Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Smart Talk - Preventive

: By Jim Evans; Entertainment; | Dec 6, 2013 |

SMART TALK SMART TALK

By Dr. Dot Pilcrow

PREVENTATIVE: We at the Center for English as a First Language often wonder how this abomination got started. We sit after work in our Fowler Lounge over glasses of shrub or switchel and bemoan the spread of polysyllabificationitis. Being the only facility in this great country that treats this disorder, we feel overwhelmed.
Preventative is a clear symptom of polysyllabificationitis. The word is preventive, and it does just fine without the extra syllable. Notice how it works: The verb is prevent, and the noun forms are preventive and prevention. For preventative to make any sense, the verb would have to be preventate to get preventative, and the other noun would have to be preventation. So stick to preventive if only to avoid sounding as if you quit school at 16, having finally finished third grade.

If preventative actually seems right to someone, ask them if they also say attentative or incentative, and why not.
Polysyllabificationitis may simply show that the speaker or writer is trying to sound more erudite than they are. Nothing like extra syllables and needless words to pretend they deserve more of our time.

A common cheap decoration on adjectives is the letter Y, thus adding an extra syllable for our complete lack of admiration. Brilliance becomes brilliancy. Vibrance becomes vibrancy. Resilience becomes resiliency. Another glass of switchel, please, this time with a bump.

Sometimes, such an invention actually becomes accepted. Crisp is a perfectly adequate word, but as far back as the 1300s, some folks noticed how crispy seemed to work even better somehow. Almost onomatopoetic. It began to see media use in snack food ads around 1960, and crispy went viral, as we say these days.

No preventive exists, nor should it, for such developments in a living language.

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Music and Muses - Lucky Peterson – 'I’m Ready'

: By Guy Krogh; Entertainment; | Dec 6, 2013 |

For those who have not clued into Buffalo, New York’s brightest blues star several decades running, allow me to introduce Lucky Peterson. This installment reviews his latest release, one of many in my blues collection. Let me simply say that if you get the chance to see Lucky live – do it! I’ve seen him twice (once at the Haunt) and the musicianship and show were simply phenomenal.

Lucky Peterson was born in 1964 in Buffalo and focuses on a fusion of contemporary blues mixed variously with soul, gospel, and rock. He is an accomplished vocalist, guitarist, and keyboard impresario who also plays several other instruments. Interestingly, he started his music career well before the age of 5, learning from his Father James Peterson, a blues musician and the owner of a blues nightclub in Buffalo called The Governor’s Inn. The club was a regular stop for blues artists such as Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, Koko Taylor and Willie Dixon. Anyway, as the story goes, Dixon saw Lucky Peterson performing at the age of 3 and liked what he saw. However, when Dixon saw Lucky playing live at the club at the age of 5, he took Lucky on as a student prodigy. At the tender age of 5, Lucky was playing live on television on the The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, among other TV appearances. The age of 5 was also when his first album was released, literally to some acclaim.

Downtown Ithaca Welcomes New Art Gallery

: By -Staff; Entertainment; | Nov 29, 2013 |

On Friday, December 6th at 5:00 PM, the Downtown Ithaca Alliance and City of Ithaca Mayor Svante L. Myrick will hold a ribbon cutting for Anazima (123 South Cayuga Street, Studio 302).

Amazima, owned by husband-and-wife team Samite and Sandra Mulonodo, is a new boutique art gallery and studio space featuring Samite's photography from Africa and his elegant hand-carved bowls and platters.

Hangar Celebrates 19 Years of Theatre as an Educational Tool

: By Sharon Marmora; Entertainment; | Nov 22, 2013 |

Hangar Theatre's Project 4 program celebrates its nineteenth year of introducing theatre as an educational tool in local fourth grade classrooms. Fulfilling the company's mission to support community arts education and outreach, the Hangar collaborates with schools to establish residencies for teaching artists. These artists work with classroom teachers and students to create original plays and music based on the school's curriculum. The works are then performed for the entire school and also on the Hangar stage. Project 4 runs now through March 28, 2014 and serves ninelocal elementary schools including Newfield, Cayuga Heights, Enfield, Caroline, Northeast, South Hill, Fall Creek, Belle Sherman, and Beverly J. Martin. The performances are free and open to the public.

Newfield Elementary recently completed its Project 4 residency, which culminated with a final performance at Hangar Theatre for family, friends, and supporters. A selection of Newfield fourth graders will reprise their original songs and present them at Cayuga Radio Group's Apple for the Teacher Banquet on November 20th.

Is He Dead?

: By Karen Veaner; Entertainment; | Nov 22, 2013 |

The Lansing High School production of 'Is He Dead?' continues tonight and tomorrow (November 22 and 23) at 7-m in the Lansing Middle School Auditorium. A destitute artist fakes his own death to increase the value of his paintings in this hilarious farce by Mark Twain. He returns in drag, posing as his own sister and the laughs begin.
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Smart Talk - 140 Characters Or Less

: By Jim Evans; Entertainment; | Nov 8, 2013 |

SMART TALK SMART TALK

by Dr. Thorn Schwa

140 CHARACTERS OR LESS: Down here in Underbelly, Texas, we at the Center for English as a First Language have heard of a Northeastern supermarket chain with signs saying 15 Items or Fewer over the express registers. This astonishes us. If they hire staff who actually speak English as a first language, imagine their stores. No produce signs advertising apple's or banana's or peach's. Maybe they even have Parking for Handicapped instead of Handicapped Parking; who knows?

