they simply make actors look bizarre without turning them into convincing replicas. In this case, it’s unnecessary because few viewers are likely to know what du Pont and the Schultzes looked like. Still, it benefits Carell, whose performance is what gives the movie its creepy power. It’s less important that he look like the real du Pont than that he look less like the familiar funnyman. There’s nothing comical about this guy. With an even more prominent nose than the one Carell was born with and dead eyes staring over it, du Pont looks like a bird, unfathomable and potentially fearsome.
You may or may not know where the story is heading (I won’t say), but you know it’s nowhere good. So as Mark strives to please this new father figure only to be supplanted by his brother Dave, we start looking for signs of stress. Abstentious Mark is offered cocaine by du Pont and we think: Aha!, the beginnings of drug abuse. Well, not really. Mark VISIT DAILYPUBLIC.COM FOR MORE FILM LISTINGS REVIEWS >> and and du Pont bond over & their lonely childhoods At its best, Foxcatcher is clinically observationwe think: Aha! he’s a gay predator. No, it doesn’t al. We start by watching the dull daily routine of really go there either. younger brother Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum). Or maybe it does. Honestly, by the time FoxcatchTwo years after Olympic glory, he lives a direcer gets to where it’s going, we realize that we’ve tionless life, working as an assistant to his older gained little more insight into these events than brother. Dave (Mark Ruffalo) is the one whose talents aren’t limited to what he can do on the mat. we had going in. Two of the three participants are
CULTURE > FILM
CULTURE > FILM
now dead, so we’re not likely to get more than this. I don’t mind a certain amount of ambiguity in a film, but Miller is so restrained about offering hard information that he won’t even tell us the results of the 1988 Olympics that so much of the film moves toward—we have to figure it out from context. Tatum, Ruffalo, and Carell are all compelling in constrained parts, and it’s impressive what they and the director can do without words (an early scene of the brothers wrestling will end up being replayed endlessly in film schools). But in the end all of the cool weirdness leaves you more than a little frustrating. Much more conventional, as least by comparison, Wild is based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of her 1994 hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, which extends for 2,663 from Mexico to Canada. Strayed (played by Reese Witherspoon, who also co-produced the film, in an effective act of image-adjusting) was not an experienced hiker, and she doesn’t seem especially well prepared for such an arduous trek. But she undertakes it as an act of will, expecting it to be physically punishing, to confront and exorcise her demons. Those demons, seen in flashback as she trudges along, were, I’m sure, hellish for Strayed to have lived through, but as filmed by Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club), they just don’t seem all that awful. It’s unfortunate that the film reminds of both Into the Wild and 127 Hours, both recounting much more distressing wilderness journeys. Wild is at its best not when it’s trying to persuade us how bad Strayed’s life was but when it focuses on the alternately grim and dull slog of a three-month walk—now there’s a triumph. Foxcatcher opens Friday at the Amherst Theatre. Wild opens Friday at the Eastern Hills Mall P Cinema and North Park Theatre.
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18 THE PUBLIC / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM
AURORA THEATRE 673 Main St, East Aurora (652–1660) THE SCREENING ROOM NORTHTOWN PLAZA in the Century Mall, 3131 Sheridan Drive, Amherst (837-0376) SHEA’S BUFFALO THEATER, 646 Main St (847-1410)
BY M. FAUST “The following is based on a true story.” I’ve come to dread seeing that sentence at the beginning of a film because it means I have to deal not only with what appears on screen but also its fidelity to the events the film is based on. And who wants to have to do all that work?
