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FREE EVERY WEDNESDAY | APRIL 12, 2017 | DAILYPUBLIC.COM | @PUBLICBFLO | CORRUPTION IS NATURE'S WAY OF RESTORING OUR FAITH IN DEMOCRACY

NEWS: FIRST THE CLERK'S RACE, THEN THE WORLD!

COMMENTARY: WHY ERIE COUNTY TAXES MUST RISE

SPOTLIGHT: THE BUFFALO JAZZ OCTET AT PAUSA

LITERARY: JUST BUFFALO WRITING CENTER

THE PUBLIC CONTENTS

A HOT TICKET presentation

TANYA TAGAQ Nanook of the North THURS 4 MAY @ 7:30PM

Unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before, the Polaris Prize winning Tagaq has reclaimed the controversial 1922 silent film Nanook of the North and paired it with a live concert of intense improvised music and throat singing.

ON DAILYPUBLIC.COM: TIRED OF READING ABOUT CHRIS COLLINS? IMAGINE HOW WE FEEL. READ ALAN BEDENKO’S TAKE ON THE CONGRESSMAN’S SYRIA FLIP-FLOP.

THIS WEEK ISSUE NO. 124 | APRIL 12, 2017

FirstOntarioPAC.ca Box Office: 905-688-0722 | 250 St. Paul Street, St. Catharines ON

LOOKING BACKWARD: The American Hotel, circa 1900.

PLEASE EXAMINE MUSIC: At Dnipro, a night of traditional music to raise 8 THIS PROOF money for Ukraine. CAREFULLY

CENTERFOLD: Bethany Krull and Jesse Walp at Indigo Art Gallery.

FILM: Land of Mine, Frantz. Plus capsule reviews.

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BY GEOFF KELLY

BY BUCKING HIS PARTY AND ENTERING THE RACE FOR ERIE COUNTY CLERK, MICKEY KEARNS HAS SET UP SOME INTERESTING TENSIONS AND CONSEQUENCES WHATEVER YOU MAKE of Mickey Kearns, allow him this: He has a way of confounding the local Democratic Party to which he belongs, and he leaves political chaos—that is to say, opportunity—in his wake.

Case in point: Kearns announced last month that he will run for Erie County Clerk, an office vacated by Chris Jacobs, who was elected last fall to the New York State Senate. As is his wont, Kearns made that announcement without the blessing of his own party, infuriating Democratic leadership, which apparently had other plans for the seat. (Or in any case would have liked to exert control over and take credit for Kearns’s candidacy.) Kearns has always played well with the local Republican and Conservative parties; he ran unopposed for reelection last year on the Democratic, Republican, Conservative, and Independence ballot lines. And he got the Conservative Party endorsement for clerk two weeks ago, to the chagrin of Erie County Democratic Party Chairman Jeremy Zellner. That means he can run in the general election even if Democrats field a primary opponent who manages to beat the popular South Buffalonian.

However, they probably can’t: The Democrats have not endorsed anyone so far, but the leading candidates are Steve Cichon, a journalist whose work in local party politics has won him support on the party’s executive committee, and Janique Curry, who has a powerful Democratic patron in Mayor Byron Brown. Zellner, once at odds with Brown, has now allied himself to the mayor, who is currently chair of the state Democratic Party. It’s an uneasy alliance, but they are ecumenical in their objections to Kearns. For a split second, TV weatherman Kevin O’Connell was bandied about as a candidate for the Democratic endorsement, but the bluff local celebrity and occasional restaurateur decided to stick to his day job. That O’Connell was even advanced as a candidate underscores the weaknesses of Cichon and Curry. Cichon is known in party circles but, despite gigs at WBEN and the Buffalo News and years of community activism, has little name recognition. The same is true for Curry, who also is challenged by the region’s racial and geographic politics: She is an East Side, African-American political operative and community worker. Those are positive attributes in a citywide race, as is her pedigree with the Grassroots political club; countywide, all these remain disadvantages. Curry’s advantage over Cichon might be the fact that’s there is a mayoral election in Buffalo this fall, and Brown is being challenged in the Democratic primary by Buffalo Comptroller

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 DAILYPUBLIC.COM / APRIL 12 - APRIL 18, 2017 / THE PUBLIC

NEWS LOCAL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 Mark Schroeder. Schroeder will force Brown to spend money and get out the vote on the East Side, which would benefit Curry’s primary run against Kearns. Indeed, Curry’s and Brown’s campaigns would overlap significantly. But Schroeder’s race against Brown similarly benefits Kearns by turning out South Buffalonians. And vice versa—indeed, Kearns’s candidacy seems a perfect leg-up for Schroeder’s: It’s almost as if (clears throat) the two self-proclaimed maverick Democrats from South Buffalo planned the thing. A heavy turnout in South Buffalo might just balance Brown’s support on the East Side, which will come out strong as ever. (Unless, of course, a popular African-American candidate like Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant enters the mayoral race. She says she’s considering it, and wasn’t that her SUV parked across the street from Schroeder’s campaign announcement event on March 5? Why yes—yes, it was. But then maybe the mayor’s political team finds a South Buffalonian or a Delaware District candidate to siphon votes from Schroeder, and down the rabbit hole we go…) Whether or not the strategy puts Schroeder within striking distance of Brown, Schroeder’s candidacy certainly helps Kearns in his primary, and thus diminishes Curry’s stock in the eyes of the Democrats’ executive committee. So, perhaps, advantage Cichon. But greater advantage to Kearns. All of which is to say, Kearns has done an end run around party headquarters once again. Cichon, Curry, Kearns—any one of them could do the job, which is pretty ministerial, as well as the other. But, politically, Kearns has the advantage of name recognition, a solid base of proven, cross-party support, and a ballot line already secured for the general election. Smart money says Kearns wins the Democratic primary in September and the general election in November. •••

The clerk’s job is more appealing than the seat Kearns currently occupies in the New York State Assembly on several counts: • That commute to Albany, which has foreshortened political careers and marriages. • It is an executive position, rather than a legislative one, and Kearns longs to show what he can do if he’s in charge of something rather than a junior member of a legislative body, which is where he is and will be on the Assembly for a long time. • The clerk’s seat has been a useful political stepping-stone for its two previous occupants: Kathy Hochul went from clerk to Congress, and then to lieutenant governor after losing her seat in Congress; Chris Jacobs became a state senator, which is likely to be a stepping-stone toward some greater ambition.

Kearns is ambitious, too. He’d like to be mayor of Buffalo, he’d like to go to be county executive, he’d like to go to Congress—there is no advancement that does not appeal to Kearns, who is always reaching for just a bit more. But paths upward are few and far between for Western New York’s political class. “No one has ever said, ‘You know what job would be really interesting? You know what I’ve always wanted to be since I was a kid? Erie County Clerk,” a Democratic Party official recently told The Public. For most who seek the job, it’s a stop on the way to someplace else.

Kearns is unlikely to leave a clearly anointed successor to his Assembly seat, so another skirmish is likely. Burke might jump at it; even a junior member of the Assembly has more interesting work than a county legislator, and the pay is better. But Burke has a young family, and that commute to Albany is brutal. Chris Fahey, the aide to Congressman Brian Higgins who lost to Kearns when Schroeder vacated the Assembly seat, might reemerge. Who knows who else will line up? That’s still several dominoes down the line. ••• And speaking of down the line, a great deal of Democratic energy is gathering around the possibility of unseating two prominent conservative elected officials in 2018: Congressman Chris Collins of Clarence and state Assemblyman David DiPietro of East Aurora. Collins’s opposition is visible and vocal: They maintain a Facebook page, they organize demonstrations and letter-writing campaigns, they meet to dis-

cuss strategy, fundraising, and possible candidates. The movement to unseat DiPietro is, so far, more quiet. There is a cabal in DiPietro’s hometown of East Aurora who have been meeting and discussing candidates. Last week, Christina Abt—a journalist who often engages in political activism and lost to DiPietro in 2012, and who is not part of that cabal—attended a meeting of the Democratic Party committee for the Town of Evans, which is part of the district DiPietro represents. Abt was there to gauge support for another shot at DiPietro in 2018, when Democrats hope backlash to the Trump administration will drive progressives to the polls. She is hardly the only potential Democratic challenger to DiPietro, who has not faced a vigorous opponent in any of his reelection bids. And there are a lot of Democrats and unaffiliated voters in the 147th Assembly District. Here, P too, it’s early days.

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••• If Kearns wins the Erie County Clerk race, he leaves a vacant Assembly seat in his wake. When Kearns left the Buffalo Common Council to go to the Assembly seat (vacated in turn by Schroeder’s move to the city comptroller’s office), he left no clear successor behind him. A battle ensued between, among others, Kearns’s aide Matt Fisher, Pat Burke (who lost that battle but parlayed the experience into a successful run for Erie County Legislature), and Chris Scanlon, who won the day.

LOOKING BACKWARD: THE AMERICAN HOTEL, CIRCA 1900 The American Hotel, foot of Ferry Street, was popular for fresh-caught fish frys. It was a center of life at the Towpath, the now vanished neighborhood of shanties, boat liveries, bait and tackle shops, fishing clubs, and restaurants occupying the narrow strip of land between the Erie Canal and Niagara River. Grover Cleveland was reportedly a frequent visitor of the American during the days he served as Erie County Sheriff. Cleveland lived about a block away at the time, on Niagara Street between Ferry and Breckenridge. The American Hotel, and what remained of the Towpath, was razed in 1957 to make way for the Niagara Thruway. -THE PUBLIC STAFF

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Seymour Lachman and his new book.

FAILED STATE BY JON LENTZ

AUTHOR AND FORMER STATE SENATOR RETURNS TO HIS FAVORITE SUBJECT: HOW TO REFORM ALBANY. AFTER SERVING in the state Senate for more

than a decade, Seymour Lachman was disillusioned with how things worked in the state capital and left office to return to academia. In 2006, he published Three Men in a Room, his account of the behind-the-scenes decision-making process controlled by the governor and legislative leaders. Now the director of the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at Wagner College, Lachman is out with another book that renews his critique of Albany—and suggests various solutions and reforms. City & State’s Jon Lentz spoke with Lachman about the growing number of lawmakers convicted of corruption, the control legislative leaders have over their members, and how a constitutional convention could actually clean up Albany. C&S: Your new book is Failed State: Dysfunction and Corruption in an American Statehouse. Why did you write it? What prompted

me was the stark reality that things are getting worse, because of a lack of a real democratic process in the state Legislature. Things have worsened rather than improved. Let me give you a glaring example of what I mean. You take a period from 1980 to 1995, before I entered the state Senate in 1996, you had convictions of four members of the state Senate. Ten years later, when I served in the state Senate, that decade, there were two convictions of state senators—and that’s not misdemeanors, that’s felonies. But when you view the last 10 years, you see 16 convictions of felony crimes committed by members of the state senate. For the first time in New York State history, you had a Senate majority leader convicted two weeks after an Assembly speaker. That has never happened before, and I’m trying to find out if any other state has that. I’m not saying New York has the worst state government. Over the last generation, Illinois has had three ex-governors in jail. We’ve never had that, but we came close to that with Eliot Spitzer. It never occurred. So I’m not saying the entire state government is the worst and corrupt, but I am saying that in the New York State Legislature, it is the worst in the nation. And recent studies at major universities have revealed that to be true.

C&S: The governor recently argued that New York does have independent oversight, with the district attorneys and the state attorney general and US attorneys. We don’t have an

effective, independent body like a Congressional Ethics Committee. We lack that, and because of that many things occur that might not be illegal but are unethical. And sometimes this goes beyond the line. I can you a few examples of that. In the only legislature in the nation— and I’m saying this with a great deal of study and even some hesitation—no bill has ever passed in the Senate or the Assembly in the decade that I was a member of the Senate without the support of the majority leader. The same holds true in the Assembly. No other legislature exists where leaders appoint all the chairs of all the committees, as well as committee members. Nothing else exists such as the budget process in the New York state Senate and Assembly. In preparation of the last budget that I had to vote in when I was in the Senate in 2005, the meeting of the Finance Committee occurred a half hour before the budget was to go to the floor. And guess what? We were given a telephone directory of over 1,000 pages of the budget for the coming year. Today the budget is about $154 billion. It was somewhat less then, but it was over $100 billion. And we were told, “You have to vote for this and you have to vote for it in a half hour.” And the chair of the committee said, “You’re very lucky, you can read it, and the other legislators who aren’t on the Finance Committee, they’ll come to the Senate chamber and they’ll have to immediately vote on it.” Some of us said, “This is crazy! How can we possibly do anything?” In New York State, you can’t even amend the budget without the support of the three men in the room: the speaker, the majority leader and the governor. And you know what the chair of the Finance Committee’s response was? He said, “Well, your leaders, our leaders, have all approved it.” C&S: You write that one of the best ways to clean up Albany would be to hold a constitutional convention. No substantive changes

will take place in the current process that exists, and the current control by two of the three men in the room, unless change is brought about by an outside group. Every 20 years there can be a vote on changes through a constitutional convention. Things are getting worse in the democratic process, in the malfunction and dysfunction of the two bicameral legislative houses, and the only way this can be eliminated is through a state constitutional convention. Jon Lentz is editor of City & State, a content P partner with The Public.

BY APPOINTMENT

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THERE IS AN OLD SAYING that is very true:

Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.

Erie County government in its present county charter form is 57 years old. County executives, comptrollers, and legislators have come and gone. Many years all has run smoothly. Some years, not so much.

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There have been three significant financial meltdowns of county finances over the past 40 years. Each one resulted in higher taxes and reduced services. For each one, working through the calamity took several years.

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Worship and communion in the chapel. In memory of Jesus’ disrobing to his undergarments to wash his disciples’ feet, please bring an offering of new men’s t-shirts (M, L) and underwear (waist sizes 32 - 40) to be given to local asylum seekers.

EASTER SUNDAY

Sunrise Service, 6:15 

A sunrise service in the Courtyard with special music with Phil Sims and Theresa Quinn. Help decorate the courtyard gate with ribbons and flowers to welcome worshipers to the 11  sanctuary service.

Sanctuary Service, 11 

Our joyful acclamation on Easter Sunday. Special brass music will begin at 10:45 .

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WHY TAXES NEED TO BE ON THE TABLE AS ERIE COUNTY LAWMAKERS CONSIDER FUTURE BUDGETS

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The root of these meltdowns has been very similar. In an effort to cut county property taxes, or to claim the proposed levy for the year was sufficient, spending was held down in some county accounts to make it look like everything balanced. The facts are that most county spending rises each year, because of inflationary factors, the impact of state-mandated services on the county, or the executive and/or legislature’s increases in certain spending in popular areas such as cultural funding. If funding levels are not realistic, or unanticipated funding needs occur, major problems develop. This happened in 1976 when budgeted expenses did not match revenues, resulting in a lower 1976 property tax than was necessary to maintain a structurally balanced budget, with operating expenses matching operating revenues. (Full disclosure: I was a member of the Legislature’s staff in the 1970s and was actively involved in budget matters.) When it became obvious early in 1976 that a major deficit was developing, County Executive Ned Regan proposed various options for dealing with the problem, culminating in a proposed 1977 budget in June 1976 that suggested a 76 percent increase in the property tax. Regan’s proposal did not survive. After more than six months of haggling over the 1977 budget, the Legislature eventually cut the tax increase to 32 percent.

