Legos at the Library | 2:00 PM-3:00 PM, 6/06 Saturday | Weekly, free-build Lego program. Legos at the Library encourages children to use their imaginations or Lego books from the TCPL collection to create their own Lego art! All materials provided.
Books A Novel Idea - Book Club | 7:00 PM-9:00 PM, 6/03 Wednesday | Argos Inn, 408 E State St, Ithaca | Come spice things up, catch up with friends, and get your intellectual side out over delightful cocktails and books that you will not want to put down. Hosted by Buffalo Street Books’ Asha Sanakar. Diane Ackerman | 8:00 PM-, 6/06 Saturday | Morgan Opera House, Main, Aurora | Best selling author reads from selected works. Mark Fleisher | 3:00 PM-4:00 PM, 6/06 Saturday | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N Cayuga St, Ithaca | Fleisher reads from his latest poetry collection, Moments of Time. Wolfsmouth | 5:00 PM-6:30 PM, 6/08 Monday | Buffalo Street Books, 215 N Cayuga St, Ithaca | William Downing Reading Room.
Arts Daniel McPheeters Gallery Reception | 5:00 PM-8:00 PM, 6/05 Friday | State Of The Art, 120 W State St Ste 2, Ithaca | Dreamscape: Landscapes and Skyscapes Reimagined, new work by Daniel McPheeters Kathy Armstrong Gallery Reception | 5:00 PM-, 6/05 Friday | ArtSpace Gallery, 171 The Commons (171 E. State/MLK Jr. Street), Ithaca | Getting to Know You: One Artist’s First Year Impression of the Finger Lakes Region, watercolor and acrylic paintings. Photography: The Science Behind the Art, and the Art behind the Science | 5:00 PM-, 6/05 Friday | Elevator Music and Art Gallery - at New Roots Charter School, 116 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca | 11th grade students at New Roots Charter School present photographs related to major concepts
Got Submissions? Send your events items – band gigs, benefits, meet-ups, whatever – to arts@ithacatimes.com.
HeadsUp WE WERE PROMISED JET PACKS by Bryan VanCampen
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omorrowland, co-written and directed by Brad Bird, playing at Ithaca Stadium 14. I’ve been doing double duty rehearsing roles in Henry the IV: Banish All The World and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Ithaca Shakespeare Company; did you see me in the Ithaca Festival Parade? That was fun! These days, I’ve been watching screeners, Netflix and VOD at home, and I had fallen behind on my summer blockbusters. Time to catch up! Well, of course I liked Tomorrowland, or as I’m calling it, Walt Disney’s An Inconvenient Truth. Why? It has jet packs in it! JET PACKS! WHEEEEE! Tomorrowland captures that early ‘60s excitement about space and technology. Whirling from the World’s Fair to the greatest comic book store ever built, it manages to touch on just about every sci-fi film’s iconic imagery and characters. Sure, it’s odd to have a huge conglomerate release a film that slaps the world’s wrist for global warming, a water shortage, and all the rest of the world’s ills, but somehow it manages to turn themepark pulp fiction from nostalgia into a eulogy for a future that never was. The film’s entreaty to the world’s from the Science field. First Saturdays on the Greater Ithaca Art Trail | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM, 6/06 Saturday | Greater Ithaca Art Trail, , | Artists exhibit in studios across Ithaca and Tompkins County. More information at www.arttrail.com ongoing Johnson Museum of Art, Spring Exhibits | 10:00 AM-5:00 PM | Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell, Ithaca || Margaret Bourke-White: From Cornell Student to Visionary Photojournalist, through 6/07 | Staged, Performed, Manipulated, through 6/07 | An Eye for Detail: Dutch Painting from the Leiden Collection, through 6/21 | Cast and Present:
Britt Robertson as Casey Newton in Disney’s Tomorrowland. (Photo provided) “dreamers” recalls how Star Wars got kids interested in science, space, and solutions. I don’t want to spoil much of director Brad Bird’s plot due its original, offbeat nature; it also has a fairly punk-rock approach in establishing the story that’s pretty cool. A smart teenage girl (Britt Robertson) who “knows how things work” and even better, questions authority, finds a small pin with the initial “T” that transports her into an amazing, blue-sky futuristic society: giant glassy spires, monorails and—oh yeah—jet packs, taking the architectural style of the Disneyland attraction and fusing it to America’s big, blowhard love of progress.
