Archive: Arts & Entertainment

The Tompkins County Public Library will showcase three unique exhibits during downtown Ithaca’s First Friday Gallery Night, Friday, October 7 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM.
 
Featured exhibits are:
 
Seriously Series--- Almost all artists are inspired to create a series at some point during their careers.  The artists carefully selected by curator Rebecca Godin, use abstraction, design, photography, sculpture, portraiture, place, time, and obsessions to showcase the inspiration for their individual series.

The Tompkins County Public Library will unveil, “Timeline,” the flagship display of the Ithaca Motion Picture Project’s  exhibit “Romance, Exploits and Peril:  When Movies Were Made in Ithaca,” during a film splicing ceremony Thursday, September 29 at 1:00 PM in the Avenue of the Friends.

An 80-foot-long sculptural installation illustrating the chronology of motion picture history in Ithaca from 1912-1921, “Timeline” is the largest of eight displays being housed at locations throughout downtown in conjunction with “Romance, Exploits and Peril.”

The Kitchen Theatre Company’s 21st season continues with a new movement theatre piece, In the Company of Dancers, with previews on September 28, 29, and 30, and Opening Night on October 1. It runs for two weeks only, closing on October 9, 2011.

With choreography by Kitchen Theatre Artistic Director Rachel Lampert and Ithaca College Dance Professor Lindsay Gilmour and live accompaniment by violinist Linda Case (Concertmistress, Cayuga Chamber Orchestra), CCO first cellist Rosie Elliott, and CCO guest pianist Andrea Merrill, this new piece will fill the intimate Kitchen Theatre with the music of Mendelssohn, Martinu, Brahms, Shostakovich, Glière, Handel, Haydn, Sarasate, Kreisler, Dvorak, Beach, Bach, and more.

SMART TALK

by Dr. Tilde Cedilla

 

TORE, PORE, MORE: Coming to this wonderful country from Cuba, I sometimes struggle here with the language. Sometimes, I can’t understand what people are saying, because they make one word sound like another.

For instance, I hear tore instead of tour and get mixed up. Tour is supposed to have the same vowel sound as “tool,” right? I even hear tore on TV.

Mrs. Moore’s name gets pronounced as Mrs. More, so if I’m looking it up in the telephone book, I’m not going to find it. It has the same vowel sound as “loop,” right?

Pore is my favorite in this group of words Americans can’t say. They pore me a glass of milk — thank you — but pour over a legal document. Their pronunciation has led them to switch the words!

This seems to happen only when the “oo” vowel comes before R. It’s like some kind of mass speech impediment. At the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, I’m going to treat this problem with all my strength, I ashore you.

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SMART TALK

by Dr. Shirley Glibb


FREE GIFT: In spite of our corps of comedians, we at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired still see and hear free gift in ads. We though entertainment could be a good teaching tool, as in “Why does it say free gift!? If it’s a gift, it better be free!”

Another type of comic might say, “The ad said free gift, and I didn’t sleep that night. Free gift, especially with that exclamation point, implies that gifts usually cost me. Now I’m expecting a bill for my birthday presents.”

Normally intelligent humans seem to be getting the point, but ad agencies, especially the low end companies, apparently hire some other type of person.

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I like to revisit a new restaurant a year later and see if the early delicious hype is still on the table. Time can jade a restaurateur: the vagaries of food service workers, long often unappreciated hours, financial woes, economic recession… All take a toll upon food presentation and quality.

For example, of four people recently visiting the Imperial Kitchen Buffet on Graham Road, one incurred a salt migraine and two complained of lower intestinal upset. Why? As the numbers of people dining out reduce, the warmed food does not turn over fast enough and the fresh items in the kitchen may become less fresh over time. The staff at Imperial are above reproach for polite, helpfulness and the environment is a big improvement over previous interior landscapes, but they should pay strict attention to the temperature of warmed food and the turnover of fresh ingredients in the refrigerator.

CRS Barn Studio's Songs will present Songs for a September Night September 17.  The evening  showcases the incredible vocal talent of the Ithaca area. Baritone Steven Stull, sopranos Amanda Demaris, Joanna Manring, Deborah Montgomery-Cove, bass-baritone David Neal and pianist Richard Montgomery - all seen in last season's hit production of Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' - are joined by soprano and Ithaca native Rebecca Leistikow and acclaimed pianist Blaise Bryski.

Mezzo-soprano Ivy Walz makes her return performance after completing her Doctorate in Voice at Cincinnati Conservatory. This gifted cast of singers performs with opera companies and orchestras throughout the US and internationally and includes faculty members from Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland.

SMART TALK

by Dr. Viva Palaver,
Staff Psychologist

COLORED PEOPLE: We at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired are very comfortable treating all races and ethnic groups. Linguistic impairment can afflict anyone, and we need to be able to communicate, or we're lost.

The shifting labels for races and ethnicities have caused anxiety among staff who wish to use inoffensive classifications in conversations with patients. Our records list such classifications only if it's germane to that patient's linguistic treatment. But what do we say or write? We use country of origin if we use anything. Skin tone usually turns out to be irrelevant.
I remember when saying colored people seemed acceptable; then it was Black; then Afro-American; now, African-American. Few have missed the irony of the pressure on the NAACP to be more inclusive and work for equality for other "people of color," such as Asian-Americans and Latinos. After all, look at those last two letters.

Note the terms African-American and Asian-American. Identifying by continent seems to have taken hold, even down here in Texas. Has anyone thought this through?

Continental identity means immigrants from Siberia or Israel are Asian-Americans. Miss Van Ruyker from South Africa and Mr. Mahmoud from Egypt will be African-Americans. Will those scientists from Venezuela be South-American-Americans?

Oh, no, some will say. We need to take color into account somehow. Hm. Really. How do you do that without admitting what this is all about: racial prejudice?

Most of the actual white people I know of are albinos, who can belong to any race. I ask my patients in counseling to think about that.

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SMART TALK

by Dr. Saber S. Poder




COCONSPIRATOR: Those of us on the staff of the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired who took Latin in high school feel very superior, linguistically speaking. Well, in every way, actually. But we try to treat the poorly educated majority with courtesy and respect.

We see in a flash that co-, con-, and com- are all prefixes that mean something like with, or together. And without looking it up, we can see that to conspire means literally to breathe together, or to speak/plan/scheme with someone else. But to coconspire means to scheme together with someone else. Do we actually think we could do something separately with someone else?

Whenever a scandal breaks in Washington, we must listen to coconspirator endlessly, even though they’re talking about conspirators. Coconspirator is a showoff word. Just listen to a reporter say “unindicted coconspirator.” “Look, Mommie, I’m using big, big words!”

Coconspirator, an epitome of fatuousness, is just as silly as pre-prepared.


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