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Week in Review

War and Peace Bridge

by Jack Foran

Replacing Mickey

by Geoff Kelly

Scorecard: The Week's Winners & Losers

by Zachary Burns

Special Report

File Under "Fail"

by Jim Heaney, InvestigativePost.org

Common Council Majority Leader Demone A. Smith, whose wife pleaded guilty to fraud charges last week, has legal problems of his own.

News Analysis

Redefining Victory

by Bruce Fisher

Congressman Brian Higgins has it just about right with his endorsement of the New America Foundation’s $1 trillion infrastructure investment program. He is endorsing what centrists and progressives of an earlier era called the “peace dividend,” which we were supposed to give ourselves as a reward for having won the Cold War. Higgins’s bill is good policy and it’s good politics, too.

Art Scene

Artists describe how we eat today at the Burchfield Penney Art Center

by Jack Foran

Caitlin Cass's history of haplessness at Karpeles Manuscript Museum

by J. Tim Raymond

Comedy Feature

Bob Saget, Bluntly

by Cory Perla

Bob Saget has made his career by adjusting from TV father to blue comedian, bringing his audience with him. This week I talked to the 55-year-old comic about his infamous role in The Aristocrats, his adaptive comedy skills, and peer pressure.

Theater Week

Killing Mama

by Anthony Chase

Buffalo has yet to see Tracy Letts’s 2008 Pulitzer Prize winning play, August: Osage County, but we continue to flirt with his work. This season we’ve seen Superior Donuts at Road Less Traveled Theatre, a play about a man holding on to a donut shop in a declining Chicago neighborhood. Now, American Repertory Theater of WNY is opening his very first play, Killer Joe, the story of a family that seeks to resolve its debt problems by hiring a hit man to kill Mom for the life insurance money.

Theater News

Stagefright

by Javier

The musical Memphis is still going strong on Broadway, where it just played its 1,000 performance. Winner of four 2010 Tony awards, including Best Musical, the production is now starring Adam Pascal (pictured), who made his theatrical debut back in 1996 playing Roger in the off-Broadway, Broadway, and London productions of Rent.

Music Feature

The Esperanza Society

by Aidan Ryan

For several years now, there has been a crisis in jazz. But visitors to UB’s Center for the Arts on April 18, at 7:30pm, where jazz singer and bassist Esperanza Spalding will kick off her tour in support of her latest album, Radio Music Society, might taste that breath of fresh air that the genre has needed for so long.

Classical Music Notes

Beijing to Buffalo

by Jan Jezioro

Anyone who chooses to attend either one of the BPO’s pair of concerts this weekend—on either Saturday, April 14 at 8pm, or Sunday, April 15 at 2:30pm—will have the unique opportunity to hear the foremost conductor in the People’s Republic of China lead our orchestra.

Film Feature

Buffalo Niagara Film Festival

by M. Faust

The sixth edition of the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival begins eight days of screenings this Friday through Saturday, April 21. The lineup includes 27 feature films, 21 documentaries, and nearly four dozen short films, music videos, and student films.

Film Reviews

Delicacy

by M. Faust

The Raid: Redemption

by M. Faust

The Kid With a Bike

by M. Faust

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Movie Times (Friday, April 13 - Thursday, April 19)

Film Now Playing

Featured Events

See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of featured events, including our editor's picks for the week: Sound and Revision: A Tribute to David Bowie, this Friday the 13th at Nietzsche's, with partial proceeds to benefit Give For Greatness.

Sports Feature

Gyms Closed Friday for the Gloves

by Aaron Lowinger

Tomorrow, in the throwback ambiance of the Statler’s Golden Ballroom, the Golden Gloves final will take place, with 18 fighters competing for championships according to experience and weight class, and 10 fighters in non-tournament “match bouts.”

Puck Stop

The Sabres Season: Five Defining Moments

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

Last Saturday’s meaningless finale at Boston had the Sabres organization, their players, their angry head coach, and their fans on the ropes. How could such a season—which began on the ice at Hartwall Areena in Helsinki with such promise, such hope, such white hot expectations—end in such bitter disappointment?

Offbeat News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

As the US government’s role in health care is debated, the French government’s role was highlighted in February with a report on Slate.com about France’s guarantee to new mothers of “10 to 20” free sessions of “la reeducation perineale” (vaginal re-toning to restore the pre-pregnancy condition, a “cornerstone of French post- natal care,” according to Slate). The sessions involve yoga-like calisthenics to rebuild muscles and improve genital flexibility.

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Some people misunderstand the do-it-now fervor of the Aries tribe, thinking it must inevitably lead to carelessness. Please prove them wrong in the coming weeks. Launch into the interesting new possibilities with all your exuberance unfurled.

Advice

Ask Anyone

Have you ever known a person who’s always asking you for advice? How about a person who takes your advice, then regrets it, and is not afraid of telling you so? I know this guy like that. “You told me I probably didn’t have to change the oil in my car so often. I took your advice, and the motor seized up.” It’s not like I told him to stop checking the oil. I told him that like three years ago, in passing, when he said he changed his oil every 3,000 miles.