Replicating Antiquity in the Museum and the Academy, through 7/19 | New galleries featuring ancient Greek art through the 1800s, ongoing | Cosmos, by Leo Villareal, ongoing. www. museum.cornell.edu Rockwell Museum: Two New Exhibits | 9:00 AM-5:00 PM | Rockwell Museum Of Western Art, 111 Cedar St, Corning | As our neighboring institution, The Corning Museum of Glass, is celebrating the opening of a new contemporary art gallery, the Rockwell teamed up with glass specialists at the Traver Gallery in Seattle, WA, to install a celebratory display of nine contemporary glass pieces of the Pacific Northwest on the ground floor. The exhibit will be on view through Memorial Day. Also on display is “The Photography of John
Open house at various locations Saturday, June 6, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
The region is the home of a growing number of cheese makers and the variety is increasing too: Dutch, English, French and other styles from cow, goat, and sheep milk. For directions to locations see ccetompkins.org/cheesetrail or look at Facebook.
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Doddato: In Pursuit of the American Landscape,” through Feb. 2016. Yvonne Fisher | 7:00 AM- 8:00PM | Gimmee Coffee, 430 N Cayuga St, Ithca | Grand Doodles, exhibit of bold and vibrant drawings. Runs June 1 to June 30. Annie Eller exhibit | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM | Lot 10 Lounge, 106 S. Cayuga St., Ithaca, | Intricate and illuminated drawings. Runs May 1 to June 30. Jen Fisher & Laura Sinclaire exhibit | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM | Waffle Frolic, 146 E State St, Ithaca | Exciting works in ink, watercolor, and oil. Runs May 1 to June 30. Daniel McPheeters | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM | State of the Art Gallery, 120 W State St. #2, Ithaca | Dreamscape: Landscape and Skyscapes Reimagined.
This is Brad Bird’s second liveaction feature; he made his live-action debut with Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, which was okay, I guess. Before tackling these films, Bird was one of the top animation directors in the business; he helped achieve many of the best cinematic gags in the early days of The Simpsons, and Tomorrowland feels a lot closer to the Cold War invention of his sleeper classic The Iron Giant. And I can’t help but feel that if Bird can make films like The Iron Giant, The Incredibles (look for Mr. Incredible’s cameo in Tomorrowland), and Ratatouille, he shouldn’t stay away from that medium very long. •
Naomi Edmark exhibit | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM | Stella’s Cafe, 403 College Ave Ste B, Ithaca | Naomi will be showing her series of photos from May 11 to June 30. Tim Merrick |10:00AM - 5:00 PM | Corners Gallery, 903 Hanshaw Road #3, Ithaca | Disposito / Solo Exhibition of recent work from the proific artist. Kathy Armstrong | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM | 171 E. State/MLK Jr. Street, Ithaca | Getting to Know You: One Artist’s first year Impression of the Finger Lakes Region. Runs June 5 to June 31. Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War | 12:00 AM-11:59 PM, 5/22 Friday | Central NY Living History Center, 4386 US-11, Cortland | A national traveling exhibition which focuses on Abraham Lincoln’s struggle to meet the constitutional challenges
of the Civil War. Runs until June 19. Visit www.cortlandhistory.com for more information.8.
Down the Road June 12 • Shipley Hollow, Department. My Son The Crystal Healer, ANANSI | The Chanti-Loft, Ithaca | June 13 • Slim Kings | The Haunt, Ithaca | June 19 • Pink Talking Fish | The Haunt, Ithaca | June 19 • Jessica Pratt |The Dock, Ithaca |
Peter novelli
Maxie’s Supper Club and Oyster Bar, Monday, June 8, 7:00 p.m. This New Orleans based blues player combines the city’s street rhythms, swampy backbeats, jazzy dreamscapes, with an honest and original take on American music. He plays with his band on Brisket & Blues night this Monday. Don’t miss out!
ThisWeek
Finger Lakes Cheese Trail
Transporting people to parallel worlds reminded me a lot of Jack Sawyer, flipping back and forth between our world and “The Territories” in Stephen King and Peter Straub’s classic 1984 fantasy novel The Talisman. I was also reminded of Metropolis, Dark City, and Time Bandits, and all favorably. George Clooney is really good here; he bided his time for the right “general audience” family film to fit his particular talents and the role takes him to risky, odd places. But the film really rests on Robertson’s likable, spunky leading performance and also Raffey Cassidy as a child with a wellkept secret that informs her unsettling connection to Clooney’s character.