ALTERNATIVE CINEMA
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (England, 1951)—Generally considered the best film version of the classic Charles Dickens story, with Alistair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge. Look for Patrick Macnee, The Avengers’ John Steed, as the young Jacob Marley. Also starring Kathleen Harrison, Mervyn Johns, Hermione Baddeley, Ernest Thesiger, and Hattie Jacques. Sat 5pm The Screening Room CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989)—Or, what killed Chevy Chase’s career. Thurs 9pm, Sat-Sun 11:30am. North Park ELF (2003)—Will Ferrell as a foundling raised as an elf who goes in search of his real father (James Caan) after he gets too big for Santa’s Workshop. Any film that has Edward Asner as Santa Claus and Bob Newhart as his head elf can’t be all bad, and Zooey Deschanel brightens up things considerably as the requisite love interest. Directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man). Sun 2pm. Shea’s Buffalo IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)—Jimmy Stewart gets to see what life for his friends and community would have been like had he never lived in Frank Capra’s blunt but beloved holiday classic. Co-starring Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Frank Faylen, Ward Bond, Gloria Grahame, H. B. Warner, Frank Albertson, Sheldon Leonard, and Charles Lane. Fri, Sat, Sun, Tues 7pm, The Screening Room THE POLAR EXPRESS (2004)—A holiday movie more appropriate for Halloween than Christmas—it’s more likely to scare kids than charm them. Director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump) spent an estimated $150 million for a motion capture technique that resulted in characters that look like hung over zombies. There are moments of great visual beauty, but they’re so cold and intimidating that they wouldn’t be out of place in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. Sat 11am. Aurora Theater SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (1964)— If Ed Wood had made a holiday movie, it would have looked like this gloriously godawful no-budget Chrisploitation turkey. A camp classic even before we realized that the 9-year-old actress playing Martian child Girmar was the one and only Pia Zadora. Best seen at a venue that sells beer and wine. Thurs Dec. 18 7pm (on a double bill with Scrooged). Screening Room
REVIEW FILM
FAREWELL TO THE RINGS THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES BY GREGORY LAMBERSON
Clocking in at just under two and one half hours, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, the last of Peter Jackson’s six films adapting J. R. R. Tolkien’s four Middle Earth novels, is the shortest. For those keeping track, more than 17 hours of screen time have been devoted to the three Lord of the Rings films and now three films based on Tolkien’s first novel in his saga, The Hobbit. This appears to be the end of a long road, with only ancillary Tolkien material still available for mining. And while it may be the shortest, it felt the longest to me. The Hobbit was initially announced as a two-part film to be directed by Guillermo del Toro, under Jackson’s supervision. Del Toro bailed after a protracted holdup over the film rights, and Jackson assumed the mantle of leadership, just like one of Tolkien’s characters. Magically, the two-part film became a three-parter. The trend of adapting novels to serve as multi-part movies, thus maximizing profits and marketing efforts, is a hot one in Hollywood; Harry Potter, the Twilight films, and The Hunger Games are all “tent pole franchises” with more movies than source novels, and Stephen King’s The Stand is slated to be adapted into four feature films. This is the age we live in. The irony is that The Hobbit probably would have made a fantastic three-hour film. When we last saw hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Smith), wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), and the company of dwarves hoping to reclaim their former mountain, mines, and gold from the dragon Smaug
SCROOGED (1988)—Michael O’Donoghue (who has a cameo part as a priest) co-wrote this update of the Charles Dickens story with Bill Murray as a cynical tv executive taking his lumps from three ghosts on Christmas Eve. With Karen Allen, John Forsythe, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Johansen, Carol Kane, Robert Mitchum,; look fast for Wendie Malick and for Miles Davis and Paul Shaffer as street musicians. Directed by Richard Donner (Superman). Thurs 7pm (with second feature Santa Claus Conquers the Martians), Screening Room VIVACIOUS LADY (1938)—Classic comedy with James Stewart as a professor at a stuffy university who marries a showgirl (Ginger Rogers) on a trip out of town. With Beulah Bondi, Charles Coburn, Franklin Pangborn, Grady Sutton, Jack Carson, Willie Best, and Hattie McDaniel. Directed by George Stevens (The Diary of Anne Frank). Fri 7pm. The Old Chestnut Film Society, Philip Sheridan School, 3200 Elmwood (8364757)
IN BRIEF BIRDMAN—Too much and not enough. Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s “meta-movie” stars Michael Keaton as Riggan Thomson, a once famous actor whose career took a downturn after he stopped playing the superhero character he was famed for. In need of a comeback vehicle and artistic validation, Thomson mounts a Broadway play as a vehicle for himself, a troubled production that forms the basis of this film’s increasingly wild proceedings. It’s certainly challenging, dynamic and technically fluid. But it’s also erratic, lurching from scenes of banal domestic confrontation and confession to deliberate comic excess to surreal flights. In the end it’s too much structural complexity for one film to handle. Co-starring Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough. –GS CITIZENFOUR—Laura Poitras’ often fascinating, sometimes unconventional documentary about Edward Snowden’s public release of classified
(voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch), Bilbo had just angered Smaug, and the dragon departed his lair to wreak havoc on nearby townspeople. Smaug is a truly impressive CG creation, and in hindsight, the previous Hobbit film, The Desolation of Smaug, was the most satisfying of the three. Five Armies opens with Smaug’s attack, and filmgoers unfamiliar with the novel will likely be surprised at how quickly the monster is dispatched, as if he is incidental to the story. Had the sequence been included at the end of part two, it would have served as an impressive finish to that film. As an introduction to the final installment, with no dramatic buildup, it feels anticlimactic and without weight; the only way for viewers to experience any dramatic tension is if they watch The Desolation of Smaug at home before rushing off to the multiplex. With Smaug out of the way, the remainder of the film becomes a sword and sorcery take on The Treasure of Sierra Madre, with dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) refusing to share the treasure with the now homeless townspeople, elves, and other residents of Middle Earth. His greed leads to the title battle, with orcs, trolls, and other monsters joining the fray, all part of Jackson’s plan to impart the same peril that the many battles in Lord of the Rings had. He only partly succeeds, because a war over riches doesn’t raise the same stakes as a war to save all things good from omnipotent evil. In Tolkien’s novel, Gandalf disappears from the ac-
evidence of the US government’s spying capabilities and practices. The director had unparalleled access to Snowden in Hong Kong for eight days just as the orld was beginning to realize what he had one, and the result is a virtually unprecedented historical document. With its fly-on-the-wall approach it isn’t the slickest documentary in recent memory, but it’s engrossing and distressing in its own way, and indisputably important. –GS DUMB AND DUMBER TO—A few good laughs at the end aren’t worth the agonizingly dull 100 minutes preceding them in this sequel to a hit from 20 years ago. Creators the Farrelly Brothers (There’s Something About Mary) seem to have lost the light touch they used to have with bad taste; combined with the noticeable aging of stars Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels, it makes for a desperately unfunny comedy. With Kathleen Turner, Rob Riggle, and Laurie Holden. -MF EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS—Christian Bale as Moses leading his people out of Egypt. With Joel Edgerton, Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver, and Golshifteh Farahani. Directed by Ridley Scott, who after Prometheus and The Counselor is not exactly on a hot streak. FURY—War has seldom been portrayed more hellishly than in writer-director David Ayer’s (Training Day) film that follows an American tank crew in the very last days of the Second World War’s European Theatre operations. Brad Pitt plays the sergeant leading this crew as a quasi-mythic figure, a profane but all-American warrior-saint. His philosophy is presented as he trains a green kid (Logan Lerman in a sensitive, persuasive performance) in the cynicism and savagery that are natural consequences of war. The theme of brothers-in-arms fades under all the juvenile pulp-fiction fantasy, and by the last overblown, drawn-out, catastrophic battle scene, it has become impossible to take seriously. With Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, and Jason Isaacs. -GS GONE GIRL—Ben Affleck as a husband who becomes a suspect in the disappearance of his wife. With Rosamund Pike, Neil Patrick Harris, and Tyler Perry. Directed by David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).
Ian McKellen, Luke Evans in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.
tion for long sections, and Jackson and his co-writers use this as an invitation to explore a subplot not found in the book, but referenced in others, which finds the White Council, consisting of Gandalf, elf king Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Lady Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), and fellow wizard Saruman (Christopher Lee), all returning from Lord of the Rings, on a parallel quest to solve the mystery of the Necromancer, setting up the reign of evil Sauron in Lord of the Rings. Doing so has enabled Jackson to pad out Tolkien’s relatively simple storyline with back-story which is the equivalent of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequels, though fans are less likely to mind its inclusion. Who can complain that legendary Christopher Lee (also featured in Lucas’s prequels) gets to appear in another fantasy blockbuster at the age of 92? Orlando Bloom’s elf character Legolas, pivotal in The Lord of the Rings but not even present in Tokien’s The Hobbit, is given a good deal of screen time here, in a series of over the top action sequences, each more ridiculous than the last, while rousing moments from the novel, such as the arrival of the