Not knowing the difference between less and fewer indicates a language deficiency. We can treat it, and even move on to the difference between that and which. We have great success, but potential patients too often aren't even aware of their disorder.

Here's how it works: Less always refers to volume. Fewer always refers to numbers. Always!

Less dough makes fewer cookies. Less gas will take you fewer miles. One person fewer (NOT one less person) makes less of a crowd. Owning less stock means you own fewer shares.

Is this at least starting to sink in? If it is, you'll notice that whoever says 140 characters or less is a twit.

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The Temptations Come To Ithaca

: By Casey Martin; Entertainment; | Nov 8, 2013 |

Motown Legends The Temptations will be performing at The State Theatre’s 85th Birthday celebration on Friday, December 6th.

The quintessential Motown vocal group, The Temptations offer a rich blend of voices accompanied by stylish, coordinated dance moves. With songs and production from some of Motown’s brightest lights - most notably Smokey Robinson and Norman Whitfield - the Temptations have lived up to their billing as emperors of soul. During the gilded age of soul music in general and Motown in particular, the Temptations delivered the intricate harmonies of street corner serenaders and the polished choreography of a Sixties soul revue.

Split Knuckle Theatre Company at Wells

: By David Foote; Entertainment; | Nov 8, 2013 |

The Wells College Arts and Lecture Series welcomes the Split Knuckle Theatre Company for a performance of their innovative production “Endurance.” The performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, November 21, in Phipps Auditorium of Macmillan Hall on the Wells College campus. Admission is free, and all are cordially invited to attend.

Trapped in Antarctica with no hope of rescue, the British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton kept 27 men alive for two years in the most inhospitable climate on earth. “Endurance” recreates this story 95 years later through the experiences of Hartford insurance man Walter Spivey, as he struggles to justify his recent promotion and save his employees’ jobs in the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression. The office of four, led by Spivey, attempts to draw inspiration from one of the greatest leaders in human history and survive the ravages of the corporate world.

'Once On This Island' at Lansing Middle School

: By Karen Veaner; Entertainment; | Nov 8, 2013 |

The Lansing Middle School production of 'Once On This Island Jr.', a contemporary, Caribbean-flavored musical based on The Little Mermaid, continues its run tonight and tomorrow (Friday and Saturday, November 8 and 9 at 7:30pm) at the Lansing Middle School Auditorium

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ICSD Arts Initiatives Increase Student Participation

: By Martha Frommelt; Entertainment; | Nov 8, 2013 |

David Brown, Ithaca City School District (ICSD) Fine and Performing Arts Director, lauded the work of district staff in outreach to students. Brown reported on the 'State of the Arts' at a recent Fine Arts Booster Group meeting, discussing arts initiatives and efforts that align with ICSD Board of Education goals.

“Due to some restructuring and rearrangements, some ICSD schools are seeing a 50% increase in students signing up for instrumental music, such as Enfield Elementary Band,” stated Brown. In addition, these initiatives are increasing options for students including the first-ever Ithaca High School Dance class, art assistance in special education, AP Art History, AP Music Theory and a Technical Theater Club.

Ithaca Children’s Choir Fall Concert

: By Michael Ludgate; Entertainment; | Nov 8, 2013 |

The Community School of Music and Arts (CSMA) announced the Ithaca Children’s Choir (ICC) Fall Concert, titled "Sing To Me," under the direction of Dr. Janet Galván on Tuesday, November 19th at 7:30 pm in St. Paul's United Methodist Church, 402 N. Aurora St., Ithaca.

“The program will be one of great variety,” states Dr. Janet Galván, ICC Artistic Director. “The Ithaca Children’s Choir is the area's first group that embraced multicultural repertoire and has fostered teaching in cultural and social context.”

Smart Talk - Restauranteur

: By Jim Evans; Entertainment; | Oct 25, 2013 |

SMART TALK SMART TALK

by Dr. Perse Nickety

RESTAURANTEUR: Staff at the Center for English as a First Language like to eat out now and then. However, we stopped patronizing Eat Here, Diet Home in downtown Underbelly, here in Texas, once we heard Chef Tomayne call himself a restauranteur. The word has no N in it, in spelling or pronunciation.

The word restaurant originally meant a place where you get restored, since you arrived tired, hungry, and thirsty. That made the proprietor a restorer, or, to mangle the English into something more like the original French, a restorator. Restaurateur is exactly that, and happens to be the word we use today. If English is our first language, that is.

Remember that seafood chain's embarrassing commercial for "N-less shrimp?" Restaurateur actually is N-less. You may need to practice that. You'll sound much smarter.

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Garmhausen @ FOUND

: By Debra Moree; Entertainment; | Oct 25, 2013 |

The Gallery @ FOUND will host a new show by Jim Garmhausen. 'Once More With Feeling' opens on Wednesday, October 30th and will hang in the Gallery through Sunday, December 1st.

Garmhausen is drawn to the beauty and craftsmanship of a former age, and to the aging process itself: the lines spider-webbing through oil paint; the weathered, peeling siding of a barn; brittle books with inscriptions in dip pen; rusted metal. Books with yellowed pages have a particular appeal as do vintage toys, aged metal and wood, and rusted tools with brittle handles. He collects these things and keeps them, much the way some people take in lost pets. As misunderstood and forgotten objects, left behind by a long-gone family, or a child grown up and moved away.

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