Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Food BitesClick here for a No-fail Pie Crust recipe

It is time to dwell on the important place that pie holds in our imagination and in our stomachs as fall rolls along and Thanksgiving nears. Growing up in Connecticut we rarely had pie as a dessert. My family usually veered heavily into frosted cakes and deep bowls of ice cream.

My mother did make pie occasionally for a special dinner: Thanksgiving or Christmas usually. When she made pie, I would know initially by the emergence of the pound of white pork lard that appeared on the counter in its unmistakable graceless, block form. Peeling apples for pies used to be drudgery, but one Christmas the apple peeling-coring gadget appeared and there was a stiff competition to see who could control it the longest. My mom had to hide it up high eventually, or she would come home to a large mound of curly peels on the counter and no apples left in the fruit bowel.

SMART TALK
by Dr. Saber S. Poder

CRISPY:  After a hard week at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, therapists, upon draining a flagon or two in the Fowler Lounge, have been know to fantasize special hells for polysyllabificationizers.

Instead of crisp, they say crispy.  Instead of calm, they say calmness; instead of meaning, meaningfulness; instead of origin, origination; instead of zeal, zealousness; instead of potential, potentiality.

O, the uncomfortableness!  These extended words sound like the faked earnestness of psychobabble and make the speaker sound dishonest.  Simple language equals clearer language equals better language.

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Filled with grit, graffiti, hip hop, and humor, the Cornell Schwartz Center's production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a new take on the classic tale of revenge, love and tribalism. Romeo and Juliet opens on the Schwartz Center stage November 19 and runs through December 5.

Set in a contemporary, urban environment undergoing gentrification, the struggle between the Capulets and Montagues highlights current environmental tensions such as economic stability, unemployment, class strife and youth violence. "This play speaks especially to teenagers," says Director Melanie Dreyer-Lude, "with its universal themes and issues for young people --we can all recognize ourselves in these circumstances. This is a fresh, fast-paced take on a classic love story that is full of surprises."

SMART TALK
by Dr. Weiss N. Heimer

CREATIVE WRITING:  Maybe I have a warped sense of humor, but oxymorons make me laugh.  Jumbo shrimp.  Moral majority.  Senate ethics.  Family vacation.  Organized religion.

Redundancies can be fun, too.  Sipping a sarsaparilla in the Fowler Lounge last weekend, Institute for the Linguistically Impaired therapist Verbos Metikulos started laughing at creative writing.  "Isn't all writing creative?" he asked.

This started a game of naming redundancies that hide so well in proper speech that we don't treat for them, unlike tunafish.  Nurse Clara Dix came up with working mother.

Staff psychologist Viva Palaver topped that with dysfunctional family.

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Mixed-media ranging from collages, paintings, sculptures and figurines, to prints and photography highlight downtown Ithaca’s First Fridays Gallery Night, scheduled for 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. Friday, November 6, 2009.

First Fridays Gallery Night is free and open to the public. All of the participating galleries are within a short walking distance of one another, and maps with information about the exhibits taking place at each gallery will be available that evening along the Ithaca Commons. For more information, visit the First Fridays Gallery Night website at www.gallerynightithaca.com, or the Downtown Ithaca Alliance website .

The Wells College Choral Ensembles will begin their 2009-10 season of performances with a Fall Concert for Friends and Family Weekend on Saturday, October 31st at 5:15 P.M. in Barler Recital Hall on the college campus in Aurora.  Admission to the concert is free, and the public is cordially invited to attend.

The three college singing groups, consisting of the women’s ensemble, the men’s ensemble, and the coeducational Concert Choir, will present a wide variety of choral music under the direction of Professor Crawford R. Thoburn of Wells’ music department.  The ensembles will be accompanied by pianist Russell Posegate, Lecturer in Music at Wells.

Alice Eve Cohen, the NYC playwright, actor, and puppeteer whose plays for young audiences HANNAH & THE HOLLOW CHALLAH, THE BALINESE FROG PRINCESS, and adult piece, THIN WALLS, have been enjoyed by many at the Kitchen Theatre, is returning with her hit show THE PARROT. We are thrilled to offer it to Kitchen Theatre audiences in our Family Fare series for a limited engagement - three performances only: Saturday, November 7 at 1pm & 3pm and Sunday, November 8 at 1pm.

The second annual Moonlight & Broadway Magic event to benefit the Hangar Theatre will be held at the Statler Hotel on the Cornell University campus Monday, November 9 at 7:00 p.m.

The evening’s featured entertainment will once again be provided by Broadway luminaries who come to Ithaca for the evening.  Hosted by Seth Rudetsky (Broadway host on Siruis/XM Radio), the benefit show will provide an inside look at Broadway stars caught in hilarious situations.  Rudetsky will be joined by Broadway actors Andréa Burns (In the Heights, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast), Lewis Cleale (Spamalot, The Fantasticks), and Ann Harada (Avenue Q, Les Misérables). They will perform a selection of Broadway crowd-pleasers and love songs, with a final song specially chosen to celebrate the Hangar’s Theatre’s renovated facility, slated to open in June, 2010.

SMART TALK
by Dr. Molto Breve

COUNTY SHERIFF:  Newscasters, who should know better, commit this redundancy frequently.  Lengua Loco County Sheriff, or Broken Wind County Sheriff, OK, but county sheriff?  As opposed to what? City sheriff?  A sheriff is always a county officer.

And while we're discussing elected officials (elected by the voters, the linguistically impaired would say), this is just as silly as saying city mayor or state governor.

Not much better than round circle, eh?

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Aurora, New York—The Wells College Theatre Department is pleased to present “Pygmalion,” the dramatic precursor to the Broadway hit “My Fair Lady.” Three performances of “Pygmalion” will be held in Phipps Auditorium of Macmillan Hall on the Wells College campus. Performances will be Friday and Saturday, October 30th and 31st, at 7:30 PM, and a Sunday matinee on November 1st at 2:00 PM.

“Pygmalion” set in the turn-of-the-century world of author George Bernard Shaw, is a witty commentary about the society of the early twentieth century. In a time when class boundaries are being shaken and reshaped, Henry Higgins (played by Mike Kalmanowitz ’10), a professional linguist, takes in a poor girl, Eliza Doolittle (Becca Danis '10), in a gamble that he can transform her into a noble lady. In doing so, his bachelor life becomes entangled with Eliza’s growth, and an interesting relationship buds between them. Throughout “Pygmalion,” class is shown as a strong figure in every life as it defines who the characters are, how they are treated in the future, and how they establish and maintain their relationships. With a realistic yet bright point of view, the show also looks into how love is defined in context of class and how the characters further define it.