Democrats lost control of the Legislature in the 1977 elections. Regan was elected state comptroller the next year. Similarly, in 1983 politics intervened in the budget. The Democratic candidate for county executive, Dave Swarts, suggested during the campaign that county taxes would not be sufficient to cover county expenses in 1984. Incumbent Ed Rutkowski claimed otherwise and produced a version of the 1984 budget that kept taxes stable. Early in 1984 the county again experienced a financial meltdown, which ultimately led to a one percent increase in the county sales tax. Subsequently, Republicans lost control of the Legislature and Rutkowski lost his re-election bid to Dennis Gorski. From 1988 through 1997, Gorski labored mightily to keep the budget in balance. Property taxes were raised several times and spending was held in check. Gorski was re-elected twice. In the 1998 through 2000 budgets he presented, with spending under control and a substantial fund balance in place, county property taxes were reduced by a small amount. (Again, full disclosure: I was the budget director from 1997 through 1999.) Gorski ran for a fourth term in 1999 against Joel Giambra. Giambra, eying the large fund balance, proposed a 30 percent decrease in county property taxes. After his election Giambra fulfilled that promise. No major cuts were made in spending. The fund balance was decimated. Giambra was re-elected in 2003. Then, starting in 2004 and continuing through 2005, the administration’s failure to make sufficient spending cuts to deal with reduced property taxes caught up with Giambra and the Legislature. The county sold the county hospital to the Erie County Medical Center Corporation for $85 million, but even that one-time cash was not enough. Eventually the county sales tax was increased by another three-quarters of one percent. Services were cut. Libraries were closed. The State of New York created the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority (ECFSA, a.k.a. the Control Board) to monitor the county’s finances. The Control Board was created to offer “adult supervision” over the county’s finances. I was appointed a member of the board in late 2005

COMMENTARY NEWS and served for five years. In November 2006 the board voted to enter a “control period,” during which it gained substantial control over county expenses and revenues. Chris Collins was elected county executive in 2007. The board ended the control period, reverting to a monitoring role, in 2009.

ERIE COUNTY’S CURRENT FINANCIAL ISSUES History has demonstrated that when county government fails to recognize, plan for, and deal with the need to keep the county budget structurally balanced (expenses matching revenues), problems will develop. Recently there has been an issue concerning the sale of up to $120 million in bonds to permit emergency room expansion at the Erie County Medical Center, plus various other renovation projects at the hospital. The back-and-forth about the proposed funding eventually led to approval for the ECFSA to sell the bonds. Over the past several years the county has been hit by substantial increases in its financial obligation to the hospital, relating to federally mandated Intergovernmental Transfers (IGT), which cover the costs of uninsured care. In 2009 Collins made a deal with ECMC requiring the county to contribute a minimum of $16.2 million annually, or whatever higher amount is necessary to meet that need. The escalating IGT payments have put a strain on the county budget. While annual county property tax levies have increased due to rising property assessments, the so-called county tax rate has remained essentially the same. The county tax rate is a calculation based on the county’s tax levy and the full market value of property. No one actually pays their county taxes at the county tax rate. Each town and city in the county has their own rate based on local property assessments. The county’s largest local source of general fund revenue, accounting for more than 30 percent of the total, is the sales tax. Erie County’s sales tax is at the highest level in upstate New York. The sales tax has been growing, but at a rate below budget projections, probably because of reduced taxes received on gasoline sales and a Canadian exchange rate that keeps Canadian shoppers away. Meanwhile county expenses have increased in various ways, through settled union contracts, inflation, underfunded state mandates, and voluntary choices to spend more in certain areas of the budget. The county budget is being balanced by the limited use of fund balance. The fund balance has grown to approximately $100 million. The county charter requires that an amount equal to at least five percent of the annual general fund shall be held in reserve in the fund balance, leaving approximately $45 million for use by the county. In order to mitigate some of the impact of the county’s growing ECMC obligations, County Executive Mark Poloncarz proposed that the hospital, because the county could sell ECMC bonds less expensively than the hospital itself could, should credit the county for the savings, thus reducing demands on the county in a limited amount for a limited period of time. The hospital administration agreed to that arrangement. Some legislators have suggested that fund balance be used for the additional county obligations to ECMC, with lower bond costs directly benefiting the hospital. This back-and-forth requires some analysis of what the county’s financial situation currently is, as well as what may occur over the next three years. The law that created the ECFSA mandated four-year planning. The law also requires that the ECFSA must, within 20 days of the release of the county executive’s proposed budget for the next year, prepare a review and analysis of the financial plan laid out by the county executive “to determine, in its best judgment, whether the budget and the plan are in balance.” The board released its latest review on October 31, 2016. That document highlights several issues that raise red flags. These include: ECMC projects $34.5 million more in revenues from the county through 2020 than the county itself estimates.

“The county has over-budgeted sales tax revenues for the last four years.” Projected growth in sales tax revenues have been reduced to reasonable numbers, but it remains to be seen if even the lower amounts will be achieved. The county projects using $15 million in fund balance over the four-year period. The county’s four-year projections for overtime expenses appear to be low by several million dollars. The county’s several expired or soon-to-be-expired union contracts are in negotiations, but “potential negotiated cost of living increases are not included in the financial plan.” Increases in county medical insurance obligations were previously projected to be at least partly ameliorated through union contracts, but the county’s four-year plan indicates such expenses increasing by several million dollars through 2019. The county has suggested various methods for closing future budget gaps, including growing sales tax and property taxes related to assessment increases, use of fund balance, and reductions in discretionary spending as well as savings resulting from new union contracts. Such savings are not itemized. The ECFSA concluded its analysis of the 2017 budget and four-year plan by suggesting “that there are significant uncertainties in the county’s current budget and financial plan that will require positive action by county leaders.”

LOOKING FORWARD When you consider Erie County’s history of fiscal calamities; combined with the serious current issues the county faces, as outlined by the ECFSA; and adding in the potential political turmoil that comes from a county legislature election year that is just heating up, you have a prescription for a fiscal crisis. Denials about the magnitude of the potential issues and the temptation to point fingers and pass the buck will only make matters worse. The obvious first remedy for what may ail the county government, of course, is to look for ways to reduce and mitigate spending. I will take both the county executive and the legislature seriously when they say that they are committed to doing that. Such good intentions, however, will only go so far. All counties in New York State are hamstrung by state mandates that consume the largest portion of county budgets. Yes, the Chris Collins scheme to prohibit the state from requiring counties to share Medicaid expenses would have helped. But the Obamacare “repeal and replace” legislation needed to enact Collins’s plan is dead. You would have to have just fallen from the turnip truck or be new to living in New York State to think that Albany does not have many ways to compensate for losing the Medicaid cost pass-on option beyond just cutting Medicaid expenses. One cost-sharing arrangement would likely be substituted for another. If Erie County leaders can rise above standard politics, they need to consider this: County property taxes, beyond whatever growth increasing assessments produce, must rise starting in 2018. If planned out properly, and in conjunction with cost controls and judicious use of fund balance, such increases could be relatively small. But they will be needed each year. Raising property taxes in Erie County is like touching the proverbial “third rail” of county politics. What the county leaders need to accept, however, is that this is not a do-it or notdo-it proposition. This is basically one of those “pay me now or pay me later” situations. One final note. The Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority needs to step up its role in this situation. Quarterly meetings of going through the motions are not cutting it. The county is now operating with structurally unbalanced budgets, contrary to the requirements of the Public Authorities Law. The control board needs to earn its $460,000 annual keep—before it is too late.

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NEWS MUSIC

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A HARP, A BARD, & A TRADITION REVIVED

Fedynsky is American-born, raised in North Carolina, who joined his contemporary and fellow bandurist Taras Kompanichenko while Fedynsky studied piano at the old and well-regarded music conservatory of Kyiv. Fedynsky performed his own compositions on the bandura in New York in the late 1990s, but both before and after the Orange Revolution and Ukrainian independence in 2004-05, he stuck with the group of folklorists, bandura-crafters, and Ukrainian cultural revivalists who have reinvigorated the indigenous musical and poetic forms that the Russians alternately suppressed and bowdlerized in the Soviets’ 50-year campaign. There are plenty of bandura players in Ukraine. The instrument is easy to listen to, with its lutelike resonance and its lush, harp-like flourishes and glissendi. Female bandura bands enjoy popularity. In the 20th century, as the traditional political content of the kobzari was suppressed, the instrument gained a repertoire of transcribed western classical music, as well as a new genre of love songs.

But the kobzar tradition is about communal history, heroes, moral tales, and a defining reliThank you for advertising with THE giosity. It’s also Cossack music. The right-wing PUBLIC. Please review your ad and Ukrainian nationalist political movement Svocheck for any errors. The original layout boda tries, albeit not exclusively, to claim this instructions have been followed as closely music as its own; a kobzar like Fedynsky as possible. THE PUBLIC offers design has no illusions about what a trap that services with two proofs at no charge. THE would be for him and his felBY BRUCE PUBLIC FISHERis not responsible for any error if low revivalists. His solution: to not notified within 24 hours of receipt. The plunge into the context even production department must have a signed more deeply, including ema well-founded concern that proof in order to print. Please sign and fax bracing distinctive regional fewerback andorfewer expert this approve by perresponding to this iteration of the Poltava area. formers, interpreters, and inemail. Fedynsky has immersed himdeed speakers of the ancient self in the specific stylistics � CHECK were COPYsurviving CONTENT the language of the town where he and his pressures of forced acculturawife and children live. And � CHECK IMPORTANT DATES tion and economic integration. Julian Kytasty unlike some of his fellow reWhat happened in Ukraine had#, & WEBSITE � CHECK NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE vivalists, he embraces some of the YURI FEDYNSKY AND JULIAN KYTASTY will happened in the 1830s in Finland, 20th century stylistics identified with perform April 29 at Dnipro, the Ukrainian Cul� PROOF OK (NO CHANGES) when the physician Elias Lonnrott litfemale performers. tural Center on Genesee Street, to help area erally cross-country to remote villages to � PROOF OK (WITH skiied CHANGES) Ukrainians and friends send medical supplies to He’s the founder of the Poltava Kobzar Guild, witness and transcribe the oral-formulaic poetthe front lines where Russian-sponsored “sepaand of a music festival that brings together singry of illiterate singers, poetry that he collected ratists” are trying to annex eastern Ukraine, as ers, instrumentalists, instrument-makers, ethnoand published as The Kalevala. The same sort Advertisers Signature they annexed the Crimean peninsula. musicologists, and students. of effort would happen in the 1930s in then-YuFedynsky and Kytasty are kobzars, performers of ____________________________ goslavia, when Milman Parry and Albert B. “The kobzars were not concert artists as most traditional songs, who accompanies themselves Lord witnessed, transcribed, and in some cases bandurists are today,” Fedynsky writes in the Date _______________________ on the 32-string bandura. recorded the oral-formulaic poetry of the illitprogram for his forthcoming presentation in erate guslars, who sang epic stories of old wars, Chicago. He is unapologetically committed to The kobzar (the English equivalent, approxiIssue: ______________________ KEVIN / Y15W32 heroic conflicts, divine interventions, and morthe other tasks of old-time bards: interpreting mately, is “bard”) was a Ukrainian institution alizing parables. history, engaging in moral education, and spefor centuries. The singers were carriers of the IF YOU APPROVE ERRORS WHICH ARE ON cifically, telling the story of the Maidan, the unapologetically nationalist traditions of the It’s good that the kobzars had their time with THIS PROOF, THE PUBLIC CANNOT BE 2014 Ukrainian uprising against the corrupt, indigenous Slavic-speakers who have ancient the folklorists before World War I. Fedynsky HELD PLEASEhow EXAMINE THE ADtheir Soviet-style protege of Vladimir Putin who was roots in the rich agricultural lands north of the speaksRESPONSIBLE. at length about important overthrown by a popular rebellion at which conBlack Sea, bordering Poland, Hungary, and RoTHOROUGHLY EVEN IFturned THE ADoutIS to be. A PICK-UP. preservation efforts temporary musicians and performers, including mania on the west, and the Volga River on the THIS BEin USED FOR WhatPROOF they MAY didn’tONLY know 1910 was what StaFedynsky, were front and center. east. Ukraine is the second-largest country in PUBLICATION lin would doINinTHE 1932PUBLIC. and 1933. Joseph Stalin Europe, after France, but except for intellectuals In a recent conversation, he spoke briefly about unleashed the Ukranian holodomor, the manlike Bernard-Henri Levy and American political having been offered a machine gun, perhaps by made famine that murdered as many as 7 milleaders Joe Biden and John McCain, Ukraine is a fellow rebel, or perhaps by a Russian provocalion. To the extent that anybody in the West not widely recognized as Europe, because for teur, many of which were spotted, denounced, knows this history, the story usually told is that the past 300 years, it’s been dominated by Mosand removed from the months-long protest that Stalin was at war with the “kulaks,” or recalcicow. The reaction of the Russian Tsar who read eventually succeeded in overthrowing the Yanutrant peasants who resisted moving to collectivUkrainian poet Taras Shevchenko’s poetry (eskovich government. ize farms. It was, however, 7 million (or more) pecially his collection entitled Kobzar) was to “We [kobzars] have been targets before,” he said. Ukrainians who died, not kulaks. The Russians, issue an edict, in 1876, banning the use of the “I knew this, and I also thought that my way of with unmistakeable thoroughness, targeted the Ukrainian language. being effective on the front line was to do what nationalist tradition-carriers who carried their Fedynsky is grateful for the intense burst of I do.” bandura and their lute-like torban. Stalin’s aufolkloric and musicological work, including rethorities assembled around 300 kobzars in the The front line has come to North America for cordings, that came about in defiance of that eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in December, the next couple of months. Fedynsky will be royal decree, just around the beginning of the 1933. The ones who attended were murdered. spending time with Ukrainian communities in 20th century. That practice, now derided as A kobzar named Heorhy Tkachenko didn’t go Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, Pittsburgh, “salvage” ethnography, was in full flower. Peoto Kharkiv; he went underground, in Moscow, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, and Bufple were quite concerned that the traditions of until, in 1978, as a very old man, he returned falo this spring. the kobzar were doomed. In North America, at to Kyiv, and found Mykola Budnyk, a folkFollow Fedynsky and his group on Facebook. just about exactly the same time, Franz Boas was lorist and musician, who in turn trained Taras Look for Kobzarskiy Tabir July 12-26, Kryachrushing out to British Columbia to collect the Kompanichenko, whose Kobzar Guild included kivka. There’s some nice video of men’s polyoral literature whose carriers were losing audiYuri Fedynsky. phonic choral singing, and of Fedynsky singing ences. Here in Western New York and southern in the distinctive regional style with a bandura of And now, Fedynsky has his own guild, his own Ontario, those were the years when the great his own manufacture. music festival, a bunch of students, several acres Tuscarora ethnologist J. N. B. Hewitt and his of land that he and his wife and children work Seneca successor Arthur C. Parker were colwhen they’re not playing music or gathering and lecting the texts of the Great Law, the Code of Bruce Fisher is visiting professor at SUNY working the materials, including local lumber, to State and director of the Center for Handsome Lake, the creation story, and the litIF YOU APPROVE ERRORS WHICH ARE ON THIS PROOF, THE Buffalo P Economic and Policy Studies. craft traditional instruments. urgies of so many Iroquois festivals—all out of

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ON STAGES THEATER

PLAYBILL

Cabaret opens April 15 at Shea’s.