HORRIBLE BOSSES 2—It’s less offensive than the original, which probably won’t be a selling point. The story pits ordinary guys Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day against the financiers (Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine) who ripped them off, but it hardly matters: Director and co-scripter Sean Anders, currently hot in Hollywood after the success of his screenplay for Meet the Milllers (he also wrote Dumb and Dumber To) is mostly concerned with repeating what audiences liked about he first movie: sex-addict dentist Jennifer Aniston talking dirty, Jamie Foxx upending gangsta clichés, and the three stars doing a cross-talking routine that is funny even when the dialogue isn’t. In the interest of bringing back every surviving character Kevin Spacey also pops up briefly; bet he got paid a lot of money for what looks like a single day’s work. -MF INTERSTELLAR—That Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus, about the search for a planet capable of supporting human life, is the most argued-about movie of the year has less to do with reaction to its content than with its inconsistency. Your own opinion likely to hinge on what you most want in a movie, visual effects, provocative ideas or fleshed-out drama. The ideas are there, though whether they’re plausible or merely fantastical is likely to be over the heads of most viewers. Nolan and his coscripter brother Jonathan alternately withhold information that you want (about the demise of our planet in the near future) while rushing science at you too quickly to digest. Matthew McConaughey performance demonstrates that it’s possible to overact quietly, though he’s still effective in the occasional tear-jerking moments. It’s worth seeing, but don’t expect anything as dazzling as The Dark Knight or Inception. With Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Matt Damon, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck, and Topher Grace. -MF ST. VINCENT—Bill Murray may shout to the heavens that he doesn’t want an Academy Award, but it’s hard to see this mawkish comedy-drama as anything other than a calculated shot
giant eagles at the climax, are given short shrift, leaving the impression that Jackson cared more about the tangential material than Tolkien’s actual novel. Evangeline Lily registers as Bloom’s romantic interest, an elf who’s been added to inject some femininity to the largely male cast. (Tolkien didn’t have much use for females on his quests.) Smith, who has earned a fan following on such TV series as the original BBC version of The Office, BBC’s Sherlock Holmes, and Fargo, has real charm as Bilbo, but the expanded story and added characters reduce his title character to a supporting role; he’s almost lost in the mix. His scenes with McKellen are the best, but they’re few and far between. McKellen is the big carryover from the first trilogy, and his joy in playing Gandalf again is hard to miss. At the end of the day, Jackson and his army of collaborators have achieved something remarkable with this series, but I’m glad it’s over and Jackson can concentrate on other endeavors. This final entry feels like the last half hour of a traditional feature, stretched out to five times the length.
at an Oscar. His performance is fine enough, but there’s only so much you can expect from a story about a curmudgeon saved from a life of whoring and gambling by his friendship with a lonely boy who movies in next door with his harried mother (Melissa McCarthy). Plausibility is never the film’s strong point, but contrived finale is so shameless that it looks like an old SNL parody. Written and directed by Theodore Melfi. With Naomi Watts, Chris O’Dowd, and Terrence Howard. -MF THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING—As an Oscar contender, this biography of Stephen Hawking, based on a memoir by his first wife Jane, is a model of restraint and inoffensiveness: it’s a shoo-in for the The King’s Speech voters. Hawking’s work takes a back seat to his slow debilitation from ALS and the history of his marriage. But while we go into the film knowing it will end in divorce, the factors driving the couple apart feel elided. It’s as if the filmmakers didn’t want to be disrespectful to a man who is considered one of the great scientific minds of our era. But in that case, why make the film at all? Even the irony that, as presented here, all that ended the marriage of a man so obsessed with the nature of time was time itself seems unintended. With fine but unostentatious performances by Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as the Hawkings. Co-starring Harry Lloyd, David Thewlis, and Emily Watson. Directed by James Marsh, best known for documentaries like Man on Wire. -MF TOP FIVE—Chris Rock wrote, directed and stars as a comedian trying to make a career switch to a serious actor. Set in one day (with way too much happening for 24 hours), it veers between show business satire and sexual politicking as Rock’s character is interviewed by journalist Rosario Dawson. It’s the best of Rock’s efforts behind the camera but still wildly uneven, balanced between a fair amount of laugh-out-loud humor and too much unbelievable plotting. With Gabrielle Union, Ben Vereen, and Kevin P Hart. –MF
DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / THE PUBLIC 19
DRINK FEATURE
PHOTOS COURTESY OF BUFFALO WHISKEY GUILD
BUFFALO DISTILLING MOVES TO LARKINVILLE BY SEAMUS GALLIVAN
There’s a resplendent new term being bandied about Buffalo that could soon become common in other party towns—beer-oriented development, or BOD. Case in point: Following the additions of Flying Bison Brewing Company and Community Beer Works to the heart of The Hydraulics, a.k.a. Larkinville, the recently resurrected Buffalo Distilling Company is relocating in the spring of 2015 from rural Bennington to 860 Seneca Street, half a block from Flying Bison. Coined by urbanist Chris Hawley, BOD is defined as “the ability of local craft brewing and distilling to attract people, dollars, and development.” It’s based on the notion of transit-oriented development, which, according to Hawley, “is amazing but not nearly as fun.” (Disclosure: I am in the business of fun in Larkinville, where I work with all the players herein and also reside; this is simply their story.) About