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Cover Story

Face to Face

by Gerald Mead

The late summer can seem like the doldrums for art exhibitions—some galleries even take a well deserved siesta during the month of August—but the inspired exhibitions on view at CEPA Gallery are ample evidence that the art community is alive and well during this sultry season. Combined with the stunning retrospective exhibition of Chuck Close’s self-portraits at the Albright-Knox and a bevy of self-referential works in all media in the Hallwalls Members’ exhibition (hurry, that one closes September 1), we currently have a critical mass of the art of portraiture on view in Buffalo. Those at CEPA are particularly powerful, partnering soldiers in one exhibit with presidents in the other.

Letters to Artvoice

I came to Buffalo over 30 years ago to study philosophy at UB. My primary teacher was philosophy professor Shia Moser whose specialty was ethics. We became friends. I stayed in touch with him long after he retired. And I was saddened at news of his death a few years ago in Vancouver at the age of 96.

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Editors at the prestigious UK medical journal Lancet have called for the legalization of LSD and other psychedelic drugs. They’re not envisioning a thousand totally buzzed freaks dancing deliriously at an outdoor festival, however. Rather, they want to make it possible for researchers to carefully explore the therapeutic benefits of altering consciousness. “The blanket ban on psychedelic drugs continues to hinder safe and controlled investigation of their potential benefits,” they said. Be inspired by their example, Virgo. What taboo is it high time for you to break in a discerning way? What inhibition no longer serves you, even though at one time it might have kept you safe and sane? What conventional wisdom based on fear has infected you, preventing you from experimenting with exciting possibilities?

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

■ Boutique wigmaker Ruth Regina of Miami is readying a line of hairpieces for “teacup” dogs and other over-pampered canines, at prices that range into the hundreds of dollars. Most promising include the “Yappy Hour” (a fluff of curls) and the “Peek a Bow Wow,” which (according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in August) “fall[s] down over part of a dog’s face, giving a glamorous look reminiscent of 1940s movie star Veronica Lake.” (It’s for dogs that feel sexy, said Regina. “There [are] some dogs that have the come-hither look.”)

News

Keeping It Green

by Buck Quigley

When one considers the role that historical tourism should play in Buffalo’s future, it’s encouraging to note recent projects, like the reclamation of the Erie Canal terminus, the ongoing restoration of neglected—along with construction of never realized—works by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the preservation and improvement of Frederick Law Olmsted’s innovative jewel of landscape architecture, the Buffalo Parks System. Referring to his own parks design, placed gracefully over the radial street pattern employed by Joseph Ellicott in 1804, Olmsted himself famously described 1876 Buffalo as “the best designed city in the country, if not the world”—big words from the man who designed New York’s Central Park.

School Is In Session

Introduction

Phil Rumore

Dr. James Williams

Noteworthy

Literarily Speaking

by Peter Koch

And now I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. So said Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley in 1816, writing the introduction to her now-classic novel Frankenstein. The sentiment Shelley was expressing then is common to all art, but perhaps (just perhaps) rings most familiar for writers and editors. You work for days or weeks or months, tweaking text, rearranging sentences and stanzas, trying your best to cut the verbal fat from your work or your publication until you think it’s prepared to go out and survive in the world. It is your child on his first day of school, and it’s time to gather up your courage, let go of his hand and cross your fingers that he doesn’t get hit by the bus.

Theaterweek

Gurney and the City He Adores

by Anthony Chase

Buffalo’s most celebrated native playwright, A.R. “Pete” Gurney, has revisited the city of his birth and heritage numerous times in plays like The Dining Room, The Cocktail Hour, The Middle Ages and The Snow Ball. Always, Gurney follows the life of privileged members of Buffalo’s ruling elite, who have servants in their houses, and pilgrims in their ancestry. His new play, Indian Blood, is a fictionalized reminiscence of growing up in this town in 1946, when he was 16 years old. The Primary Stages production will play through September 2, at 59E59 Theaters in New York City, but expect to see this nostalgic yet pointed play again.

Play Ball!

2006: The Year of the Jakes

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

It has become an eagerly anticipated rite and ceremony that coincides with the end of each baseball season—the announcement of two very special awards. Not your ordinary awards, for these, um, “prestigious” designations are given to the worst Bisons hitter and worst Bisons pitcher of the season. With the 2006 Bisons campaign coming to an end this weekend, we are pleased to present this year’s winners.

You Auto Know

Confessions of a Car Columnist

by Jim Corbran

People are always asking me, “Jim, column after column is chock full of such interesting info; where do you get all that stuff from?” (Well, it did happen once.) For those of you who really do care, here’s the scoop. Many columns start with a visit to one of our local dealerships, where I borrow a car, drive it and spew forth my opinions using manufacturers’ literature and the internet for factual info. Five or six years ago, at the beginning of this venture, driving the new cars was more than half the fun of this job, but over the past year or so I’ve found some manufacturers’ Web sites to be as, if not more, entertaining. Some of them really put a lot of time and effort into their media pages—the pages accessible only to registered journalists via a user name and password—as well as their public pages.

Film Reviews

A Gaul's House

by George Sax

Disembarking from a train and walking through Paris, Jean (Pascal Greggory), the belle époque business magnate in Patrice Cherèau’s Gabrielle, begins to tell us of his achievements and status indicators. Referring to his wife of 10 years, Gabrielle (Isabelle Huppert), he sounds a little like a benign version of poet Robert Browning’s brutally cold-blooded duke in My Lost Duchess.

Film Clips

Sweet Jesus

by Greg Lamberson

The Quiet

by Greg Lamberson

Love

by M. Faust

Left of the Dial

Muse: Black Holes & Revelations

by Joe Sweeney

Razorlight

by Donny Kutzbach

See You There

Supersystem

by Eric Boucher

Sheryl Crow and John Mayer

by Donny Kutzbach

Boundless/Countless

by K. O'Day

Miya Masaoka, Peggy Lee & Larry Ochs in Concert

by Peter Koch

Calendar Spotlight

The Clientele

An Albatross

by K. O'Day

C.O. Jones

Rancid

by Donny Kutzbach

Rose Hill Drive

by Buck Quigley

Bruce Campbell

by K. O'Day