CABARET: Willkommen. Opens April 25 at Shea’s Performing Arts Center, 646 Main Street, 716-847-1410, sheas.org. CEMETERY CLUB: Three Jewish widows, united by mourning and ritual, whose unity is disrupted by the arrival of a man. It’s a comedy. Opens April 20 at O’Connell & Company’s theater at the Park School, 4625 Harlem Road, Snyder, 716-8480800, oconnellandcompany.com. THE CORRESPONDENT: Ken Urban’s play about love and the afterlife (maybe). Through April 15 at the New Phoenix Theatre on the Park, 95 Johnson Park, 716-853-1334, newphoenixtheatre.org. THE COUNTRY HOUSE: Donald Margulies’s play about is the theater, theater people, and the people who love both. Opens April 28 at Road Less Traveled Theater, 500 Pearl Street, 716629-3069, roadlesstraveledproductions.org. THE FATHER: Artistic director David Lamb plays the title role in Florian Zeller’s award-winning play opening April 28 at the Kavinoky Theatre, 320 Porter Avenue, 716-829-7668, kavinokytheatre.com. GODSPELL: The 1971 Stephen Schwartz classic opens April 21 at Lancaster Opera House, 21 Central Avenue, Lancaster, 716-683-1776, lancopera.org. THE GREAT GOD PAN: The Jewish Repertory Theatre’s season of plays by Amy Herzog continues with The Great God Pan, about a journalist whose friend accuses the journalist’s father of sexual abusing him as a child—and suspects the journalist was abused, too. Opens April 27 at the Jewish Repertory Theatre, 2640 North Forest Road, Getzville, 716-688-4033, jewishrepertorytheatre.com. MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET: The story of the 1956 Memphis jam session between Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley. Opens April 19 at MusicalFare, 4380 Main Street, Amherst, 716-839-8540, musicalfare.com. THE TRIAL OF TRAYVON MARTIN: Gary Earl Ross’s new play supposes that George Zimmerman, not Trayvon Martin, was the one killed that fateful Florida night. How would a black teenager have been treated by the US criminal justice system? The seventh installment in Subversive Theatre Collective’s Black Power Play series continues through May 6 at the Manny Fried Playhouse, Great Arrow Building, 255 Great Arrow Avenue, 716-408-0499, subversivetheatre.org.

PHOTO BY PHOTO BY JOAN MARCUS

THE WINSLOW BOY: Terrence Rattigan’s 1946 play—based on an actual incident in which a father struggles to clear the name of his teenage son, falsely accused of a seemingly paltry but reputation-damaging crime—has great currency in an era when youthful foibles are made indelible by social media. The Irish Classical’s production opens April 20 at the Andrews Theater, 625 Main Street, 726-853-ICTC, irishclassical.com.

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ARTS REVIEW

RWANDA: LANDSCAPE AND MEMORY, A WORK IN PROGRESS NINA FREUDENHEIM GALLERY 140 NORTH ST, LENOX HOTEL, BUFFALO 716-882-5777 / NINAFREUDENHEIMGALLERY.COM

Rwanda and the genocide. For we were present there too. Precisely in our deliberate absence. Per Alison Des Forges’s indictment report. The photos are the landscape portion of the project, and they are lush and beautiful. (Loving portraits of a lush and beautiful land.) Landscapes and some vignettes, suggestive of stories, to be supplied verbally in the final version. One photo of two kids at play in a field, near a mysterious dug hole in the ground. A well? A mine entrance? Another of a complex of fishing boats on a river, connected together by long tree branch poles—somewhat like outrigger poles on Pacific islander oceangoing canoes—to produce a kind of community multi-vessel, more apt and efficient no doubt somehow for the fishing enterprise.

LANDSCAPE AND MEMORY BY JACK FORAN

AT NINA FREUDENHEIM GALLERY, PHOTOGRAPHER BRENDAN BANNON OFFERS A “STATUS REPORT” OF THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE OF THE MID-1990S “[The report] establishes that the international community, so anxious to absent itself from the scene, was in fact present at the genocide.” —Alison Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, report for the Human Rights Watch organization, 1999. PHOTOGRAPHER BRENDAN BANNON’S current exhibit at

the Nina Freudenheim Gallery is called Rwanda: Landscape and Memory, a work in progress. It consists of a score or so of photos he took as part of a project he facilitated and participated in for King’s College, London, that sent a dozen or so photographers

IN GALLERIES NOW = ART OPENING Albright-Knox Art Gallery (1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14222, 882-8700, albrightknox. org): Menagerie: Animals on View, on view through Jun 4. Shantell Martin: Someday We Can, on view through Jun 25. Tamar Guimarães and Kasper Akhøj: Studies for A Minor History of Trembling Matter; Jacob Kassay: OTNY; Eric Mack: Vogue Fabrics; Willa Nasatir, photographs, all on view through Jun 18. Tue-Sun 10am-5pm, open late First Fridays (free) until 10pm. Amy’s Place Restaurant (University Heights Arts Association) (3234 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14214, 716-833-6260, uhartsgroup.com/amysplace): Every day: 7am-9pm. Art Dialogue Gallery (5 Linwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14209 wnyag.com): Joseph Miller, Paintings and Drawings. On view through May 26. Tue-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 11am-3pm. Artists Group Gallery (Western New York Artists Group) (1 Linwood Ave, Buffalo, NY 14209, 716885-2251, wnyag.com): 1st annual Juried Members Exhibition—Modern Works, juried by Gerald Mead. On view through Apr 21. Tue-Fri 11am5pm, Sat 11am-3pm. Ashker’s on Elmwood (1002 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo, NY 14222, 716-886 -2233, ashkersbuffalo.com): Richard Rockford sculptures on display through

to Rwanda to photograph the people and the country twenty years after the genocide. More than a half million people were killed, including an estimated three quarters of the minority Tutsi ethnic group, at the hands of the majority Hutu group, while the rest of the world by and large looked the other way. The genocide commenced on April 6, 1994, after Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was killed when his plane was mysteriously shot down—responsibility for the matter has never been established—and continued for 13 weeks of murder, rape, and pillage. April is genocide remembrance month in Rwanda. Bannon refers to the present exhibit as a “status report” on a larger scope book project that would include memories of the genocide and aftermath, but also “stories that went beyond the genocide…love stories and myths and folk tales and simple reminiscences and reflections about life.” A project about memories in particular and memory in general. And so, notably complex and difficult. For the artist—he says— involving delving into his own memories, of love and of loss. But for the audience too, memories of love and loss, but also of

Apr 30. Reception Fri Apr 14. Mon-Sat 7am10pm, Sun 9am-5pm. Atrium 124 (124 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14201): Awake: Paintings and Poems by Kristin Maggio. Opening reception Fri Apr 7, 5:30-7:30. Betty’s Restaurant (370 Virginia Street, Buffalo, NY 14201, 362-0633, bettysbuffalo.com): 12th Annual Betty’s Staff, Friends and Family Exhibition through May 21. Tue-Thu, 8am-9pm, Fri 8am-10pm, Sat 9am-10pm, Sun 9am-2pm. Benjaman Gallery (419 Elmwood Avenue Buffalo, NY 14222, thebenjamangallery.com): Toma Yovanovich: Tongues of Flame, on view through Jun 3. Opening reception Fri, Apr 7, 6-9pm. ThuSat 11am-5pm. Box Gallery (Buffalo Niagara Hostel, 667 Main St, Buffalo, NY 14203): Larger Than Life, a new installation by Daniel Galas. Buffalo Arts Studio (Tri Main Building 5th Floor, 2495 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14214, 8334450, buffaloartsstudio.org): Tue-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 10am-2pm, Fourth Fridays till 8pm. Buffalo Big Print (78 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY 14202, 716-884-1777, buffalobigprint.com) ”Being John Berg” through Apr 30. Opening reception Fri, Apr 7, 6-9pm. Mon-Fri 9am-5:30pm. Buffalo & Erie County Central Library (1 Lafayette Square, Buffalo, NY 14203, 858-8900, buffalolib.org): Celebrating 400 Years of Shakespeare: Reflecting on the Life of the Bard. Milestones on Science: Books That Shook the World! 35 rare books from the history of science, on second

10 THE PUBLIC / APRIL 12 - APRIL 18, 2017 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM

The name Norbert appears in several photo titles. Bannon said on his first trip to Rwanda, Norbert was his driver—instead of renting a car on African trips, he said, it was usually more useful to hire a car and driver—and on subsequent trips became “a guide and friend and lyrical interpreter of Rwandan history and culture.” Norbert was a survivor of the genocide, but his parents were not. One photo shows Norbert’s forearm and hand plucking a flower—so out of focus that the flower with red radiating petals around a yellow center looks at first glance like a rising or setting sun, until we connect it with the hand, and realize, no, a flower—against a background green meadow and blue sky and white clouds, in focus. The story from Norbert is that every day when he and his sister saw their father—who ran the community medical clinic, but was also a photographer—returning home across the meadow, they would pick a flower to greet him with. A flower and a song. Another photo is of a short piece of torn and muddied 35-millimeter film Bannon said he pulled from the dirt of Norbert’s garden, on property that was originally family property that years later—post genocide times—Norbert was able to reclaim ownership of. But a relic of a genocide victim. Another Norbert photo shows a hand and forearm—in a reciprocal pose to the hand and forearm in the flower picture, so that the two photos seem related—holding a carpenter’s hammer as if about to strike and smash a plaster wall. Among the pure landscape pictures, one of what at first glance looks like mud rut car or truck tracks across an otherwise grassy field. But then you realize, not vehicle tracks at all. Roughly parallel, but not actually parallel. They turn out to be a double cow path. What a wonderful magic land, Rwanda. Where cows proceed not in disorganized herd fashion, but mannerly, two by two. The Landscape and Memory exhibit continues through April 26. Bannon will give an artist’s talk at the gallery on April 20, 6-8 pm. Talk to start at 6:30pm. P

floor. Mon-Sat 8:30am-6pm, Sun 12-5pm.TueFri 10am-5pm, Sat 10am-2pm, Fourth Fridays till 8pm. Burchfield Penney Art Center (1300 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14222, 878-6011, burchfieldpenney.org): Locust Street Neighborhood Art Classes, through April 2. Robert L. Flock: Color as Energy, through May 21. Artists Living in Other Worlds, through May 21. The Interior World of Roland Wise, through May 21. Mabel Dodge Luhan & Company: American Moderns & the West, on view through May 28. Reunion: Chess, through Jun 25. Artists Seen, photographs of contemporary artists by David Moog. The First Exhibition: 50 Years with Charles E. Burchfield, on view through Mar 26. Charles Cary Rumsey: Success in the Gatsby Era, through Jun 25. 10am-5pm & Sun 1-5pm. Admission $5-$10, children 10 and under free. Canisius College Andrew L. Bouwhuis Library (Canisius College 2001 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14208, 888-8412, library.canisius.edu): Small works from the Gerald R. Mead collection. Cass Project (500 Seneca Street, Buffalo, NY 14204): Charcoal works by Tricia Butski, through May 7, artist’s talk on April 14 at noon. Castellani Art Museum (5795 Lewiston Road, Niagara University, NY 14109, 286-8200, castellaniartmuseum.org): Ebru: Floating Emotions featuring ebru by İpek, Ali Burak, and Musa Saraçoğlu, on view through Jul 9. Chinese Folk Pottery: The Art of the Everyday through Jul 2. Tue-Sat 11am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm.

CEPA (617 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14203, 8562717, cepagallery.org): Karsten Krejcarek: (However) the Owner of the Living (Death) May Pierce (an Abscess) and Spread Ruin, BabalúAyé through May 21. Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat 124pm. Daily Planet Coffee Company (1862 Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14216, 716- 551-0661): Reflections by Youssou Lo, through Apr 30. Dana Tillou Fine Arts (1478 Hertel Avenue Buffalo, NY 14216, 716-854-5285, danatilloufinearts. com): Contemporary collection including Hans Moller, Edith Geiger, Lee Adler, Claire Burch, and more. Wed-Fri 10:30am-5pm, Sat 10:30am-4pm. Dreamland (387 Franklin Street, Buffalo, NY 14202, facebook.com/dreamlandarts.buffalo/ timeline): Open by event. Eleven Twenty Projects (1120 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14209, 882-8100, eleventwentyprojects. com): Dennis Maher: City House Models. On view through May 6. El Museo (91 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY 14202, 464-4692, elmuseobuffalo.org): Rock: Millie Chen, Warren Quigley, on view through Apr 29. Opening reception Fri Apr 7, 7–9pm (artist talks at 7:15). Wed-Sat 12-6pm. Enjoy the Journey Art Gallery (1168 Orchard Park Road, West Seneca, NY 14224, 675-0204, etjgallery.com): C.Mari, Grace Wilding and Serena

IN GALLERIES NOW ARTS AcAdemy AwArd ® NomiNee Best documeNtAry

The MuseuM of disABiLiTY hisTorY fiLM And speAker series And AuTisM services, inc. presenT

life, animated friday, april 28 • 7-9pm NORTH PARK THEATRE • 1428 HERTEl AvE, BuffAlO

life, animated is the inspirational story of Owen Suskind, a young man with autism who was unable to speak as a child until he and his family discovered a unique way to communicate by immersing themselves in the world of classic Disney animated films. 91 minutes, PG

Tickets $7.50

| disabilityfilmfest.org |

Museumofdisability

Tickets available for sale at North Park Theatre on the day of the show.

Jozef Bajus: Pushing the Envelope, on view at Meibohm Fine Arts.