a decade ago, a Carolina drifter billed as “BBQ Bob” pulled into Buffalo, on the lam with little more than a smoker and a still. Buffalo’s honky-honk heroes The Steam Donkeys had played his bar on Southern tours, and he’d come to cash in their “If you’re ever in Buffalo” card. Bob spent multiple summers in Buffalo, where a fortunate few enjoyed his Carolina ’cue and mountain dew. But before Bob booked town, considering the circumstances, Steam Donkeys bassist John Weber warned him about continuing to cross state lines with the still; it would be wise, Weber reasoned, to leave it in Buffalo— along with his time-honored recipe for backwoods sour mash—with a handshake deal that Weber would learn the trade and bestow Bob with all the booze he could handle whenever he returned. “I do pride myself on being rather convincing when I need to be,” Weber smirked. Over the years that followed, the already affable Weber became an even bigger hit at parties as friends took a shine to his shine, which he gave playful names such as “Col. J. J. Weber’s Yeah Ya Dew” and “Yabba Dew,” labeled as “resplendent, tumescent”—a personal favorite was
accented with grapefruit peels and charred Carolina white oak. “The way Bob taught me was the same as the first guys making booze in the hills,” Weber asserted. When Weber’s friend Andy Wegrzyn repatriated to Buffalo from Austin in 2007, he became smitten with the spirit and its commercial potential. Kicking the idea around while living temporarily in New Paltz for his wife Kelly’s graduate studies, Weber visited the Hudson Valley home of Tuthilltown Spirits, where industry leader Ralph Erenzo informed him that he’d just helped change the game by getting the state to pass the Farm Distillery Act, which permits New York farms to establish distilleries on site and sell their agricultural spirits at the farm. Having steered their still from a cottage in Allentown, to a garage in South Buffalo, to a basement on the Lower West Side, they needed more land to make a living off of it; enter John’s nephew Frank and the Weber family barn in the Wyoming County town of Bennington, where their flagship spirit One Foot Cock sprung forth. With John Weber expectedly stepping back to help raise his young family, the trio of his nephew Frank, Wegrzyn, and engineer Eric Kempisty all dedicated themselves to learning the distilling trade. “I went back to Hudson Valley with a notepad and every question a wannabe distiller could possibly ask,” said Frank. “Ralph was gracious about going through his distillery and explaining everything they do.”
20 THE PUBLIC / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM
BUFFALO DISTILLING COMPANY’S NEW LARKINVILLE LOCATION WILL ENABLE SMALLBATCH EXPERIMENTS WITH VODKA, GIN, RYE, AND SINGLE-MALT WHISKEY. While Kempisty experimented with the scientific side of the operation from mechanics to recipes, Wegrzyn set up the legal, sales, and marketing elements while procuring equipment such as his affectionately named “orb of flavor”—a copper contraption custom—made in Buffalo by Koch Metal Spinning. They discovered that the title of Buffalo Distilling Company had been sitting idle since before Prohibition, which had sealed the end of the once-bustling downtown business that operated from 1893 to 1918. With further help from family tradition and the Farm Distillery Act, the team began experimenting with new spirits; after a handful of hits and messes, a hard cider recipe from Frank’s fa-
ther and a bountiful apple harvest from Smith’s Orchards in Pendleton yielded the One Foot Cock apple brandy, which became their first retail product after clearing all legal hurdles in early 2014. That name, though—inspired by weathervane rooster at the barn, nicknamed The Original Humdinger. “We debated whether or not it was too ridiculous,” said Wegrzyn, “but we all agreed that One Foot Cock sticks out.” Indeed it does. In less than a year of business, the Cock is stocked at over 30 retail outlets along with 50 bars and restaurants, and further networking from Frank toward their goal of relocating into the city led them to a meeting with Larkin Development Group partner Howard Zemsky. “My friend Laura Krolczyk, who worked in Larkin at Exchange Building, gave me Howard’s number, and when he walked us around the entire district, we both had the same building in mind,” Frank said. “Sitting down with Howard and Joe [Petrella, Larkin Group partner], we knew right away that these were good people to work with, and it’s since become abundantly clear what a class act they are.” For Zemsky, the feeling is mutual. “We like their product a lot, but we like even more that they’re clever, creative, and committed,” he said. “I think they have good balance; serious businessmen, seriously good product, but with a fun approach. They’re a perfect fit for Larkinville, and I’m confident Larkinville will be perfect fit for them.” As the seasonal shift moved them from making apple brandy to bourbon whiskey, their new Larkinville location will enable small-batch experiments with vodka, gin, rye, and single-malt whiskey. “Howard is like a dream-maker,” said Wegrzyn. “He made this dream come true in a location way better than we’d imagined. We’re gonna be in a hot neighborhood, bringing some more cool factor to an already cool district while allowing us to more than quadruple what we’re producing now, plus have full-time employees.” To that end, Wegryzn retired from his job in the trucking industry in October to pursue distilling full-time. “It’s a dream for anybody to make their own product and then market, sell, and interact with your customers face-to-face,” he said. “This is a homegrown, All-American product, supporting local farmers and growP ers—everything about it feels tumescent.”
