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The News, Briefly

Carpe Diem, Sergio

by Geoff Kelly

Grisanti Campaigns Against Campaign Finance Reform

by Geoff Kelly

Call It Sour Grapes, But...

by Geoff Kelly

News Analysis

Skretny's Law

by Bruce Fisher

The latest Securities and Exchange Commission filings by the Seneca Gaming Corporation are almost three years old. They contain details of a remarkably profitable set of operations—one in Niagara Falls, one just outside Allegany State Park, and one in Buffalo, which holds 457 slot machines and a snack bar in a little blue building next to the Perry Projects and the Malamute Bar just east of where the Buffalo Sabres one day may once again play a post-season game.

Guest Editorial

The City of Buffalo Needs a Bolder CitiStat Program

by Paul Wolf, ReinventingGov.org

My interest in CitiStat goes back over 10 years. One day I came across an article that highlighted Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley’s efforts to improve the operation of government, by measuring and tracking performance.

Art Scene

Hatchett Job

by Jack Foran

A tough act to follow is the predicament of sons David and Dana Hatchett in trying to make art in the wake of their father Duayne’s formidable production as sculptor and painter. Representative work of the father and both sons is currently on exhibit at the Indigo Art Gallery.

Theater Feature

Acting at the Shaw Festival: Wade Bogert-O'Brien

by Anthony Chase

Wade Bogert-O’Brien is a strawberry blond actor with soulful eyes and a handsomely innocent face who often plays characters who suffer for love. He does this ardently and beautifully, usually in English comedies that were popular in the early years of the 20th century.

Chew On This

Alla Famiglia

by Caitlin Peekstok

Restaurant owner Nick Pitillo has a reputation. Ask any one of the employees at Osteria 166, his new casual Italian eatery across from the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center (formerly Frankie Mohawk’s), and they’ll all tell you the same thing—he is one of the most genuinely warm, friendly people you’ll ever meet.

Classical Music Notes

Nickel City Opera at Five

by Jan Jezioro

When Metropolitan Opera bass Valerian Ruminski announced that he was starting a new opera company based in Western New York in 2009, there were plenty local skeptics who thought “Good luck with that.” After all, putting on opera has always been an expensive proposition, with the history of the genre, both generally and even more specifically locally, being littered with the corpses of defunct opera companies.

You Auto Know

Mike Barney Assumes The Lotus Position

by Jim Corbranm

Fans of the British sports car Lotus will be happy to know that the Buffalo area is now home to the newest (and probably last to be awarded) dealership in America. Matt Serwacki, one of the principals at Mike Barney Nissan, will head up the new store at their Sheridan Drive and Millersport Highway location.

Film Reviews

The Bling Ring

by George Sax

White House Down

by M. Faust

Stories We Tell

by George Sax

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Movie Times (Friday, June 28 - Thursday, July 4)

Film Now Playing

Featured Events

See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of featured events, including our editor's pick for the week: One Last Time: The Final Show at The Vault, this Saturday, June 29th.

Dispatches: War of 1812

Green Tigers and Cherry Bounce

by Mason Winfield

It was high noon on July 10, 1813, and a spy was looking across the Niagara. It was British Lieutenant James Fitzgibbon. At that point in the war the Empire’s forces on the Niagara were in such dire straits that they didn’t have salt to pickle pork. Through Fitzgibbon’s glass, the lightly guarded American supply depot at Black Rock had to look like a buffet.

Offbeat News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

The executive in charge of the electronic infrastructure of Facebook confirmed to London’s information-technology website The Register in June that when the company inaugurated its first “cloud” data-storage facility in Prineville, Ore., in 2011, the equipment was “drenched” when an actual cloud formed inside the building.

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

CANCER (June 21-July 22): “In order to swim one takes off all one’s clothes,” said 19th-century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. “In order to aspire to the truth one must undress in a far more inward sense, divest oneself of all one’s inward clothes, of thoughts, conceptions, selfishness, etc., before one is sufficiently naked.”

Memorial

Jack Drummer: 1935 - 2013