Way. Opening reception Fri, Apr 7, 7-9pm. Tue & Wed 11-6pm, Thu & Fri 2-6pm, Sat 11-4pm . Grindhaus Cafe (160 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY 14201 facebook.com/grindhauscafe): Tue-Sat 8am-8pm, Sun 8am-6pm. Hallwalls (341 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14202, 854-1694, hallwalls.org): Renee Lear: Every Shot From Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera As An Animated GIF; Sarah Fonzi: Infrastructure Misappropriated. On view through Apr 28. Tue-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat 11am-2pm. Indigo Art Gallery (47 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY 14202, 984-9572, indigoartbuffalo.com): Entwined: Bethany Krull and Jesse Walp, opening Apr 21, 6-9pm. Wed & Fri 12-6pm, Thu 12-7pm, Sat 12-3pm, and by appointment Sun & Mon. Jewish Community Center of Buffalo, Holland Family Building (787 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, NY, 14209, 886-3172, Hours: jccbuffalo.org): Photography by Wendy Caldwell Maloney on view through Apr 28. Mon-Thu 530am-10pm, Fri 5:30am-6pm, Sat-Sun 8am-6pm. Karpeles Manuscript Library (North Hall) (220 North St., Buffalo, NY 14201): The Young Abraham Lincoln, the drawings of Lloyd Ostendorf. On view through Apr 26. Tue-Sun 11am-4pm. Karpeles Manuscript Museum (Porter Hall) (453 Porter Ave, Buffalo, NY 14201): Maps of the United States. Tue-Sun 11am-4pm. Meibohm Fine Arts (478 Main Street, East Aurora, NY 14052, 652-0940, meibohmfinearts.com): Jozef Bajus: Pushing the Envelope on view through Apr 22. Tue-Sat 9:30am-5:30pm. Niagara Community College Dolce Valvo Art Center (3111 Saunders Settlment Rd, Sanborn NY 14132): Rob Lynch, 575-BIKE, through April 22. Nina Freudenheim Gallery (140 North Street, Lenox Hotel, Buffalo, NY 14201, 716-882-5777, ninafreudenheimgallery.com): Rwanda: Landscape and Memory, a work in progress, Brendan Bannon. On view through Apr 26. Tue-Fri 10am–5pm Norberg’s Art & Frame Shop (37 South Grove Street, East Aurora, NY 14052, 716-652-3270, norbergsartandframe.com): Local artists: Kathleen West, Bradley Widman, Peter Potter, and Miranda Roth. Tue-Sat 10am–5pm. Parables Gallery & Gifts (1027 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY, parablesgalleryandgifts.com): Kathleen Corff Rogers, James Johnston, David Fehrman, Joe George, and Tim Kozlow through Apr 29. Wed-Fri, 12-7pm (until 9pm on first Fridays), Sat & Sun 12-5pm. Pine Apple Company (224 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY 14201, 716-275-3648, squareup.com/store/ pine-apple-company): Bored Future: We Should Be So Lucky, show from Emily Churco. Work for sale by Thomas James Holt, Yames Moffitt, Esther Neisen, Mickey Harmon, Mike West, and Sarah Liddell. Wed & Thu 11am-6pm, Fri & Sat 11am-11pm, Sun 10am-5pm.

Presented by:

Project 308 Gallery (308 Oliver Street, North Tonawanda, NY 14120, 523-0068, project308gallery.com): Unkept: solo exhibition by Sherry Arndt Preziuso on view through Apr 29. Tue & Thu 7-9pm and by appointment. Queen City Gallery (617 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14203, 868-8183, queencitygallery.tripod.com): Art by Neil Mahar, David Pierro, Candace Keegan, John Farallo, Chris McGee,Tim Raymond, Eileen Pleasure, Eric Evinczik, Barbara Crocker, Thomas Bittner, Susan Leibel, Barbara Lynch Johnt, Kisha Patterson, Lindsay Strong, Frank Russo, Michael Mulley. Tue-Fri 11am-4pm and by appointment. Revolution Gallery (1419 Hertel Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14216, revolutionartgallery.com): We Are the Resistance, group show with work by DK Burger, Tricia Butski, Anthony Freda, Shannon Freshwater, A.J. Fries, Barbara Hart, Felice Koenig, Anita Kunz, Craig LaRotonda, Maria Pabico LaRotonda, Nandrysha, Arabella Proffer, Eric Richardson, Carolina Seth, Marcos Sorensen, Daniele Spellman, Katherine Streeter, Kelly Vetter, and Joe Vollan through Apr 29. RO Home Shop (732 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14222, 240-9387, rohomeshop.com): Dianne Baker, mixed media, through Apr 30. TueSat 11am-6pm, Sun 11am-4pm, closed Mondays. Sports Focus Physical Therapy (531 Virginia Street, Buffalo, NY, 14202, 332-4838, sportsfocuspt. com): Photography by Joe George through May 30. Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, 6-9pm on first Fridays. Squeaky Wheel (617 Main Street, Buffalo, NY 14203, squeaky.org): Sondra Perry: flesh out. On view through May 6. Tue-Sat, 12pm-5pm. Sugar City (1239 Niagara Street, Buffalo, NY 14213, buffalosugarcity.org): The Continuous Journey, paintings and animation by Joseph Frank. On view through Apr 14, reception Fri, Apr 14, 8-10pm. Thu Mar 16, 6-9pm. Open by event and on Fri 5:30-7:30. UB Anderson Gallery (1 Martha Jackson Place, Buffalo, NY 14214, 829-3754, ubartgalleries. org): The Human Aesthetic, Cravens World. Wed-Sat 11am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm. UB Art Galleries (North Campus, Lower Art Gallery) (201 Center for the Arts, Room B45, Buffalo, NY, 14260, 645-6913, ubartgalleries.org): Ebony G. Patterson: Dead Treez through May 13. Tue-Fri 11am-5pm, Sat 1-5pm. Western New York Book Arts Center (468 Washington Street, Buffalo, NY 14203, 348-1430, wnybookarts.org): Contentual Relationships, a collaborative exhibition by Scott Kristopher, on view through Apr 28. Wed-Sat 12-6pm. To add your gallery’s information to the list, please P contact us at info@dailypublic.com

DAILYPUBLIC.COM / APRIL 12 - APRIL 18, 2017 / THE PUBLIC

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BETHANY KRULL and her husband, Jesse Walp, are opening a show called Entwined at Indigo Art Gallery (47 Allen Street) next Friday, April 21, 6-9pm. This is a detail from an installation piece called Entangled.

EVENTS CALENDAR Steel Panther

8pm Rapids Theatre, 1711 Main St. $25-$30

PUBLIC APPROVED

[HAIR METAL] “Facebook can't handle profanity or sex so we had to remove our bio” actually tells you more about Steel Panther than any PR firm-generated bio ever could. If Will Farrell did a parody on heavy metal bands a la Anchor Man or Blades of Steel, his parody heavy metal band would be something quite like Steel Panther. The thing is, Steel Panther isn’t a parody. They genuinely and non-satirically deliver lines like “Sometimes the back door is the only way in.” One of their songs is elegantly titled “It Won’t Suck Itself.” Needless to say, there are very few feminists in the crowd at Steel Panther shows. But if what you’re looking for is a hair metal throwback that lays it on thick—like beyond Spinal Tap thick—then maybe this is for you. Find out for yourself this Wednesday, April 12 at the Rapids Theatre. Citizen Zero opens the show. -CP

THURSDAY APR 13 The Districts 7pm The 9th Ward, 341 Delaware Ave $12-$15

FOLKFACES How Long? album Recommended if you like: Dr. Dog, Delta Spirit, Beck

PHOTO BY SHERVIN LAINEZ

BECCA STEVENS WEDNESDAY APRIL 12 7PM / BUFFALO IRON WORKS, 49 ILLINOIS ST. / $7-$10

The new record from Buffalobased Americana bluegrass band Folkfaces is titled How Long? (Perhaps a reference to how long it took them to record this album. Answer: Long.) The record was recorded over a period of time at Mammoth Recording Studio by Joe Orlando—a long enough period of time that the band actually went through some lineup changes in the process. What wasn’t recorded at Mammoth was recorded at the band’s home studio. The result is nine-track record full of up-tempo bluegrass music flourished with banjo twang, fierce fiddling, and hard-strummed guitars. Album opener “Arrows We Break,” written by frontman Tyler Westcott, is a ruckus rockalong bluegrass tune featuring a solo by resident sax player Ellen Pieroni. Other highlights include “Cupboards,” a more subdued tune featuring fiddle-playing by Gabe Schilffer and featuring some good old storytelling; the more political, though no less catchy “Institution Blues,” written by Dan Bordozik; and album closer “We’re on the Move Now,” which would be equally enjoyable heard on a country porch or at a Bills tailgate.

[FOLK] Out last month on Snarky Puppy’s Ground Up imprint, Becca Stevens‘s Regina contains multiple history lessons alongside a more modern tale about creatively embellishing historical contexts with great imagination. It stands as an extraordinary example of how complex musical ideas lying on the outskirts of pop, folk, and jazz can be just as catchy—and significantly more enduring—than most anything found in the mainstream. 2015’s Perfect Animal struck a balance of increased accessibility in Stevens’s work, applying a sensual rhythmic flow to her challenging compositions that worked magnificently—a listen to her cover of Usher’s “You Make Me Wanna” helps get a handle on her musical M.O. On Regina, she keeps running with that ball tucked firmly under her arm while also managing to overlay a concept about queens—real ones, fictitious ones, one that’s an alter ego—even Queen’s Freddie Mercury gets a seat at her table of distinguished guests. What began as a commissioned assignment to create music for NYC-based nonprofit the Jazz Gallery sent Stevens scurrying to cobble musical ideas that were appropriate for the venue (which does a trio of commissions each year), using Queen Elizabeth I as a thematic departure point. Regina is the more fully realized version of what she came up with, and it finds her pushing her voice to satisfying new peaks of expression while making excellent use of her Becca Stevens Band regulars, Liam Robinson, Chris Tordini, and Jordan Perlson. Also along for the ride are Snarky Puppy’s Michael League, Jacob Collier, Laura Mvula, and the legendary David Crosby, with whom Stevens toured as bassist during his well-regarded shows supporting Lighthouse last fall. Mvula lends richness to stately opener “Venus,” which meditates on the Goddess’s fabled rise from the sea. Later she appears again on the coiling “Well Loved,” one of the collection’s most infectious tracks, which is inspired by the writings of Sei Shōnagon (a gentlewoman living in the Empress’s court in Japan during the late 900s). Collier, meanwhile, gives a vocal assist to the closing cover of Stevie Wonder’s “As,” and Crosby duets on “The Muse,” a different version of which also appears on Lighthouse as “By the Light of Common Day.” Stevens repeatedly contemplates the regal dilemma of balancing love and power, occasionally applying that theme to her own modern scenarios—making the historical more personal (and conversely—ironically, even—more universal) as she goes. Troy Miller’s production is both lush and densely layered, but it never overpowers, as Stevens steps up to meet each arrangement with assured backbone. She commands the two edgiest tracks—“Queen Mab” and “Mercury” — with great finesse. The former is a reinterpretation of Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, backed here with a skronky, sinister stomp that’s perfectly suited to Mab’s selfishly motivated, succubus-like character—you can hear the voodoo. “Mercury,” on the other hand, is a new wave joyride that fuses revealing quotes from Freddie Mercury interviews that together provide a remarkable amount of insight to his persona in just under four minutes. Stevens takes a jazz approach to her music, which provides fans of conventional pop some hoops to jump through—much like Esperanza Spaulding’s Emily’s D+ Evolution: Nothing is spoon-fed here. Time signatures may feel awkward to the uninitiated, and the songs often take unexpected, suite-like forays. Traditional jazz listeners will also have some work to do since Stevens doesn’t play by the rules. But with each listen she reveals herself as a masterful artist that’s blessed with an ample supply of stashed, sinewy tricks. In the name of innovation, she is very much the queen of her own musical domain. The Becca Stevens Band plays at Buffalo Iron Works this Wednesday, April 12 with Broca’s Area in the opening slot. -CHRISTOPHER JOHN TREACY

[INDIE] Indie rock band the Districts are one of those unique cases. Formed when the members were still in high school, they’ve maintained a consistent trajectory for nearly a decade now, releasing charming indie rock records like 2012’s Telephone and 2015’s A Flourish and a Spoil on the indie label Fat Possum Records. The four-piece band from Philly comes to Babeville’s 9th Ward for an intimate show this Thursday, April 13 with support from singer/songwriter Abi Reimold. -CP

Gary Owen 7:30pm Helium Comedy Club, 30 Mississippi St. $30-$35

[COMEDY] If you ask Gary Owen about his finest accomplishments as a comedian, he’ll probably tell you that being named “Black America’s Favorite White Comedian” by Ebony magazine is among his proudest moments. He’s taken that to the bank, with recurring roles in Tyler Perry productions like House of Payne and in Kevin Hart movies like Ride Along. He’s also toured as part of Shaquille O’Neal’s All Star Comedy Jam, so if Shaq’s endorsement is enough for you, then check out Gary Owen at Helium Comedy Club this Thursday, April 13 through Saturday, April 15. -THE PUBLIC STAFF

FRIDAY APR 14 Poetry From the Banned Seven 12pm Rust Belt Books, 415 Grant St free

[POETRY] You can erect walls, concrete and figurative, to keep people apart, but you can’t stop poetry. That’s why our pals at Rust Belt Books are hosting a weekend to showcase and celebrate poetry that originates in the seven countries affected by the Trump administration’s original travel ban: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. On Friday, April 14 and Saturday, April 15, 127pm, the Grant Street book shop invites local poets with roots in those countries to share their work; others will read work by poets from those countries. There will be poems on display, as well, with copies for patrons to take home. On Saturday, 3-7pm, there will be an informal reception. -TPS

SLIP 7pm Dreamland, 387 Franklin St. $5

DO YOU MAKE MUSIC? HAVE A RECOMMENDATION? CONTACT CORY@DAILYPUBLIC.COM TO BE CONSIDERED IN OUR WEEKLY PUBLIC PICKS.