FEATURE EATS
BASKET CASE: GIFTS OF FOOD & DRINK BY AARON LOWINGER
How many of us are faced with the tired and exasperating question of what to get for the proverbial person who has everything? If you’re anything like me, holiday giving is about gifting something that’s both practical and special: an item that can offer a moment of enjoyment apart from the banalities of the everyday. And nothing makes a moment unique quite like great food or drink. So here’s a gift guide for the things you can find locally that will bring pleasure to anyone on your shopping list—that is, unless they don’t eat or drink. But first I must add that during the course of my searching I found that these gifts really stand out in the colorful linen bags from the Philippines or inside one of the gorgeous woven pine needle baskets from Nicaragua that are both available at the Allentown gift and cultural staple, EL BUEN AMIGO (114 Elmwood Avenue).
VILLAGE BEER MERCHANT 547 Elmwood Ave & 1535 Hertel Avenue
Both stores offer Buffalo’s best craft beer selections and are stocked for the holidays with options for both entertaining and giving. The Southern Tier 2xMas (brewed in Jamestown) and the Ellicottville Brewing Company Lloyd’s Christmas Ale are on tap and ready to fill your trusty growler. Also fresh out of Ellicottville is a Hot Chocolate Stout, also nicknamed “The Ghost” for its inclusion of ghost chilis, which are apparently “hot as f—-,” according to owner Brian Nelson. Alternately for gift-giving, Village Beer Merchant is offering readymade gift packages featuring beer selections and assorted drinking accoutrement in prices ranging from $20 to $115. Another popular item is a growler with coozy and opener for $20. And both stores have a wide selection of bottled domestic and imported Christmas beers, often featuring some permutation of nutmeg, cinnamon, anise, and orange.
GATES CIRCLE WINE & LIQUOR 1430 Delaware Avenue
One of the city’s best collections of wine and spirits can be found at this centrally located and independently owned store. The staff are always helpful. Brandon Schlia (founder of Steak and Cake Records) highlighted some boozy treats for the imbiber on your list. For vodka, you almost have to support Buffalo’s Lockhouse Vodka ($37.99), which Schlia described as having that necessary clean finish but with a fuller flavor lent by the grapes from Freedom Run Winery that are used in the distillation. Schlia insisted on Ransom’s
Old Tom gin, an Oregon product that’s aged like bourbon in oak barrels, lending it an unusual dark color. The oakiness combined with strong botanical elements makes it a perfect gift item—an experience that sets itself apart. For tequila, it’s hard to overlook the Fortaleza ($50.99) produced by the Sauza family, who first introduced this particular poison to American drinkers. The Fortaleza is an homage to a tougher age: The production includes a donkey pulling a piece of volcanic rock over pineapples. And Schlia raved over the Venezuelan rum Diplomatico ($37.99), describing it as a dessert spirit with a “candied vanilla flavor.”
