Archive: Arts & Entertainment

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October is Silent Movie Month in Ithaca and in celebration of the City’s storied moviemaking past, the Tompkins County Public Library and Ithaca Motion Picture Project will partner for a month of programming and exhibits.

Opening October 1, “Lights, Camera, Silents!,” a photographic exhibit featuring a montage of pictures of local sets and locations used for filming movies by the famed Wharton Brothers.  This exhibit is the second to be displayed by IMPP at the Library.  Last fall, an 80-foot-long structural timeline of Ithaca’s movie-making history was exhibited as part of “Romance, Exploits and Peril:  When Movies Were Made in Ithaca,” a county-wide exhibition on the history of silent moviemaking and Ithaca's role in that history.

Hangar Theatre presents its third annual fall CabarETC season, a series of cabaret shows featuring one-night-only performances by local favorite vocalists and musicians including Catherine Gale, Sally Ramírez and Doug Robinson, Erica Steinhagen, Margaret Wakeley, as well as last season's sold-out smash-hit duo Jeremy Webb and Nat Chandler. The series runs on select dates from September 29th - December 8th.

This year's CabarETC series kicks off on September 29th at 8pm with Swing with Me: Jazz and the Great American Songbook a one-night-only appearance by jazz vocalist Catherine Gale and special guests from Ithaca College's music department who will be performing favorite selections and lesser known gems from the Great American Songbook including the works of Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Alec Wilder, and more re-imagined in a jazz context.

SMART TALK

by Dr. Parley Speake



EACH WAS BETTER THAN THE NEXT: Here at the Center for English as a First Language, we've had more and more patients presenting with a fascinating variation of Temporal Retentive Syndrome (TRS). In describing, for instance, a wonderful restaurant, they will say that each course was better than the next. They're exhibiting a disorder related to TRS known as Inadvertent Ranking Reversal Syndrome (IRRS). Obviously, if each item were better than the next, the quality would keep getting worse, not better. Right? Right. Think about it.

When we first encountered IRRS, we thought of it as a variant of Cerebral Constipation but decided that IRRS sufferers didn't exhibit enough symptoms to warrant such a dire diagnosis.

So how can our patients learn to say what they mean? We offer three options: Each was better than the one before, or - simple is better, you know - Each one got better. And simplest, and dropping the redundancy, Each got better.

We do have some difficulty turning on the logic switch in some of our patients, so they remember that Each was better than the next means things got steadily worse, and Each was worse than the next means things got better all the time. They seem to forget what next means.

Meaning the opposite of what one says has precedent in So don't I, meaning So do I. This too, like the title malady, is more prevalent among but not limited to less-educated speakers.

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The History Center will open its new temporary exhibition, Grippe: The Epidemic of 1918, on October 5 for the First Friday Gallery Night. From October 6 to December 18, the public will have the opportunity to learn all about the epidemic of Spanish influenza that struck the people of Tompkins County in 1918.

A story of tragedy, but also of hope and response, this exhibition will recount how our community and medical professionals dealt with this event in 1918, explain the science behind epidemics, and explore how our local community deals with epidemics now.

SMART TALK

by Dr. Winton "Windy" Prolix


A LITTLE WAYS: At the Center for English as a First Language, we often gather a the Fowler Lounge Fridays after work. We like to do this because we can unwind right on Center grounds, and we dislike this because we don't get out of Underbelly.

Staying in town means we see the commercials for Johnson's Used Car's: "This is Honest Al Johnson sayin' Y'all come on in to Johnson's Used Car's, just a little ways down from the Hotel Inn, rot here'n Underbelly, Texas."

This after a week of asking patients if they wouldn't say Just a short whiles, or Get out of my ways, or Where there's a will, there's a ways, why, oh why DO they say something's a long ways off?

And we've invited Al to come to come in for treatment, free of charge. His answer? "I talk as good as anybody anywheres around here. Shoot, I talk as good as my cousin Hubert Johnson, and he's the arts and gun show critic for the dadgum Underbelly Prerecorder. 'Sides, if they buy cars off me anyways, I could care less."

You can see why our staff psychologist, Dr. Viva Palaver, has a full schedule.

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A Dedication and Unveiling of an historic roadside marker in honor of Homer born Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818-1894), suffragist, abolitionist and temperance advocate will take place on Sunday, September 16 at 2:00 PM on the front lawn of the former 'Jenks Homestead' at 43 N. Main Street (Rte 11), Homer, NY.

Included in the celebration will be Sousa Marches, trumpet fanfares (David Shiffman), soprano soloists (Lucia Helgren & Pamela Poulin), pianist (Donna Anderson); a short walking tour led by Homer Town Historian & Lincoln Scholar, Martin Sweeney, to a splendid Reception nearby being catered by Linani's.  'Amelia' as portrayed by Pamela Poulin in costume will lead the ceremonies.

SMART TALK

by Dr. Will S. Sert

 

NONE WERE HURT: At the Institute for the Center for English as a First Language, I often join colleagues on Friday evening to unwind in the Fowler Lounge. If the news is on, though, we often get wound a bit tighter.

“The building collapsed with 30 people inside, but miraculously, none were hurt,” intones the talking head.

“In a local election, eight candidates ran for three school board seats, but due to lack of interest, none were chosen.”

By this time, Dr. “Windy” Prolix is throwing pretzels at the TV. “None was hurt, you bonehead!” he shouts. “None was chosen! Aren’t reporters supposed to have language skills?”

Dr. Amelia Raitt Payne, staff physician, looks up from her sarsaparilla and says, “Maybe these news people need better math skills. After all, we use singular verbs with zero and one and plural verbs with two or more: No one was here; two were here.”

“Why not just use common sense?” asks Dr. Saber S. Poder. “These chuckleheads manage to say ‘no one was hurt,’ and ‘no one was chosen’ correctly; why not just ask them to be consistent? None was hurt; none was chosen; it just makes sense.”

“Ha,” I said. “If people made sense and used consistent language, we wouldn’t have jobs.”

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The fifth production of the 2012 Hangar season is a true  American classic, Horton Foote's The Trip to Bountiful. This intensely moving and riveting story of acceptance and coming home again will be directed by the Hangar's Associate Artistic Director Stephanie Yankwitt (Hangar's Rounding Third) and features a cast of local favorites including Susannah Berryman (Hangar's Penelope of Ithaca, The Chalk Circle, Cabaret, andThe Rainmaker) and Jesse Bush (Hangar's Ever So Humble, Disney's Beauty and the Beast). The Trip to Bountiful will preview September 6, and run September 7 through September 15th.