WEDNESDAY APR 12 Thriftworks and Blockhead 8pm The Waiting Room, 334 Delaware Ave. $18

[HIP HOP] Known for his low-end sonic fury and sharp synths, Berkley producer Thriftworks will perform at the Waiting Room next Wednesday, April 12 along with New York City's Blockhead. With various samples and experimental beat-crafting, Thriftworks, a.k.a. Jake Atlas, is innovating and pushing the boundaries of electronic music. Currently on tour in support of his latest album, Red

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Leopard and with an ever-increasing following, the up-and-coming artist is making waves. Also performing is Manhattan-based indie hip hop beat producer Blockhead. Known for his sly breakbeats and up-tempo hip-hop instrumentals, the funky DJ is a scene veteran, known for his work with alternative hip hop MC Aseop Rock. In anticipation of this solid show presented by MNM Presents, check out his 2001 groove-inducing album Blockhead’s Broke Beats—a classic pre J Dilla Donuts-esque loop and beat-style example of this talented producer's unique take on hip hop. -SA

[PUNK] Feeling burnt out but still like your music loud and dirty? Low attention span? S.L.I.P. is for you! The Pittsburgh hardcore band’s latest release Slippy When Wet, out now on the Raleigh, North Carolina-based record label Sorry State Records, sounds like Black Flag fell ass backwards into a cup of coffee brewed by The Descendents, but like, with solos. Sometimes they get into some doomy riffage, but that’s usually vetoed pretty quickly by frantic punk drumage. To sum it up, it’s pretty solid hardcore punk with a spark of metal, and we’re pretty sure it’s even better live. Catch S.L.I.P with The Drains, Nicky Reynolds and his Pushers, and Love Pink at Dreamland this Friday, April 14. -CP

CALENDAR EVENTS PUBLIC APPROVED

OPERATORS FRIDAY APRIL 14 7PM / STUDIO AT THE WAITING ROOM, 334 DELAWARE AVE. / $15-$17 [INDIE] Operators is the latest project from Canadian singer/songwriter/guitarist Dan Boeckner, formerly of Wolf Parade, which recorded three memorable albums for Sub Pop last decade. The band’s 2005 debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, was nominated for a Polaris Prize. Boeckner has also been involved in British Columbian quartet Atlas Strategic and the duo Handsome Furs with his now-ex-wife Alexi Perry. Most recently he’s worked with Spoon’s Britt Daniels in Divine Fits, which formed in 2013. Operators is a more electronica-driven project, as the full length Blue Wave (out last April on Last Gang Records) demonstrates, and Boeckner focuses mainly on vocals with some keyboard contributions. The lion’s share of knob-twiddling, however, comes from Devojka, and drummer Sam Brown (also in Divine Fits) keeps the whole thing moving. The retro pastiche is unmistakable, recalling the synth-noir of countless 1980s bands, but Boeckner has enough personality to make it into something all his own. Local indie trio Humble Braggers will open this Friday, April 14 at the Studio at the Waiting Room in support of their new record, I Know Better, I’m No Better, out last month. -CHRISTOPHER JOHN TREACY

Feverbox 8pm The 9th Ward, 341 Delaware Ave $5-$8

[INDIE] Born from the ashes of former local trio Inlite, Feverbox sounds like a logical next step, featuring a wider scope of influences and a more pronounced musical personality. The band may have only gotten underway at the very end of 2015, but guitarist Griffin Smith, bassist Nick Kelly, and drummer Josh Little knew each other through grade school and spent enough time touring as Inlite (behind some fairly big-name acts) to have honed some serious musical chemistry. They continue to tighten up the more they play out, this upcoming gig downstairs at Babeville’s 9th Ward included, which also will feature psych-rockers Deadwolf. -CJT

non musicians meet at Sugar City each year—this year it’ll be Saturday, April 15— and sign up for the lottery. Their names are thrown into a hat or some other hat-like receptacle and drawn at random to form new bands. Then, each band has nine or 10 weeks to write 15 minutes worth of music, to be showcased at a concert featuring the rest of the lottery-drawn bands. If it wasn’t clear already, talented musicians and noobs will both be entering the contest. In fact, it’s possible that your band ends up being composed of four bassists, and if that’s the case, either channel Spinal Tap or someone might want to learn to play drums mighty quickly. It’s all for fun, though, which is something important to keep in mind. So have at it! -CP

Sky Hopinka at Squeaky

SATURDAY APR 15 Queen City Music Lottery 12pm Sugar City, 1239 Niagara St. free

[FUN] The Queen City Music Lottery is a pretty neat thing. Here’s how it works: A bunch of local musicians and even some

7pm Squeaky Wheel, 617 Main Street $7

On Saturday, Squeaky Wheel will be hosting a force of nature in Milwaukee-based filmmaker Sky Hopinka, whose short, poetic works thave garnered effusive praise. The New Yorker has called “staggeringly beauti

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EVENTS CALENDAR

STAY IN THE

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PUBLIC APPROVED

THIS WEEK'S LGBT AGENDA WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12

ful” while Art Forum has said of his digital films, “wellsprings of beauty and mystery, filled with surprising confluences of speech and song, color and motion.” A member of the Ho-Chunk nation, Hopinka will be screening five titles, including a work-in-progress called Dislocation Blues (~18min), which the artist describes as “an incomplete and imperfect portrait of reflections from Standing Rock”—where he travelled to multiple times over the past year. With work both timely and timeless, Hopinka’s visit to Buffalo promises to be worth your time. -AARON LOWINGER

Queen City Live 7:30pm Sugar City, 1239 Niagara St. $11

[HIP HOP] Dubbed “the ultimate art show,” Queen City Live is a poetry, music, visual art and dance event curated by local artist dev11n, a hip hop MC and poet. She’ll be joined by artists the Noir, TLG, Lalalanque, and others for this event, which takes place at Sugar City this Saturday, April 15. -TPS

NO POSTER BOY 1pm-3pm, at Daemen College, 4380 Main St., Amherst

Trans storyteller and essayist Elliott Deline will do a reading from his book NO POSTER BOY, which focuses on the underrepresented population of trans men attracted to men. A Q&A and signing will follow.

THURSDAY, APRIL 13

ILL AT EASE: DIS-EASE IN ART OPENING RECEPTION 5-7pm, at UB Center for the Arts, UB Department of Art Gallery B45

Ill at Ease explores what and where illness is and how it marks us, our lives, and society at large. Thursday’s opening reception will feature a performance work by Ann Moody. The show itself will be on display through May 12.

PSYCHEDELIC FURS W/ ROBYN HITCHCOCK SATURDAY APRIL 15 7PM / TOWN BALLROOM, 681 MAIN ST. / $28-$33 [ROCK] Brothers Richard and Tim Butler may have formed the Psychedelic Furs 40 years ago in the UK, but they’re no strangers to New York: Frontman Richard, now 60, lives in Beacon, and the band’s 1982 breakthrough album Forever Now was recorded with Todd Rundgren in Woodstock. After a decade-long hiatus through the 1990s, during which Richard fronted Love Spit Love, the Furs reunited and have remained a dependable touring entity ever since—without having released any new music as a band since 1991. (Richard Butler’s self-titled solo disc arrived in 2006.) If nothing else, this keeps their current set list firmly entrenched in the past, featuring a trove of 1980s singles, from 1981’s “Dumb Waiter” through 1989’s “House.” Even if you only knew the band’s radio-friendly blend of new wave and palatable pop in passing, you’ll easily recognize more than half the set—and surely remember Richard Butler’s wobbly/unhinged video persona a la MTV heydays. Hitchcock, meanwhile, has had less chart success than the Furs but is considered one of the UK’s wittiest songwriters, oft-compared to Dylan and early Pink Floyd surrealist Syd Barrett. After his late 1970’s run with post-punk outfit The Soft Boys (which also launched the career of guitarist Kimberly Rew, who later went on to form Katrina and the Waves), Hitchcock began a lengthy solo career that’s periodically landed him on major labels (with his band The Egyptians in the 1980s and 1990s) and made him the subject of a 1998 documentary film by Jonathan Demme, Storefront Hitchcock. His latest, 2014’s The Man Upstairs (Yep Roc) was a split between new compositions and a smattering of covers, including the Furs’ chart topper, “The Ghost in You.” Sounds like maybe a duet is in the works for their joint gig at Town Ballroom on Saturday, April 15. -CHRISTOPHER JOHN TREACY

THURSDAY, APRIL 13 PUBLIC APPROVED

Deadphish Orchestra 9pm Tralf Music Hall, 622 Main St. $18

[TRIBUTE] Combining the music of the Grateful Dead and Phish are Colorado musicians Dead Phish Orchestra. Performing at the Tralf this Saturday, April 15, the quartet highlights the best of the jam band scene with their extended improvisations. The group seamlessly integrates the folksy signature of the Grateful Dead and aggressive-yet funkier grooves of Phish. If you enjoy the spontaneity of live jamming, and appreciate the history of two of the best rock bands of all time, this just might be for you. -SA

Folkfaces Album Release Party 9pm Nietzsches, 248 Allen St.

[FOLK] The Folkfaces aren’t your typical folk band. They’re full of a subversive, giddy energy that’s lost in a lot of contemporary folks music, and it’s with that energy that they’ve crafted their fun and freaky live show. In celebration of their latest album, How Long? (more on that in our This Week’s Public Picks section) the band is embarking on tour of the Rust Belt, which culminates in a show at Nietzsche’s on Saturday, April 15 featuring a bunch of friends of the band like Pine Fever, the Spring Street Family, and Fakaui. This should be a fun one, so don’t miss it. -CP

TUESDAY APR 18 Paralandra 6pm Mohawk Place, 47 E Mohawk St. $8-$12

[METAL] Known for their straightforward high-energy rock music, Missouri outfit Paralandra have gained notoriety through their crowd interaction, compelling key changes, and sincere lyrics. At the center of this feisty quartet is the passionate bond of a father and daughter—Paul Carson on guitar is the father of lead vocalist Casandra Carson—who have recently worked with Grammy Award winning producer of both Halestorm and the Roots. Also sharing the stage is Ritual Walk, a heavy metal band that fuses rock and metal to create their own experimental progressive sound. Expect opening sets by Shadow Siren, Unrest Within, the Search and Find, and Melissa Sauers of Lunar Eyes. -SA

LGBTQ DISCUSSION GROUP 6-7:30pm, at First Unitarian Universalist of Niagara 639 Main St., Niagara Falls

Join in on this monthly discussion group with our northern neighbors, hosted by the Pride Center of Western New York.

FRIDAY, APRIL 14

POETRY READING 7pm, at Grindhaus Café, 60 Allen St.

Second Stage Writers presents this reading as the first in a new series. Friday’s reading will feature Ida Goeckel, Julio Valentin, Apneah, and Second Stage co-founder Max Stephan. Hear some local talent read while enjoying a fresh pourover beverage!

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OCTOPUS PROJECT SUNDAY APRIL 16 8PM / MOHAWK PLACE, 47 E MOHAWK ST. / $8-$10 [INDIE] Performing at Mohawk Place this Sunday, April 16 is indie-experimental pop band Octopus Project. Hailing from Austin, Texas, the quirky quartet wows fans with avant-rock sounds and electronic pop melodies. Their eclectic tunes have reached larger events like South by Southwest and the super festival Coachella. Their latest record, Memory Mirrors, was recorded in part at their home studio in Austin and in part in Western New York with Fredonia’s Dave Fridmann, known for his work with bands like Mercury Rev, the Flaming Lips, and Tame Impala. Their recording sessions for the album were, I guess you could say, unorthodox—they’d record a song and Fridmann would mix it as they went to work writing the next song basically from scratch. Riding on Memory Mirrors, their sixth feature-length album, the band is on their spring tour. Also in the lineup is 1960s-esque Italian beat pop band Baci e Ceci. -SCHONDRA AYTCH

16 THE PUBLIC / APRIL 12 - APRIL 18, 2017 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM

WEDNESDAY APR 19 Tauk with Consider the Source 9pm Buffalo Iron Works, 49 Illinois St. $15

[FUNK] Self-proclaimed “dirty funk” band Tauk comes to Buffalo Ironworks this Wednesday, April 19 with the equally popular world-funk band Consider the Source. Tauk’s latest album Sir Nebula is guided by their jazzy side as much as it is their hip hop vibes, this time working with Grammy winning producer Robert Carranza, known for his work with the Mars Volta among others. -CP

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IN PRINT & ON PEACH: Mannish Tongues by jayy dodd

parking behind the building

Platypus Press, 2017 (poetry)

Yesterday on Peach we featured “Knowing Good & Well,” a poem by Los Angeles-bred writer and editor jayy dodd. If you recognize their name, it might be from a pick back in January when we covered “Inaugural Poem for [REDACTED]” (Literary Hub) for our Inauguration issue of Peach Picks. The poem, which emphasized the impending erasure of marginalized voices during the [REDACTED] administration, served as a stunning teaser for dodd’s collection, Mannish Tongues, out now from Platypus Press. At the heart of “Knowing Good & Well” is what Anne Carson would recognize as the poet’s hour—the moments in which a person is awake late at night, alone to communicate with the awful loneliness and naked anxieties in their soul. “In the night,” dodd writes, “when moonlight is obstructed / & neon porch falls victim / to impenetrable darkness, // deep breath is rationed / in short-changed currency.” The poem is one of the final pieces in Mannish Tongues , and appears in a section called “Eulogies”; it surfaces amid dedications to Tamir Rice, Rodney King, and Pepper LaBeija, to Black love and queer love and Black queer love, and allows dodd to emerge from all of this looking outward and interrogating inward to breathe— quietly and not without difficulty— and pray. Mannish Tongues is a national anthem with a new hook, a rewriting of myths and re-remembering of testimonies, and a portrait, as Keguro Macharia writes in the book’s introduction, of “how black life can be lived amidst ongoing devastation.” These poems carry a disruptive power that is uniquely sharp, and are nothing short of necessary in today’s world.

ON PEACH: “everyone agrees/ the world’s gone/ from bad/ to worse,” Matt Proctor writes in a poem called “end of forever” that we published last week at Peach. In the poem, Proctor, who is a Columbus-based poet and the creator of the video bildungsroman, “scenes from a life” (Brooklyn Public Access Television), seamlessly bounces back and forth between the current state of the world, the relationship of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, and his own “art bro” college experience. The piece oozes hilarity alongside dark pop culture references and fantastic imagery; in a vivid moment, Proctor covers the Kardashian-Wests’ Bound 2 music video: “kim k riding his/ high handled harley/ through synthetic lycra/ lisa frank cyber sky.” Proctor connects the strange with the beautiful, and the personal with pop culture, and is unafraid to write a resolution that does not actually resolve all that much.

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THIS PROOF MAY ONLY BE USED FOR The Octopus Project PUBLICATION IN THE PUBLIC. Brand new ‘60s Italian Beat Pop project from Buffalo

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Baci e Ceci

8PM ◆ $8 ADVANCE/$10 DAY OF SHOW

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◆ MONDAY, APRIL 17 ◆ Indie-Rock/Alt. Country from Boston

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+ Lonestar Sailing, Kathryn Koch 8PM ◆ $5

8:30PM / UB CENTER FOR THE ARTS, 103 CENTER FOR THE ARTS / $14.50-$29.50 [JAZZ] Those interested in attending the Monsieur Periné show at the UB Center for the Arts will be happy to know that a second show has just been added. The Colombian gypsy jazz/ Latin swing band will play two shows at the UBCFA, this Tuesday, April 18 at 7pm and now at 8:30pm as well. Attendees should also know that the set up for this show will be pretty unique, as the band and the audience will both be set up on the main stage to create a club-like setting. Which makes sense, as the music of Monsieur Prine, one of Colombia’s most popular bands, feels like it’s meant to be experienced in some kind of dimly lit 1930s rum joint. That’s not to say their music isn’t fresh sounding, it’s just hard to ignore the influence of classic gypsy jazz acts like Django Reinhardt and the various 18th- and 19th-century Latin music genres such as tango, bolero, and samba. It’s what they call “swing a la Colombiana,” music and it should be a one-of-a-kind expeP rience. -CORY PERLA

◆ TUESDAY, APRIL 18 ◆ FTMP Events Presents:

Paralandra, Ritual Walk, Unrest Within, The Search & Find, Scathed, Melissa Sauers (of Lunar Eyes) 6PM ◆ $8 ADVANCE/$12 DAY OF SHOW

◆ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19 ◆ Community Beer Works presents: Alt folk from Des Moines

Dan Tedesco +Tom Savage, Sara Elizabeth, DANE WETZLER

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47 East Mohawk St. 716.312.9279

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MUSIC SPOTLIGHT

BUFFALO JAZZ OCTET The Buffalo Jazz Octet at Pausa Art House.