CITY WINE MERCHANT 715 Main Street
This downtown store only sells the good stuff and is a great spot to check out between work and the dinner table on any day of the year. The perfectly-sized selection allows the staff to speak with confidence about their bottles. Highlights for gift-giving of the bubbly variety include the elegant Pierre Moncult Champagne Hugues de Coulmet Blanc de Blancs ($41.99), while the beautifully orange-pink color of the Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé Champagne ($87.99) really sets it apart as a special gift. For pairing with a holiday meal, the Merchant’s Jennifer Turner recommends the Elk Cove Pinot Noir ($32.99) and the every day classic red Les Baux de Provence ($15.99), of which she said, “If you haven’t tried it yet, you should.” I took her up on that and was happy to find a full-bodied dry wine with a hidden sweetness that my family really enjoyed. Also high on Turner’s list: the Mocali Rosso Di Montalcino ($22.99) and the 2005 Chateau Brillette Moulis En Medoc Superieur ($35.99).
NICKEL CITY CHEESE & MERCANTILE 423 Elmwood Avenue
A satisfying dance partner for your wine can be found among Jill Forster’s curated inventory of cheese and accessories on Elmwood near Bryant. Forster endeavors to carry only one brand of each variety of cheese from North America and Europe: the one she finds the best. “I have pretty high standards,” Forster admitted with a grin. “I’m pretty snobby.” In addition to the cheese she sources, the store also makes their own goat cheese spreads and offers a selection of cured meats and an exquisite salmon ($22.99/lb.) cured in the Nordic gravlax style with sugar, salt, dill, and mystery ingredient. “We’ve done bourbon, tequila in the past.” The cheese shop also offers platters for holiday entertaining and gift packages including the cheese of the month club, which hits subscribers up with three half-pound morsels of good stuff every turn of the calendar. In my basket landed the richest butter in all the lands, Beurre D’Isigay ($6.99), the Mountain Gorgonzola ($24.99/lb.) from Italy, a jar of fig jam ($6.99), and the storemade horseradish cheddar spread ($12.99/lb.), which paired excellently with the salmon.
FIVE POINTS BAKERY 44 Brayton Street
Recently re-opened in a beautiful and expansive location on the West Side’s five-pointed intersection of Brayton, Rhode Island, and West Utica, the little bakery-that-could has come of age. Owners Melissa and Kevin Gardner offer several options for gifts and entertaining, including an
incredible whole-grain apple cake ($35) you can pre-order. And the bakery’s claim to fame–its cinnamon buns–are available fresh or out of the freezer to be warmed or even baked completely at home at the right moment. “The smell is perfect on Christmas morning,” Kevin Gardner extolled, “and they have twelve grams of protein so it’s not just sugar you’re giving the kids.” An unconventional but completely valid category of gift are the quality cuts from Lake Country Beef that are available at Five Points. Nothing says I love you like a frozen hunk of local beef that can be squirreled away in the freezer for the right moment.
SPARS 405 Amherst Street
Along those lines, a trip to the butcher that was Black Rock before Black Rock was cool is in order, to peruse the selection of cured meat and sausage that is butchered, prepared, and smoked on site in the back of Joe Kennedy’s store. Of holiday note is his Polish sausage prepared with marjoram ($7.29/lb.). “We’ve gone through 300 pounds of that in the last week,” Kennedy boasted wearily. Also available on a continuing basis are Creekstone pasture-raised beef strip steaks ($16.99/lb.) and a gorgeously bright red chop of roast beef ($14.99/lb.), and nitrate-free thick-cut bacon ($10.99/lb) from Lockport’s T-Meadow Farms. So give the gift of local bacon, cheese, and alcohol this season, because it’s delicious and there’s no form of quotidian activism with greater impact P than how and where we spend our money.
DAILYPUBLIC.COM / DECEMBER 17, 2014 / THE PUBLIC 21
BOOKS REVIEW
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ONES AND ZEROS Peyton Marshall’s novel belongs
AFTER DARK ENTERTAINMENT
on best-of-2014 lists
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GOODHOUSE BY PEYTON MARSHALL FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, OCTOBER 2014
A significant number of the newly published novels and short stories I have read in the past year have been concerned with juvenile imprisonment in the near future. Perhaps coincidentally, all of these texts have been written by women. I have not conducted a rigorous statistical analysis of all of the year’s new publications, and neither have I read most or even a large part of them, but my job and my passions require that I read often and widely and I can say that each of the five texts that I enjoyed most this year was written by a woman. I would not extrapolate much from this—it is not as if there was a dearth of quality writing by women in previous years. But it certainly does feel like more prominent publishing houses are throwing their full weights behind talented women, some of whom are veterans and many of whom are newly arrived on the scene. For several reasons, this is really good news.
