Triple Cities Carousel May 2014

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CAROUSELmay 2014 vol. 2 issue 4

living local. loving life.

May 2014 Triple Cities Carousel 3

contents.

HEY THERE, PUNK.SEND LETTERS TO US. MAYBE WE’LL PRINT THEM.

[email protected] CITIES CAROUSEL

P.O. BOX 2947 BINGHAMTON, NY 13902

Publisher/Editor-in-ChiefChristopher Bodnarczuk

Assistant EditorsHeather Merlis, Ronnie Vuolo

Creative Consulant/Calendar GuruTy Whitbeck

AdvertisingChristopher Bodnarczuk, Kathleen Klein, Ahlpheh Ohtis Wilson

Staff WritersCharles Berman, Stacey Burke, Ilana Lipowicz, Kaitlin Mooney, Maria “Murph” Murphy,

Rose Silberman-Gorn, Krissy Howard, Felicia Waynesboro, Ahlpheh Ohtis Wilson

ContributorsGreg Klyma, Molly McGrath, Paul O’Heron, Kevin Salisbury, Phil Wescott, Eric Yetter

PhotographyTy Whitbeck

Layout/DesignChristopher Bodnarczuk

Youth LiasonAhlpheh Ohtis Wilson

PrinterOur Press. Chenango Bridge, NY

On the CoverCopper Mask -Charlie Robins

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editorial...............................................................4music.....................................................................5mother’s day.....................................................11comedy................................................................12art.......................................................................14events calendar..............................................15theatre and dance..........................................21food and drink.................................................25crossword........................................................27fun stuff............................................................28

4 Vol. 2 Issue 5

editorial.[This month, Carousel sadly has to say goodbye to two of our amazing staffers. Kaitlin is moving on to pursue a degree in Pharmacology in NYC, and we also say goodbye to our wonderful intern Ilana. Well, that’s not true. She’s staying on as a staff writer, thankfully. What we really have to say goodbye to is ‘hey, we need you to write/edit/research/design/do this, because we don’t want to do write/edit/research/design/do do this ourselves.’ Ilana has been instrumental in the success of this paper over the last few months, and while we’ll miss her in the office, we’re thrilled that we’ll continue to feature her writing each month. It seems only fitting to give this month’s editorial to her. Read on:]

Last September, I was walking past the newspaper racks in the BU student union when I noticed a particularly conspicuous cover, filled to its borders with a beautiful painted portrait of a man looking sternly yet kindly in my direction. His eyes seemed to follow me like the gaze of the Mona Lisa, daring me not to pick it up. Flipping through it, it struck me as the kind of paper that could harbor the sort of creative journalism I wanted to try my hand at constructing. A creative writing major relying on the favor of the gods to lead me to a career that calls for my important, but hard to quantify skillset, journalism seemed the natural course for compromise.

Journalism today rests on the cusp of art and equation, at its most basic offering no more than the who, what, where, and why of things, filling up the skeleton of a rigid formula that leaves no room for flesh and certainly no trace of a soul. Some online news channels are starting to embrace robot journalism- programs designed to write reports on breaking news stories using a series of algorithms.

I’m thankful for print journalism for its greater tendency to embrace the human side of a story. More than anything, what has always attracted me to literature is storytelling, and it is my belief that good journalism is still artful literature, unique in that the stories are not invented but happening in real space and time, and the writer’s task is to find the meat and soul of the story and relate it truly.

Before becoming Carousel’s intern, I had only been in Binghamton for a year, and through the writing, the research, and the tidbits I’ve learned through conversations with people around town and endlessly drifting in and out of CyberCafé West, that initial skeletal picture of the place where I live has been fleshed out with all of the personalities and stories that dwell here. I’ve been pleased to have access to all the rich narratives and details I’ve found that I would not have thought to invent. The Triple Cities are strewn with flesh when you know how to find it, and I feel lucky to be a part of a paper that tells you just that.

-Ilana Lipowicz


music.

By now, it is likely you have heard the news about Big Splash.

The two day travelling music and sustainability fes-tival, which in years past has brought the likes of Robert Randolph and Donna the Buffalo (as well as thousands of music lovers) to Binghamton’s Recre-ation Park, will not be returning to the West Side this Memorial Day Weekend.

Due to a last minute decision by Mayor David’s of-fice, permits for the festival, which was planning its fourth Memorial Day Weekend event in Rec. Park, were denied. With musicians booked, anticipation high, and less than a month to work with, the orga-nizers have quickly secured a new location, ensur-ing that the event will live on, albeit 20 miles away in Owego.