BUFFALOJAZZOCTET BFLOJAZZOCTET

BUFFALO JAZZ OCTET PAUSALIVE CD RELEASE CONCERT THURSDAY, APRIL 20 / 7PM PAUSA ART HOUSE / 19 WADSWORTH AVE, BUFFALO 716-697-9075 / PAUSAARTHOUSE.COM

wonder where else the band can go. Fitzgerald knows that there is a lot of territory yet to explore. “I keep listening, and use what is created to help the guys develop new paths,” Fitzgerald said. “Sometimes it’s about how to play against what you hear. If it gets into something that they like, they can try to continue to develop that, but it requires communication. It’s a lot of active listening to help shape the progression of each performance. It can always go in new directions.”

BUFFALO JAZZ OCTET BY PATRICK KEYES

A POWERHOUSE IMPROVISATIONAL OCTET CELEBRATES ITS FIRST CD RELEASE AT THE CLUB WHERE IT RECORDED THE TRACKS RECORDING AND RELEASING an album is the dream of most

bands, regardless of what style of music they play. Even in our world of web-based streaming services, the physical album remains the standard embodiment of a group’s commitment to its craft. In jazz, a new CD doesn’t generate the same buzz surrounding releases by pop flavors of the month, but it is still a calling card of musical purpose. At 7pm on Thursday, April 20, the Buffalo Jazz Octet will celebrate the release of its first CD by returning to Pausa Art House on Wadsworth Street in Buffalo, the lively room where its aptly titled disc, PausaLive, was captured over two nights in May 2016. Admission is $10. In roughly one hour of exhilarating music, PausaLive—released by Cadence Jazz Records (cadencejazzrecords.com)—both reinforces and obliterates notions of jazz as a convenient label. The sound is clean, the song structures are sublime, and the musicians’ seamless mix of top-notch inside and outside playing defines an assertive group presence. The album is striking in its dynamic variances, pulling you into an aural adventure from the very beginning to the final breathy notes. This record gives a stirring voice to pure creative elements of musical endeavor, and should put the octet on a much bigger map. The band members—founder/pianist Michael McNeill, trumpeter Tim Clarke, trombonist Phil Sims, Kelly Bucheger on alto and tenor saxes, Nelson Rivera on tenor and soprano saxes, Steve Baczkowski on baritone sax and his “didja-tube,” (a do-it-yourself didgeridoo), bassist Brian DeJesus, and percussionist John Bacon Jr.—are proven virtuosos, and most are also adventurous composers and arrangers. But aside from credentials and instrumentation, this is not a normal jazz band. (Technically, it’s not even an octet; there are nine members, with Brendan Fitzgerald serving as a very active conductor.) Sure, the octet swings, and they play clever melodies and improvised solos. But there is much more going on here. The group has no qualms about forays beyond traditional harmony and rhythm as a natural evolution of its material. “I don’t think that we’re trying to be far-out or avant garde,” said Bacon. “It’s a progression of what’s in the music. There are a lot of situations where the box is tighter. I love playing in those settings too—I know exactly where the boundaries are, and I can push on those. In the octet, those boundaries are much wider, so sometimes you can be way out there and suddenly you’re at the edge of the forest. It’s new territory.” The Buffalo Jazz Octet debuted in December 2011. McNeill was experimenting with adding horn parts to tunes he had writ-

ten for his trio. At the time, McNeill saw the first octet concert as a one-time event, due to the difficulty of scheduling rehearsals with busy musicians, and finding gigs—never easy in the jazz world, especially for bands not devoted to the standard repertoire. Now, with the CD coming out, the release concert at Pausa on April 20, and the opening slot on the main stage at the Northwest Jazz Festival in Lewiston on August 25, the band members I spoke to agreed that the octet has a real future. There are tunes that didn’t get onto the CD, more music being written, and new paths to explore. Trails are blazed from the CD’s opening song, Bacon’s “Sculptured.” It starts with a unison ensemble melody, but 30 seconds in, it takes a turn that evolves into a boundless collective improvisation. Right off, jazz devotees will want to liken the octet to other ensembles, and there are certainly comparisons to be made. But this group is planting its own flag, quilted from myriad and overlapping patches of experience into a nuanced sound, an original conception that projects toward a future rather than reflecting on the past. “The great thing about the octet is that anybody in the group, at any point in time, can make a musical decision that can potentially challenge everyone else’s whole belief system,” Bacon said. “You might say to yourself, ‘Wow, okay, I didn’t see things going there, but what do I do to go with that and try to stay in that same universe?’ That is a really cool thing for a musician.” “There’s the intricacy and power of a large ensemble with the flexibility of a small combo,” said McNeill, the founder and guiding spirit of the octet. The players’ diversity helps bring out “things that you might not necessarily expect in a jazz context.” He noted that none of the tunes on PausaLive were written specifically for this group, but were arranged for the band with a mind toward making the band sound larger than the sum of its parts. There is a great deal of superb writing on this record, yet nothing about this music is static. Two tracks on the album, “traffic.tactic” and “Tracheal Rubric,” are credited to Fitzgerald and the octet because they are completely improvised pieces—nothing is written. The conductor guides individuals and sub-groups of the band with subtle cues to evoke melody, harmony, counter-melodies, and rhythmic changes, relying on the musicians’ expert ears and technical facility to create the tunes. Based on the “conduction” approach of the late Butch Morris, Fitzgerald and the band have formed an evolving language that allows songs to grow out of the ether. Both live and on the CD, these are the pieces that define the octet’s ethic. Clarke opens “traffic.tactic” with a show of bravura, producing sounds most trumpet players can’t make. The saxes enter, contributing a lush underpinning while McNeill dances over them, until deft interplay from Rivera and Bucheger welcomes the rest of the band to respond, with notable input from Sims and Baczkowski. “Tracheal Rubric” closes the disc, but after mesmerizing turns from Baczkowski on his didja-tube and baritone sax, and the way the band complements his flights of freedom, you

18 THE PUBLIC / APRIL 12 - APRIL 18, 2017 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM

For example, dig another of Bacon’s compositions, “Homeage.” Rivera and Sims alternate on the main theme, buoyed by classic big band-style punches, until Baczkowski, on baritone sax, and DeJesus, on bass, combine to briefly establish the tune’s bottom. Suddenly, Bacon tags out the bass and enters into a fiery duet of sonic invention. You don’t understand the baritone sax and its capabilities until you’ve heard Baczkowski play it, preferably in person. From fat, gorgeous notes to wailing, fluttering sounds that don’t exist on any sheet music, his exploratory intensity is at the heart of what makes the Buffalo Jazz Octet unique and wonderful. Bacon expertly matches the passion, and rather than wither from the heat, the others offer smart interplay throughout before a slowly building crescendo ends the tune. “There are different approaches to improvisation,” Bacon said. “Everybody’s got the same end goal, but how everybody goes into it is a little different…When we’re playing, I don’t think anybody in the band goes into this saying, ‘This is my thing and I’m going to take over now.’” “Second the Motian,” a tribute to late drummer Paul Motian and one of McNeill’s two compositions on the record, continuously evolves in sound and tempo. The rhythm section matches the force of solos from Baczkowski and Rivera, then everything slows into a pensive dialog between Clarke and McNeill before revving back up alongside statements from DeJesus and Bacon. Each player’s feature is accented by inventive ensemble passages, and the transitions between solos are marked by a driving call-and-response figure. McNeill’s “What Are the 39 Steps?” presents the most intricate writing on the disc. The sauntering themes in complex time imply a dark night in a quiet old city, but again, there is vast space for improvisation as the band works inside and outside the structure to go, seemingly, from Vienna to Venus and back. “I write and play a lot of different kinds of music—at any moment, there is the possibility of any of those styles happening,” McNeill said. He and Bacon both talked of how the octet and its music defy category for people trying to pigeonhole its output. The group is informed by the entire sum of jazz history, with numerous other influences that shape the music’s wide lateral development. The CD was conceived as a tool to present to promoters, the public, and even the band members to demonstrate its musical staying power. McNeill, who has the most trouble making rehearsals, having relocated to Texas and then Virginia, sees potential for the octet in new contexts, including local gigs, regional tours and—thinking big—international festivals. The economics might be dicey, but musical vision can go far in making those dreams a reality. It’s hoped that being able to present this album will open some doors. “There is still a lot of upside to the band,” Bacon said. “We’re hitting our teen years as a group. We’ve gotten past the early stage, but now we’re at a point where I think we can focus on really growing on that potential and exploring new music and new ways to go within this context.” Fitzgerald and McNeill are in Wooden Cities, a prominent local new music ensemble, and Fitzgerald often spoke with audience members to allay uncertainties. “People would say, ‘I don’t necessarily understand what you’re doing or what’s going on,’ and that’s usually where I would interrupt them and say, ‘You understand exactly everything about this music because it engaged you and it got you to try something.’ That is so important, to engage people in what you’re creating…The octet is very similar P in that way.”

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APR 12

That is JBWC Youth Ambassador, Ikuris, at the JBWC during a chapbook-making workshop taught by Joel Brenden.

FRIDAY

JUST BUFFALO WRITING CENTER MARKS THREE YEARS OF AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAMS FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

JUST BUFFALO LITERARY CENTER’S WRITING CENTER

IN A LOFT overlooking downtown Buffalo, a

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Once I dreamed the sky was red The red sky came creeping in staining white cotton blue. –Eden, JBWC young writer Celebrating its three-year anniversary, Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Writing Center ( JBWC), is a free, after-school creative writing center for young writers ages 12-18. Whether exploring poetry, comics, songwriting, spoken word, or the intersection of writing and activism, the JBWC shows the young people of Buffalo how literature can alter the way they see and interact with the world. Building on Just Buffalo’s successful 35 years of programming in local schools, the results have been extraordinary. Along with the quick development of their writing, creativity, and critical thinking skills, after visiting the JBWC, many young writers become passionate about the ways they can use their writing to better their community. They have been all over the city voicing their hopes and concerns, using their writing to support local non-profits and community-building efforts. JBWC students have even spoken at the Erie County Legislature Cultural Funding Public Hearing for the last two years, urging our legislators to continue to support the literary arts. In her speech, Hannah, a JBWC youth ambassador and City Honors student, said, “Before coming to the center, our writing was only ours. Now, we acknowledge that our voices are important in the world’s ever-going conversation.”

6PM FREE

APR 14

BY ROBIN JORDAN

A few weeks later, this same group of teenagers turns each other’s fears into comics and dreams into poems:

9PM $5

Reggae Happy Hour w. the Neville Francis Band

AT A SECRET LOCATION ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE… group of young writers record a pre-apocalyptic summit set in the year 2666 to discuss solutions to the problem of the Earth’s inhabitability for an episode of their podcast, This Buffalonian Life. (Solutions include ejecting humanity into the sun, developing condos on the exclusive Luxury Planet X, and, in a last-ditch effort by a lone environmental scientist, saving our faltering planet.)

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APR 15

Folkfaces Album Release w. Pine Fever, The Spring Street Family, Fakaui 9PM $5

Jazz Happy Hour w. Einat Agmon MONDAY

APR 17

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Singer-Songwriter Showcase:

The same can be said for the young writers in Buffalo. As Sage, a JBWC youth ambassador, says in a testimonial video you can find on the center’s webpage, “The first few times I came to the center I wouldn’t even read my writing out loud. That was over three years ago.” She ends the video asserting her newfound confidence, “I have a voice, and it’s loud and powerful, and I have lot to say.” Hear Sage and other JBWC young writers share more about the center before Dave Eggers’s BABEL talk at Kleinhans Music Hall on Thursday, April 20 at pm. The event marks the conclusion of the series 10th anniversary season and, following tradition, audience members in attendance will be the first to learn of the 2017-18 BABEL season lineup. The JBWC is open year-round, each Tuesday and Thursday, as well as certain Wednesdays. For a full schedule of workshops, P visit justbuffalo.org.

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The next author to visit the JBWC, aligning perfectly with the Center’s three-year celebration, will be literary powerhouse, Dave Eggers. Along with his series of bestselling novels and publications, Eggers is known for his philanthropic venture 826 Valencia, a writing center supporting under-served students with their writing skills. The initial San Francisco center has expanded to include numerous 826 centers throughout the US. When speaking about the centers in his TED Talk, “My Wish: Once Upon a School,” Eggers implored others to create similar programs: “The schools need you. Students and parents need you. Some of these kids just don’t plain know how good they are: how smart and how much they have to say.”

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One of the greatest perks for young writers participating in the JBWC is the opportunity to meet the award-winning authors brought to the city four times a year through Just Buffalo’s acclaimed BABEL series. Before their evening lecture, each author makes a special visit to the JBWC to talk candidly with students about craft.

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FILM REVIEW

BROTHERS AT ARMS

Pierre Niney and Paula Beer in Frantz.

FRANTZ BY M. FAUST IT MUST BE SOMETHING in the air, that two films opening this

week (both at the Dipson Amherst Theater) share as a central theme that the German people suffered during the wars of the last century as much as those of any other country. Land of Mine (reviewed on the adjoining page by my colleague George Sax) depicts a little known post-World War II chapter in which German POWs were forced to remove mines from Danish territory with little regard for their safety. From France, Frantz goes back to 1919, the year after the end of World War I, to explore the grief of a young German woman whose Francophile fiancé died in the trenches.

