Archive: Arts & Entertainment

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Smart TalkSMART TALK
By  Dr. Saber S. Poder

THE LA BREA TAR PITS:  Some years back, my colleague, Dr. Verbos Metikulos, came to the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired from his native Greece.  Speaking perfect English, he fit right in with the rest of the staff and seemed content.  But today, he was clearly upset.  He strode into my office, threw a magazine onto my desk, and started pacing.

"What are they thinking?" he shouted.  "In 2007 they don't know enough Spanish to know that La Brea means ‘The Tar?'  Who would name a place The The Tar Tar Pits?  It could only be worse if they called it The La Brea Hoyos Tar Pits!"

I could only nod ruefully and tell him that redundant place names are as American as redundant government programs. 

Then I took out a map and showed him the Rio Grande River.

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Smart TalkSMART TALK
By Dr. Viva Palaver

LAG BEHIND:  Actually, all you're doing is lagging.  After all, as we tell our patients, you can't lag ahead.

You can lag behind the main group, but if you have no object for the preposition ("behind"), you have no need for a behind, either.  In that sentence.

As staff psychologist at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, I ask patients who lag behind whether they remember getting left by the big kids.  From that pain may come a compulsion to say left behind, left remaining, last of all, and last remnant.

Imagine the depth of the hurt that could cause such linguistic impairment.

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The Finger Lakes regions only locally produced weekly interview show "Out of Bounds" will begin its third year in 2008. Since April of 2005, Tish Pearlman's intimate, informative, and entertaining interviews have been delighting public radio listeners all over much of central New York, and beyond. The program airs every Thursday at 7PM on WEOS-FM (Geneva-Ithaca) NY.

No other local show features in-depth conversations with national Luminaries such as John W. Dean, Deboran Tannen, Howard Zinn, Nell Newman, Jeremy Scahill, Janis Ian, Holly Near, Susan Estrich, Peggy Seeger, Marge Piercy, Chris Hedges, Daniel Mendelshon, Lesley Gore, Alan Weisman, and Amy Dickinson.

While Cornell's Schwartz Center, and the Kitchen and Hangar Theatres brought a variety of plays to the area, Lansing students were no slouches.  Among many band, orchestra and cabaret performances were outstanding as well as high stepping.  The High School gave us 42nd Street, and the Middle School performed Guys and Dolls Junior.

We couldn't let the year pass without mentioning our regular volunteer columnists.  Jim Evans, Sam Bellotto Jr., and Allison Veaner hold the record for being in every single issue of the Lansing Star since it began publishing regular issues in July of 2005.  Evan's SMART TALK is a smart, funny, and sassy challenge to all of us to use our language as it is meant to be used, with words meaning specific things that communicate ideas in ways we can all understand.  Bellotto has generously provided us with weekly crossword puzzles for each issue, and is the author of the Crossdown software that he uses to create them, and we use to display them in the Star.  Veaner is the voice of the homeless SPCA animals who are featured each week.

We couldn't let the year pass without mentioning our regular volunteer columnists.  Jim Evans, Sam Bellotto Jr., and Allison Veaner hold the record for being in every single issue of the Lansing Star since it began publishing regular issues in July of 2005.  Evan's SMART TALK is a smart, funny, and sassy challenge to all of us to use our language as it is meant to be used, with words meaning specific things that communicate ideas in ways we can all understand.  Bellotto has generously provided us with weekly crossword puzzles for each issue, and is the author of the Crossdown software that he uses to create them, and we use to display them in the Star.  Veaner is the voice of the homeless SPCA animals who are featured each week. 

Her brother Ben pens the Lansing Cafe comic, and would have also made the record but for a broken collar bone last year.  You could say that he has been in every issue, though, because we ran favorite Lansing Cafe cartoons while he was recovering.  And of course there is Lansing's own advice columnist, Ask IMO (In My Opinion).  Matthew P. Binkewicz pens the IMO columns with wit and wisdom.

• Lansing Meets Those Dancing Feet
• Luck Be a Lady Tonight
• Lansing High School's Tartuffe
  

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Smart TalkSMART TALK
By Clara Dix, N.P.

LACERATIONS AND CONTUSIONS:  I know I'll offend those with a vested interest in self-importance, but doggone it, say cuts and bruises!  That's all you mean.

Using inflated synonyms is a special, pretentious form of linguistic impairment called William F. Buckley Syndrome.  We considered naming it W.C. Fields Syndrome, because he was known to report a fight in the street as an altercation in the thoroughfare.  However, he did that for comic effect, and we find nothing funny in obfuscation.  At the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired, we treat sufferers of this syndrome at the Alfred Kahn Clinic.

We have a heck of a time, though.  Many of our patients can't shake the illusion that they sound smarter when they add syllables and drift back to government agencies or writing for scholarly journals.

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The Kitchen Theatre Company continues its 17th Main Stage Season with a world premiere musical by Rachel Lampert and Larry Pressgrove. BED NO BREAKFAST has previews January 17 and 18, press opening January 19, and runs through February 10, 2008.

The musical features a host of quirky characters who are also escaping the cold. In BED NO BREAKFAST, six people are waylaid by a blizzard in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and seek shelter at the UP B&B - a bed and breakfast probably not found on the list of "best cozy and quaint" places to stay. The owner would prefer no guests at all and was certainly not expecting so many this particular night. And what a group it is! Compounding the lack of camaraderie of the group is the lack of comforts of the inn. How long can strangers wait out a storm outside before a storm erupts inside?