Add to this list Peyton Marshall, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and her debut novel, Goodhouse. Neither she nor any of the writers listed above should be considered only within the context of other women who write. The point of mentioning all of them is to show just how much of the yearly catalogue is composed of the voices of women. I cannot help thinking also of The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell and Sweetness #9 by Stephan Eirik Clark, whose clumsy digs at a caricaturized Dworkinian feminism struck me as not only not funny, but dated, ill-informed, and finally stupid, especially during a year in which women have actively reshaped the landscape of popular and literary fiction.
most identical best-of lists that flood the internet during the month of December. It tells the story of James Goodhouse, a teenager who is a resident at the Ione campus of the Goodhouse juvenile penitentiary system. The novel takes place in the near future and like all great science fiction, it has a conceit: A genetic predisposition toward criminal behavior has been discovered, and as a result all young boys who contain this genetic marker and whose parents have exhibited criminal behavior become “compulsory wards of the state.” They are removed from their families, given new names, and robbed of almost all freedom. The successes of this novel, which are many, depend on Marshall’s investigation of the plausible consequences of this development. This is how science fiction works, and this is why great science fiction is never really about the future as much as it is about the present: The author chooses one key change to the “rules,” e.g. time travel, a change that is usually either conceivable given recent scientific developments (like genetic testing for behavioral predispositions) or conceivable in the shadier realm of human desire (like the ability to cast spells), and then she takes that change to its logical conclusion. Alfred Bester’s criminally under-appreciated novel The Stars My Destination does exactly this: a man trapped in a burning building spontaneously “jaunts” to safety, which leads to the discovery that instantaneous travel is an innate ability that humans have, a sort of psychical muscle we never knew existed. Each novel’s new world is like our own but different, slightly askew, and so human behavior and desire is cast in a new light, a starker relief.
Goodhouse, which has unfortunately received much less critical attention that it deserves, should be near the top of the many frustrating, al-
James’s experience in the Goodhouse, which he narrates, is terrifying and believable. He, like Fagan’s Anais or Tartt’s Theo Decker or the protag-
2014 saw the release of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, a masterpiece and a welcome return to fiction that does not consider plot pedestrian. Yelena Akhtiorskaya published Panic in a Suitcase, a novel that was unique and accomplished and compelling to the point of unfairness, the sort of novel whose every sentence deserves to be underlined. Jenni Fagan released The Panopticon, which gave us Anais Hendricks, an utterly lovable Oliver Twist for the 21st century. Just a couple of months ago, Diane Cook’s Man V. Nature, far and away the most original collection of stories I have read in years, hit the shelves. That’s not even to mention Amity Gaige, Judith Frank, Eula Biss, Lydia Davis, Hilary Mantel, Roz Chast, Lorrie Moore, Sarah Koenig, whose podcast Serial has my vote for the best piece of long-form investigative audio journalism in the last however many years, and Barbara Ehrenreich.
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onist of Cook’s story “The Not-Needed Forest,” is a young orphan. His story is a journey to find himself, but Goodhouse literalizes that cliche in a novel way. James’s name, his parents’ names, his life, his thoughts, his feelings and most of his memories have all been amputated, but some kernel of humanity remains within him. He tries his best to bear the yoke of his predestined criminality, which has condemned him to a life in the savage company of sadistic class leaders like Creighton and Davis, two particularly cruel high-ranking Goodhouse residents, who have the power to physically discipline other students with few consequences. All Goodhouse boys are subject to a rigid system of demerits, too many of which can knock a boy down a level. Level 1 boys can pick a career and change their names upon graduation; level 4 boys are forced to man recycling stations in the middle of the ocean. The Ione Goodhouse, unlike James’s previous Goodhouse at La Pine, features a wide array of creative methods of punishment. James had almost been happy at La Pine, but he was transferred after it was set on fire by a mob of Zeros, civilians with a militant religious bent who believe all Goodhouse boys are irredeemable and should be executed. Once Marhsall sets the gears and sprockets of Goodhouse in motion, with James’s unshrinking personhood as the mainspring, the novel takes off at a thrilling, breakneck pace. Her writing is appropriate, deft, and never pointlessly complex. James’s story contains all the best elements of young adult, genre, and literary fictions, and the result is a novel that I would give to a reader of really any age confident that it will be read and enjoyed. Goodhouse is a powerful, interesting, fun capstone to the best kind of year: the year that P brings glad tidings for the next.
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SARA M. ZAK is a Buffalo artist. These works are part of her Daily December Paintings project, which you can follow at saramzak.blogspot.com.