Anna (Paula Beer) lives in a small town that lost most of its sons to the war. She lives with the parents of Frantz, who regard her as a daughter since their death of their only son. Grief hangs heavily over the town, which is photographed in 35-millimeter black-and-white photography. It may be more attractive than the mood it wants to evoke, but there’s a limit in how much somberness the viewer wants to wallow in, even while watching characters who have settled in with their misery. At the cemetery, Anna is surprised to see a stranger laying flowers by Frantz’s headstone. (The flowers are perched on an empty grave: Like many soldiers in that war, he was buried in a mass grave near the site of the battle where he died.) He is Adrien (Pierre Niney), who attracts attention not only for being young in a town where few men his age survived the war, but for being French and therefore, in the minds of the survivors, responsible for so much death. Anna confronts him and gets him to share his story: He knew Frantz before the war, when they were both students in Paris and shared taste in music and art. She brings him to meet Frantz’s

AT THE MOVIES A selective guide to what’s opening and what’s playing in local moviehouses and other venues

BY M. FAUST & GEORGE SAX

OPENING THIS WEEK THE FATE OF THE FURIOUS—Umpteenth sequel in the Fast and Furious franchise. Starring Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Charlize Theron, Jason Statham, and Michelle Rodriguez. Directed by F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton). AMC Maple Ridge, Dipson Flix, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria FRANTZ—Shortly after the end of the First World War, a young woman in Germany is visited by a Frenchman who knew her fiancée, who was killed in France. Starring Paula Beer, Pierre Niney, and Ernst Stötzner. Directed by François Ozon (Swimming Pool). Reviewed this issue. Dipson Amherst GIFTED—A young math prodigy becomes the object of a struggle between her uncle, who promised her late mother that he would give her a “normal” childhood, and her grandmother, who wants to develop her talents. Starring Chris Evans, McKenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, and Octavia Spencer. Directed by Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer). Dipson Eastern Hills LAND OF MINE—From Denmark, an Oscar-nominated drama set after the end of World War II, as German POWs are put to work clearing land mines under Danish supervision. Starring Roland Møller, Louis Hofmann, and Joel Basman. Directed by Martin Zandvliet. Reviewed this issue. Dipson Amherst

ALTERNATIVE CINEMA THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE (France, 1991)— The film that brought Krzysztof Kieslowski to international attention prior to his “Three

parents and, despite initial misgivings, they find comfort in this connection with their dead son. In the ensuing week Adrien and Anna grow close, but his reticence makes clear to us that he is not telling his hosts everything. Adrien’s lie is revealed at about the halfway point of the film, but it is one of many that thread through this seemingly placid but complex and deeply felt film (loosely adapted from Broken Lullaby, a Ernst Lubitsch 1932 film that is memorable for being so unlike the sophisticated comedies for which that director is

Colors” trilogy is a visually sumptuous fantasy about two women (both played by Irene Jacob), one living in Poland, the other in France, who lead connected lives even though they never meet. A must-see on the big screen. Presented by the Buffalo Film Seminars. Tue 7pm. Dipson Amherst THE LURE—From Poland, a horror musical tale based in part on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid that is definitely not for kids. Directed by Agnieszka Smoczynska. Wed 7:30pm, Fri 9:30pm. Screening Room OFFICE SPACE (1999)—The first live-action feature by Beavis and Butt-head creator Mike Judge is a “cult movie” whose appeal is limited to people who have ever worked with people they could not stand. A flop when it was released, it’s filled with memorable scenes: My personal favorite is the gangsta assassination of a troublesome office machine. Starring Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman, Ajay Naidu, Diedrich Bader, Stephen Root, and Gary Cole as Lumbergh. Thu 7pm, Fri 7:30. Screening Room SKY HOPINKA—The Milwaukee-based filmmaker of the native Ho-Chunk nation will present a program of his short films, including Jaaji Approx (2015), wawa (2014), and Visions of an Island (2016). Co-presented with PLASMA at the Department of Media Study, SUNY at Buffalo. Sat 7pm. Squeaky Wheel THE WRECKING CREW (2008)—If you like pop music of the 1960s, you’ll love this documentary about the studio band that played on hundreds of sessions in the 1960s with Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Rivers, Sonny and Cher, the Fifth Dimension, the Byrds, Sam Cooke, and many others. (The full list is amazing.) The band included Glen Campbell, the powerhouse drummer Hal Blaine, and guitarist Tommy Tedesco from Niagara Falls, whose son Donny directed this film and will be present for a Q&A. Presented in conjunection with the Buffalo Museum of Science’s exhibit “Guitar: The Instrument That Rocked The World.” Free with museum admission. Wed 6pm. 1020 Humboldt Parkway, 716-896-5200.

20 THE PUBLIC / APRIL 12 - APRIL 18, 2017 / DAILYPUBLIC.COM

famed). In the political sense, wars are based on lies, as Frantz’s father realizes when he comes to regret the memory of how the men of his generation sent their sons off to die. But could we live without lies? Anna falls into one quite easily, and even the priest who hears her confession can’t bring himself to condemn it. Directed by François Ozon, Frantz’s initial gloom is off-putting, but the story captures you in surprising ways. With strong performances and a sure visual sense, he involves you in moral complexities that you won’t easily shake off. P

CONTINUING THE BOSS BABY—Alec Baldwin as the voice of a power-hungry infant. It only sounds like an SNL skit. Other voices by Tobey Maguire, Steve Buscemi, Lisa Kudrow, and Jimmy Kimmel. Directed by Tom McGrath (Madagascar). Aurora, Dipson Flix, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria CHIPS—Comic remake of a 1980s TV series that no one took seriously in the first place. Starring Dax Shepard (who also wrote and directed), Michael Peña, Jessica McNamee, Adam Brody, Ryan Hansen, and Vincent D’Onofrio. Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria GET OUT—Key & Peele’s Jordan Peele wrote and directed this horror film about a young black man whose discomfort when he goes to the home of his white girlfriend’s family proves to be all too well justified. It’s better written than it is directed, and you can’t help but wish that Peele had turned the script over to someone who had a better idea of how to balance the absurdity of the premise with the very real racial tensions with which it is combined. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, and Bradley Whitford. –MF Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria

ed by Zach Braff (Garden State). –MF Dipson Flix, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria KONG: SKULL ISLAND—The best King Kong since the 1933 original owes much to wrestling. It operates much like a theme park ride, with dazzling special effects delivered at a breathless pace and high decibel level. Set near the end of the Viet Nam war, the action is confined to the titular island, when survivors of a fleet of US Army helicopters who made the bad decision to invade Kong home turf battle the island’s other monstrosities in a bid to reunite and escape. The motion capture effects are top-notch, superior to those in Peter Jackson’s more ambitious 2005 remake. Starring Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Brie Larson, John C. Reilly, and John Goodman. Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts (The Kings of Summer). –Gregory Lamberson Dipson Flix, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria LIFE—Astronauts discover life on Mars. Apparently, it is not happy to meet them. Starring Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Hiroyuki Sanada. Directed by Daniel Espinosa (Child 44). Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria

GHOST IN THE SHELL—Scarlett Johansson as a cyborg crimefighter in this live action adaptation of the popular anime series. With Pilou Asbæk, Michael Pitt, and “Beat” Takeshi. Directed by Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman). Dipson Flix, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria

LOGAN—Once more for Hugh Jackman as the comic book hero Wolverine. With Patrick Stewart, Dafne Keen, and Richard E. Grant. Directed by James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma). Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Quaker, Regal Transit, Regal Walden Galleria, Dipson McKinley

GOING IN STYLE lacks almost all of what was memorable about Martin Brest’s 1979 film about three oldsters who decide to rob a bank. Screenwriter Theodore Melfi (St. Vincent) reduces the aspects of aging to generic financial problems. That the film has any charm is entirely due to stars Alan Arkin, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, but they’re given precious little to work with. The same goes for a wasted supporting cast that includes Ann-Margret, Matt Dillon, Christopher Lloyd, and Peter Serafinowicz. Blandly direct-

T2 TRAINSPOTTING—How do you make a sequel to a film that was a defining moment of its generation? Not by trying to repeat it, which Danny Boyle had the sense to do here. While he has reunited all of his main cast, Boyle chose not to adapt the novel Irvine Welsh wrote as a sequel, Porno, in favor of a mostly original scrip by his regular collaborator John Hodge that looks at Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie twenty years down the line. The film captures a vein of rueful nostalgia in men with no reason not to look back when

REVIEW FILM

POSTBELLUM REVENGE & BRUTALITY

LOCAL THEATERS AMHERST THEATRE (DIPSON) 3500 Main St., Buffalo / 834-7655 amherst.dipsontheatres.com AURORA THEATRE 673 Main St., East Aurora / 652-1660 theauroratheatre.com

Joel Basmans in Land of Mine.

LAND OF MINE

EASTERN HILLS CINEMA (DIPSON) 4545 Transit Rd., / Eastern Hills Mall Williamsville / 632-1080 easternhills.dipsontheatres.com

BY GEORGE SAX

FLIX STADIUM 10 (DIPSON) 4901 Transit Rd., Lancaster / 668-FLIX flix10.dipsontheatres.com

LAND OF MINE, a Danish nominee for the best foreign film Oscar, opens with a tight image of Roland Moller’s sharp-beaked, jut-jawed profile. Moller is playing Danish army sergeant Carl Rasmussen, sitting in a jeep as a forced march of weary dispirited young German prisoners of war go by him. We’re in the days after the end of the Second World War.

FOUR SEASONS CINEMA 6 2429 Military Rd. (behind Big Lots), Niagara Falls / 297-1951 fourseasonscinema.com

This immediate focus on the sergeant is germane because the movie is going to be about his reluctant personal journey to a kind of moral conversion, and a consequent drastic rebellion against authority, even as it presents a version of a little-known piece of postwar history. The German forces occupying Denmark mined the Danish coast with hundreds of thousands of land mines. After the war, the Danes imposed the dangerous and lengthy task of removing them on the barely trained German POWs, whose safety was of little or no concern to their captors. Of several thousand Germans compelled to defuse the mines, a little over half were killed or maimed. If this movie’s storyline is factually reliable, the Germans were also denied adequate food, lodging, and rest.

HALLWALLS 341 Delaware Ave., Buffalo / 854-1694 hallwalls.org HAMBURG PALACE 31 Buffalo St., Hamburg / 649-2295 hamburgpalace.com LOCKPORT PALACE 2 East Ave., Lockport / 438-1130 lockportpalacetheatre.org

Sergeant Rasmussen is assigned to command a group of about 15 young captives billeted in a crude outbuilding on a coastal farm, where they’re half starved as they try to complete their terrifying task. We’re given virtually no backstory about him, but it’s apparent enough that he’s a hardened war veteran with a bitter hatred of Germans. In this telling, both Danish civilians and military consider the plight of the POWs to be rough but appropriate justice. In that initial scene, Rasmussen leaps from his jeep to

MAPLE RIDGE 8 (AMC) 4276 Maple Rd., Amherst / 833-9545 amctheatres.com MCKINLEY 6 THEATRES (DIPSON) 3701 McKinley Pkwy. / McKinley Mall Hamburg / 824-3479 mckinley.dipsontheatres.com

confront a young German carrying a souvenir Danish flag and pummels him to the ground, bloody. He tells his young and frightened charges, “I don’t care if you die.” None of them seems more than a stripling. They’re probably all teenagers, conscripted near the end of Hitler’s murderous regime. They’re depicted trying to keep up each other’s spirits in these grim circumstances as two almost inevitable narrative developments occur: Mines will be inadvertently detonated—as in one particularly harrowing scene—and Sergeant Rasmussen will begin to relent and try to protect these youngsters. Soon he’s irregularly procuring more rations for them and before long there are soccer games and footraces on a cleaned section of beach. Writer-director Zandvliet portrays much of these activities with a naturalistic persuasiveness. Moller is appropriately fierce in the early scenes and just about brings off his avuncular change of heart. The transition seems abrupt, especially given his early cruelty, and Zandvliet has generally schematized his picture a little too starkly. Land of Mine is about reciprocal inhumanity and dire challenges to compassion and conscience, but it provides almost no realistic ambiguity. It effectively dramatizes a bleak episode in a terrible historical moment, but it’s a little overdetermined. P

NORTH PARK THEATRE 1428 Hertel Ave., Buffalo / 836-7411 northparktheatre.org

the future doesn’t hold any promise. And if T2 avoids the original’s more grotesque moments, it maintains its high energy. Few movie sequels are ever truly necessary, but this one proves more winning than most. Starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller, Ewen Bremner, and Anjela Nedyalkova. —MF Dipson Amherst ENDS THURS

REGAL ELMWOOD CENTER 16 2001 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo / 871–0722 regmovies.com REGAL NIAGARA FALLS STADIUM 12 720 Builders Way, Niagara Falls 236–0146 regmovies.com

WILSON—Daniel Clowes (Ghost World) scripted this adaption of his graphic novel starring Woody Harrelson as a curmudgeon trying to come to terms with the modern world. Episodically paced, the movie follows the apparently unemployed Wilson as, despairing of making new friends, he tries to renew acquaintances with old ones. Most notable of these are Laura Dern as a lost love who is even more damaged than he is: it’s a brilliant pairing. But it’s Harrelson’s movie and he runs with it. While the story takes him to some dark places, Clowes and director Craig Johnson (The Skeleton Twins) keep the film from becoming too grim. That may leave it slightly without the courage of its convictions by the time it’s over, but for a character like this guy, a little realism goes a long way. With Judy Greer, Cheryl Hines and Isabella Amara. –MF. Dipson Amherst ENDS THURS

REGAL QUAKER CROSSING 18 3450 Amelia Dr., Orchard Park / 827–1109 regmovies.com REGAL TRANSIT CENTER 18 Transit and Wehrle, Lancaster / 633–0859 regmovies.com REGAL WALDEN GALLERIA STADIUM 16 One Walden Galleria Dr., Cheektowaga 681-9414 / regmovies.com RIVIERA THEATRE 67 Webster St., North Tonawanda 692-2413 / rivieratheatre.org

THE ZOOKEEPER’S WIFE—Some stories just seem naturals for filming, which I’m sure was the feeling of the producers who greenlit this true story about the managers of the Warsaw Zoo who used the site to hide Jews from the Nazis during World War II. I imagine that the 2008 book, by Ithaca writer Diane Ackerman working from the diaries of Antonina Zabinski, must be filled with compelling stuff. But Nicki Caro’s movie flails in its search for a consistent focus. It bounces among themes without connecting them, raises issues it doesn’t want to develop, and lets characters fade into the background behind a star playing a too-often passive role in her own story. It’s the kind of movie you show to young teens as a history lesson: the tale is valuable, even uplifting, but you can’t help but wish it had been better told. Starring Jessica Chastain, Daniel Brühl, and Johan Heldenbergh. –MF Dipson Amherst, Dipson Eastern Hills P

THE SCREENING ROOM in the Boulevard Mall, 880 Alberta Drive, Amherst 837-0376 /screeningroom.net

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Chris Evans and Mckenna Grace in Gifted.

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FOR RENT BLACKROCK Grote St. 4+Bed. 2 Bath, Large Single Family Home. CLEAN> ALL NEW tiled Kit and baths. New rugs, Hardwood Flrs. no pets. Must see. 873-7097 leave message. $1500/mth. ----------------------------------------------LG. APT FOR RENT, April , Upper

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SERVICES GIBSON’S PAINTING SERVICE. Full Service Interior Painting & Drywall/ Plaster repair. Call Kevin 830-8478.

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---------------------------------------------FESTIVAL SCHOOL OF BALLET

Classes for adults and children at all levels. Try a class for free. 716-984-1586 festivalschoolofballet.com

----------------------------------------------FREE YOUTH WRITING WORKSHOPS Tues. and Thurs. 3:30-6pm. Open to writers between ages 12 and 18 at the Just Buffalo Writing Center. 468 Washington Street - 2nd floor, Buffalo 14203. Light snack provided.

POTTERY CLASSES: Introductory classes in pottery beginning Monday, April 3, 7-9:30pm, 6 consecutive weeks, $170 all inclusive. Buffalo Clayart 255 Great Arrow, Buffalo. 716.875.4108, ed.pottery@gmail.com.

EMPLOYMENT SWIATEK STUDIOS is looking for an experienced artist for painting and mural work, subcontracted or full time based on agreement. We are a family owned and operated architectural arts company, in business for almost 50 years. We are known for our church and theater restorations and specialize in decorative and faux painting and stained glass and plaster restoration and fabrication. Please email resume and work samples/ portfolio to christina@ swiatekstudios.com. ----------------------------------------------EXPERIENCED ROOFER WANTED Transportation a plus. Great pay. Call Antonio 716-997-4680.

