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Cover Story

No Vacancy

by Justin Sondel

Vacant and abandoned properties are a drag on struggling neighborhoods. How can the city plan a solution to the problem?

Week in Review

Seven Days: The Straight Dope From the Week That Was

by Geoff Kelly

They say that success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan. (No one around here seems to know who said that first. John F. Kennedy was fond of the expression.) That is certainly borne out in what is likely to be a victory for Republican Mark Grisanti against incumbent Democrat Antoine Thompson in the race for the 60th District State Senate seat.

News Analysis

Culture of Subsidy

by Bruce Fisher

While Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation is currently spending more than $6 million on contracts with various architectural, engineering, marketing, and planning consultants for a big-box retail project that has no public support, the iconic Statler Hilton Hotel at the center of downtown Buffalo could decline irretrievably unless about $5 million is invested to stabilize it before the snow flies.

Getting a Grip

Learning to Love Big Brother

by Michael I. Niman

In 1949, when George Orwell penned his gloomy futuristic novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, about an omnipotent state populated by lifeless workers with an empty but unwavering love for their supreme leader, Big Brother, he couldn’t have foreseen today’s perils. Sure, he got the part about everyone staring into screens right, and even the part about screens staring back at us.

Theater Week

The Temperamentals Take the Stage

by Anthony Chase

This week, Buffalo adds a chapter to its gay history when Jon Marans’ play, The Temperamentals, opens at the BUA theater. This will be the first production of the award-winning play since its New York triumph earlier this year.

Puck Stop

Forty Debuts at Albright-Knox

by Andrew Kulyk & Peter Farrell

Buffalo Sabres fans wishing to take a dramatic and poignant stroll down memory lane should not pass up the opportunity to attend the exhibit titled Forty, which debuted this past weekend at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Art Scene

Acceleration

by Jack Foran

Everything flows, Heraclitus is said to have said. Doubly so in a new series of photos by John Pfahl on display at the Nina Freudenheim Gallery.

B.O.O.M!

Round 1, Week 4: Lower Town Trio vs. Stealin'

Congratulations to Autopunch! They collected the most online votes last week, which wins them a spot alongside our previous winners, Social Scientists and The Etchings, in our first live quarterfinal, which will take place Saturday, November 27, at Nietzsche’s (21+).

Left of the Dial

Ben Folds & Nick Hornby - Lonely Avenue

by Cory Perla

Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer

by Donny Kutzbach

Classical Music Notes

Theremin Feast

by Jan Jezioro

A Musical Feast, the resident musical ensemble of the Burchfield Penney Art Center, opens its new season in the Peter and Elizabeth Tower Auditorium, on Sunday, November 14, at 2pm.

Film Review

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

by George Sax

It may offer some relief to Americans dismayed at last week’s rightward lurch by this country’s electorate to reflect on Sweden, or at least the country depicted by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson, whose trilogy of internationally bestselling crime novels, and the three movies based on them, including the latest, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, give us a disquieting picture of Swedish society.

Listings

On The Boards Theater Listings

Movie Times (Friday, November 12 - Thursday, November 18)

Film Now Playing

Featured Events

See You There!

Artvoice's weekly round-up of featured events, including our editor's pick for the week: the RendezBlue festival, running Thursday the 11th through Sunday the 14th at the Burchfield-Penney.

Literary Buffalo

Surprising as Life Itself

by Michael Koh

Ted Pelton has authored four works of fiction: Bhang, Endorsed by Jack Chapeau 2, Malcolm & Jack (and Other Famous American Criminals), and Bartleby, the Sportscaster. A professor of English at Medaille College and coordinator of the school’s creative writing program, he is also the founder of Starcherone Books, an independent, nonprofit publisher that has published more than 20 books.

Five Questions With...

Cyndi Griffin: Gorilla Keeper

Griffin, a 14-year veteran animal keeper with the Buffalo Zoo, has worked with many animals during her 14 years on the job; macaques, lemurs, meerkats and birds among some of them. But her focus is with the Zoo’s resident population of Western Lowland Gorillas, where she has been head keeper the past ten years.

You Auto Know

Cube^3

by Jim Corbran

Well, I don’t really know if you can cube a Cube or not, but you’ve got to admit it makes a neat headline. And if you could cube Nissan’s boxy compact Cube, maybe you’d end up with something like the new Juke.

Letters to Artvoice

Build Places, Not Things

by Cynthia Van Ness

Those Libraries Are Ours

by Rose Marie Hall

Cut Charters, Fund Publics

by Mike Santoro

Offbeat News

News of the Weird

by Chuck Shepherd

About 20 percent of Japan’s adult-video market is now “elder porn” with each production featuring one or more studly seniors and Shigeo Tokuda, 76, among the most popular.

Horoscopes

Free Will Astrology

by Rob Brezsny

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): “I cannot seem to feel alive unless I am alert,” wrote author Charles Bowden, “and I cannot feel alert unless I push past the point where I have control.”

Advice

Ask Anyone

My girlfriend and I are going on a vacation this winter to an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean with another couple, and we all agreed to split the costs evenly. My girlfriend and I have enough frequent-flier miles to buy the airline tickets for all four of us.