LEGAL NOTICES NOTICE OF FORMATION OF LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (LLC) The name of the LLC is SoapboxPSA LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the NY Dept of State on November 11, 2016. Located in Erie County. The NY Secretary of State has been designated as the agent upon whom process may be served. NYSS may mail a copy of any process to the LLC at 7864 Burr Rd, Colden, NY 14033. The purpose of the LLC is to engage in any lawful act or activity. ----------------------------------------------NOTICE OF FORMATION OF A NEW YORK LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY PURSUANT TO NEW YORK LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY LAW SECTION 206(C) 1. The name of the company is PARdroponics LLC. 2. Articles of organization were filed 1/12/2017. 3. The company is located in ERIE COUNTY at 495 Delaware Street, Tonawanda, NY 14150. 4. The Secretary of State has been designated as agent for process, and he/she shall mail a copy of process to 495 Delaware Street, Tonawanda, NY 14150. 5. The latest date upon which the company is required to be dissolved is Perpetual.

6. The business purpose is any and all business activities permitted in the State of New York. ----------------------------------------------NOTICE OF FORMATION OF A NEW YORK LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY New Standard Home, LLC. Arts of Org. filed with the SSNY on 1/06/17. Office: Erie Co. United States Corporation Agents, Inc. desig agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process: New Standard Home, LLC, 7014 13th Avenue, Suite 202 Brooklyn, NY 11228. Purpose: any lawful purpose.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAM SCARCELLO BRIDGETT STRAWBRICH MALLORY MORDAUNT TODD GARDNER GEOFF KELLY MARTIN MCGEE SEAN MORT JIM ANDERSON

THANKS PATRONS KEVIN PURDY COLLEEN KENNEDY RACHEL CHROSTOWSKI TJ VITELLO ROB GALBRAITH USMAN HAQ CELIA WHITE HEATHER GRING JAMES LENKER CORY MUSCATO ALAN FELLER TRE MARSH BRETT PERLA ANTHONY PALUMBO NANCY HEIDINGER DOUG CROWELL ALEJANDRO GUTIERREZ KRISTEN BOJKO KRISTEN BECKER CHRIS GALLANT EKREM SERDAR MOLLIE RYDZYSNKI SUZANNE STARR CHARLES VON SIMSON JOSHUA USEN HOLLY GRAHAM PATRICIA MEYER-LEE MARK GOLDEN JOSEPH VU STEPHANIE PERRY DAVID SHEFFIELD JOANNA EVAN JAMES MARCIE MCNALLIE KARA ROB MROWKA AMBER JOHN (EXTRA LOVE)

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ACROSS

63 Conservation subj.

33 Made like a kangaroo

1 Animal that can follow the first word in each of this puzzle’s four theme entries

64 Product of a betweenbuildings cookoff?

34 Prevent infestations, in a way

68 Ointment ingredient

37 The shortest month?

4 Folklore automaton

69 Illinois city symbolizing Middle America

38 Practical joke

9 Steering wheel theft deterrent, with “The”

40 Record producer with the 2017 single “Shining”

13 “Cheerleader” singer

70 “Funeral in Berlin” novelist Deighton

14 Biblical landing site

71 Kentucky senator Paul

16 1980s tennis star Mandlikova

72 Put up with

45 Old-school “Fuggedaboutit!”

73 Animal that can follow the second word in each of this puzzle’s four theme entries

46 “Call Me Maybe” middle name

17 Group that gets called about illicit facsimiles? 19 Fix a feature, e.g. 20 ___ buco (veal entree) 21 Canines often metaphorically sacrificed 23 Weather report stats

47 Horse’s brownish-gray hue

DOWN 1 Couturiere Chanel 2 “Cornflake Girl” singer Tori 3 Contents of some jars

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27 Kleenex crud

4 Empty space

28 Classic 1971 album that closes with “Riders on the Storm”

5 El Dorado’s treasure

31 Rapper Biggie

YOU APPROVE ERRORS 35IFJointly owned, maybe

44 Site of Bryce Canyon

51 Unironic ankh wearer at night 53 Fillings for some donuts? 55 Consider officially, as a judge 56 Bruins’ alma mater 57 “On Golden Pond” bird

6 Magic’s NBA team, on scoreboards

58 Novel necessity

7 City north of Pittsburgh

60 Like joker values

WHICH ARE ON THIS PROOF, THE 61 Another word for 8 Big name in Thanksgiving PUBLIC CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE. PLEASE EXAMINE THE AD margarine 36 Animal who says “Baa, parades THOROUGHLY EVEN IF THE AD IS A PICK-UP. humbug”?

62 Illumination 9 Extremely speedy 39MESSAGE 2003/2005/2007 A.L. � CHECK COPY CONTENT mammals Entertainment’s other 2016 TO ADVERTISER MVP, familiarly film (besides “The Secret Life Thank you for advertising 10� Stow, as on a ship CHECK IMPORTANT DATES of Pets”) with THE PUBLIC. Please 41 Elevator or train or foot, NAME, e.g. � CHECK ADDRESS, 65 History class division review your ad and check 11 Hand component for any errors. The original 12 Aptly titled English spa PHONE #, & WEBSITE 42layout Blacken,instructions as a steak 66 Counterpart of yang have been followed as closely as 15 Wee � PROOF OK (NO CHANGES) 43 Where to dispose of 67 Philandering fellow possible. THEand PUBLIC cooking grease tropicaloffers 18 Acronym popularized by � PROOF OK (WITH CHANGES) design services with two oils? Drake proofs at no charge. THE LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS 48PUBLIC Apr. number cruncher is not responsible 22 ___ of Maine (toothpaste Advertisers Signature any if notone notified brand) 49for Plan so error that maybe within 24 hours of receipt. can 24____________________________ Three-letter “Squee!” The production department 50must Mischievous have a signed proof in 25Date Failure of diplomacy _______________________ to print. Please sign 52order Breakfast side dish 26 Moved stealthily and fax this back or approve Issue: ______________________ Y17W15 54byGambling game in responding to played this email. 28 Does nothing convenience stores 29 Haloes of light THIS PROOF ONLY BE USED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE PUBLIC. 55 Fifties fadMAY involving undulation 30 Made music? 59 “Terrible” ages

32 Clingy critter?

FAMOUS LAST WORDS BACK PAGE meetings. Small town. When the public comment section finally opened, the first speaker was a mother whose son attended the trip. She questioned the accusations made by WBEN personalities and admonished whoever contacted them and invited them into the discussion. You got the sense that someone had held the back door open during Sunday dinner and two strangers came in sat down and said pass the corn and zip your lip Uncle Bob, nobody wants to hear your commie crap during dinner. Furthermore she assured the Board and the people in the room that parents had all signed off and agreed to allow their kids to stay in private homes as a way to save money on hotels. She reiterated an earlier statement I’d heard elsewhere that the reason for the extra day was again to save money. Turns out a Sunday bus ride home was considerably less expensive than a Saturday bus ride home. So much for the belief that the teacher in charge had delayed the trip to promote her radical leftist views to the doe-eyed babes of the Eden Valley.

WBEN BLUES: A DISPATCH FROM EDEN BY SEAN CROWLEY

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A RIGHT-WING RADIO STATION INVENTS A CONTROVERSY IN A SMALL TOWN IT FELT LIKE A STALL TACTIC. The high school cafeteria was

crammed for the Board of Ed meeting. The room was getting warmer. An electricity usually reserved for big games crackled in the air. A lot of kids in the crowd and a lot of teachers too. Something was up you couldn’t help but feel it. So when the Board of Education opened the meeting by voting to go into executive session with their lawyer, a muffled groan went round the room. When they returned, it didn’t get much better: The tedium of budget calculations, projections of student population numbers, explanations of how the state predicts the amount of money it will allow the district, ad nauseam. But in all of the budgetary gobbledygook I found a thread that seems to weave its way through practically every other fiber of this town. In a word, it’s the numbers. We’re always battling the numbers. Whether it’s the football coach canceling the rest of the JV season and moving all the boys up to varsity in order to put enough bodies on the field, or the current situation where an Eden mom working as a substitute teacher sits in the nurse’s office praying to God no kid who needs an actual nurse comes through her door. I don’t want to imply that it’s only Eden dealing with these kinds of things, but I will say it sure feels like Eden is always dealing with these kinds of things. We’re not quite a day late and a dollar short but we’re late enough to be docked half a day and we’re digging in the ashtray for that fourth quarter on a daily basis. Tough times don’t last they say but they seem to be doing pretty well in this small town. For the sake of anyone beyond the 14057 I can tell you a school trip to a Washington, DC was planned back in the fall. The purpose of the trip was for the kids to attend the inauguration of our 45th President. It was a school-sanctioned outing with teachers accompanying the Senior year students from an AP Government class. Some of the trip was approved by the board when it was presented and then some of the details changed over time due to a number of factors. The chief reason for changes to the itinerary was reducing the cost for students to attend. Somewhere along the line someone whose child did not attend the trip decided to voice objections after the trip. They raised inaccurate claims about the motives of adults on the trip. They suggested a half-baked devil-may-care attitude on the part of the adults in placing unsupervised students with unvetted strangers hundreds of miles from home, and since the adults gave the students the option of attending the women’s march the next day, they claimed personal political motivation as the teacher’s chief reason for the trip. And they used the afternoon air waves of

WBEN to spread their accusations and implied that much of the trip was freelanced on the fly with no parental approval by one left-leaning rogue teacher hellbent on converting any and all of her charges to a radical leftist ideology. Then came the Board of Education meeting where, as they say, things got real in a hurry. In the hallway before the meeting started I was approached by a young guy who asked me if I could tell him why I was there at the meeting. I smiled and must have given him a look when he said I’m a reporter and I’m just trying to get a feel for why there’s such a turnout tonight—this is totally off the record. I am here to stand up for the teacher who is being accused of all kinds of nonsense, I said. I then asked who are you reporting for? WBEN, he said. I smiled and said Oh, you guys are gonna get it. Are we? he asked half seriously. Why? No you’re not I’m kidding I said. My name is Sean I said extending my hand. He told me his name was Mike, shook my hand and I recognized him as the producer of the afternoon show. I listed my assorted grievances with the way his radio show had run with a “story” before they had it right. Even after they’d been corrected the station repeated the same inaccuracies the following morning on their drive-time news segment. I asked him if he’d ever taken other people’s kids on an overnight trip. He laughed and said I’m single and 26. OK, fair enough, I said. I’m 56 and I have taken kids on overnight trips as a Buffalo teacher. OK, he nodded. Well you’re kind of like an offensive lineman on a football team in that your only acknowledgement is when you false start or get caught holding. You’re not going to get a plaque or a written commendation for taking these kids overnight and out of town. You’re going to catch hell for a kid not getting his inhaler when he needed it. You’re going to hear that you made a kid eat hot dogs who doesn’t like hot dogs. Someone is going to pee their sleeping bag and it will be your fault the kid drank an entire two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew then went to bed without stopping at the toilet. He smiled and nodded. I get it, he said. Yeah, there are many teachers who simply don’t see the risk/reward ratio as being worth the trouble. Then you get a rare few who are willing to take the chance to give a kid something beyond the classroom. That’s the teacher your guys are trying to get fired. That’s who I’m here for, I said. He repeated the equation his talkers had been pounding away on earlier in the week where the number of kids divided by the number of houses and adults didn’t come out evenly. He asked how this could be okay and I could only say that I wasn’t as comfortable with the accuracy of this equation as his radio station seemed to be. The third speaker of the night—an Eden Senior— put this question to rest when he explained there were only 15 kids on the trip not 20 or 19 as had been claimed. He also noted that he and some friends stayed with his Aunt who is also an Eden graduate. Turns out I did club-level bicycle racing with his dad before either of us were married or attending Board of Ed

The speaker also mentioned that her son is a Trump supporter and has never been treated with anything but courtesy and respect for his views both by his teacher and his classmates. So much for the meme of the bullying and browbeating commie teacher holding conservative kids up for ridicule. In closing, she reminded the board that she’d been to other meetings where she’d heard them approve trips that had already taken place. With that in mind she encouraged them to do the same and put this behind us. She then suggested if the people who dragged our community into this circus had kids on the trip, they were free to say no at any time to any of the conditions of the trip. And if they didn’t have kids on the trip, she encouraged them to mind their own business. Raucous applause and whoops from a large part of the audience. As a side note, on the day all of this was taking center stage on WBEN I stopped at a farm store that mainly employs Eden teen agers to cash out, stock bins, and sweep up. As the young woman rang up my garlic and tomatoes, I asked if she went to Eden. I did she answered, but I graduated. I asked if she knew the teacher. Her face lit up, oh god she’s my favorite teacher at Eden, the kid gushed. Well there are two guys on the radio saying they want her fired for taking kids to the Women’s March in January, I told her. That’s ridiculous, she snarled. They don’t even know her. She’s a great teacher. I agree, I said on my way out the door. Small town. We needed to get home so we only stayed for a few more speakers, most of whom were graduates returning to defend a teacher whose position appears ripe for cutting in all of the budget gibberish. Numbers again. I noticed a young guy who graduated with my younger daughter waiting his turn to speak. The teacher he was here for had awarded him a pork shoulder at graduation a few years back. Long story, but there it was wrapped in foil and still warm onstage. My daughter’s class picked camo as their class color. True to form, the grad was decked out in a cool white camo jacket with his college guy beard. That crazy connectedness again. Long after my wife and I had left, a parent speaker filled in any missing piece of the puzzle that remained when she insisted that no slap on the wrist or paper in the file was sufficient punishment for the teacher who took kids to the inauguration. Like the guys on WBEN, she seemed to think nothing short of terminating the teacher would be appropriate. I am told students stood and turned their backs on her as she spoke. I heard most of her remarks the following day—where else but on WBEN—where she insisted the teacher is not above the law, and closed by saying she is NOT Hillary Clinton! And if you had any guess anywhere in your head what this entire teapot tempest was all about I think the Hillary Clinton line should sufficiently put that to rest. A Trump-supporting parent whose own kid didn’t even go on the trip took a burn to the idea of students being exposed to hundreds of thousands of women gathering to resist the guy she voted for. When nobody signed up to storm the faculty lounge with pitchforks and torches. she contacted the radio station that would do her bidding. The rest, like the Women’s March and the Inauguration, are history. On my way out the door, I stopped for another look at my oldest boy’s framed pic, a poster-sized thing on the wall just inside the door. He’s lined up on defense in a three-point stance with the guys he also played O-line with on practically every play of every game. The numbers thing again. Small town linemen don’t get many downs off. In the doorway I spotted Mike the reporter staring at his phone in disbelief. You got AT&T? I asked. Yeah I do, he said smiling and shaking his head. You’re in the Eden Triangle, you’ll need to go right up to the door and open it I said. We laughed and my wife caught up to us to ask him if he gets sick of being hammered by people for the sins of his employer. It’s part of the job he shrugged. It bears mentioning too that the student speaker who spoke so eloquently early on in the meeting tapped the WBEN mic on the podium, slowly pronouncing each letter with ironic disdain. Well welcome to Eden anyway, Mike, I said. Thanks Sean, he responded and we wished each other a good night. We even have to finagle our internet around here. But in the end, we remain connected come hell or budget cuts or outside agitators. And in that connection we persevere and we handle P our own affairs. It’d be nice if everybody did. DAILYPUBLIC.COM / APRIL 12 - APRIL 18, 2017 / THE PUBLIC 23

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