The mayor’s office has gone on record stating that the permit denial was a matter of timing: they plan to open the park’s carousel and pool on Saturday, May 24th, rather than on Memorial Monday, as has happened in years past, and because of that, they wish to keep the park clear of any major events (as of press time, they have not returned our calls for a quote).

This move has sparked some serious debate amongst festival loyalists, who claim the permit denial was a political move on the part of Mayor David’s administration. Some are claiming fracking is a factor. Others are claiming former Mayor Matt Ryan’s past involvement with the festival is a factor.

Indeed, Big Splash began four years ago as a one-off event to educate the public on the dangers of

cased and the family friendly atmosphere they pro-jected. At last year’s festival, hundreds of families picnicked on blankets while watching performanc-es by Donna the Buffalo and local favorites Drift-wood. The year before that, supergroup The Word (featuring Robert Randolph, the North Mississippi All-Stars, and John Medeski) headlined. The origi-nal event even featured a reunion by Binghamton’s most storied band, Yolk, who rose to fame in the 90s and toured heavily with jam favorites moe.

As is the case with the other large-scale festivals in Binghamton (think Spiedie Fest, July Fest, Blues on the Bridge), the influx of thousands of visitors to town doesn’t keep its influence within the confines of the festival. The loss of Big Splash in Rec. Park will no doubt be felt by the countless local hotels, eateries, and bars that have come to rely on over-flow from the Memorial Day Weekend festival.

“It was a stupid move to kick them out,” claims one anonymous attendee from last year’s festival. “I don’t think it was political. I think it was just stu-pid. Think of all the money businesses will lose. Who doesn’t want to hear live music?”

While Mayor David’s office did offer use of the park on later dates, Big Splash was forced to look elsewhere. With musical acts already booked and a Memorial Day tradition intact, it was too late in the game to pick a different weekend.

“We don’t want the residents of Binghamton to think we’re abandoning them,” says McNamara. “We really wanted to stay. But, we weren’t wanted.”

And so the festival is moving to nearby Owego. Goodbye Binghamton Big Splash. Hello Susque-hanna River Big Splash.

“In one sense, it’s actually going to be a good thing,” continues McNamara. “Owego’s closer to Ithaca

hydraulic fracturing, a cause which former Mayor Ryan was heavily involved in (he spoke at several of the festivals, and even jumped onstage with a har-monica at one). Mayor David is a supporter of the controversial drilling method. Last year, the festi-val broadened its scope significantly, claiming they were not producing an “anti-fracking rally,” but a “sustainability fair” instead.

“It’s a more solution based response to environ-mental action,” festival organizer Jon McNamara told Carousel in 2013, when we first interviewed him. “Big Splash was an awareness based festival- we wanted to get the word out about the dangers of hydrofracking and let people make their own deci-sion. By now, we feel everyone has made a decision one way or another. We need to introduce technol-ogies and concepts that are new and haven’t been used. The only real way to win the fight against hydrofracking is to not need it, because you don’t need the energy.”

At the 2013 festival, informational booths lined the park, not to condemn fracking, but to offer festi-val-goers a chance to explore wind and solar energy alternatives. During initial planning for the 2014 event, Mayor David had even been invited to speak about his support of Southern Tier Solar Works, a local solar initiative that aims to create jobs and re-duce carbon imprint in the region.

Of course, Big Splash has always been more than just an informational fair. It has always been, pri-marily, a music festival.

“It’s a lot more than an environmental event. It’s a showcase of the great arts scene and businesses in the area,” said McNamara in a more recent in-terview.

Previous Big Splashes have been a big hit with the local community, because of the music they show-

and Corning, and we’re hoping to get a bunch of new faces there!”

Buffalo Zydeco (featuring members of Donna the Buffalo) and One Fly Down (featuring all but one member of psychedelic old-time band The Horse Flies) will headline Saturday night, and Bingham-ton’s own Driftwood fill the Sunday headlining spot. As of press time, the lineup is still being added to, but Ithaca hip-hop act Thousands of One is con-firmed, as Big Mean Sound Machine.

And the Binghamton scene will still play a very big part: local favorites Milkweed, Alpha Brass Band, The Falconers, Tumbleweed Highway, the Wood-shed Prophets, and the Zydeco Po’ Boys will all be playing the two day event.

There will also be an array of informational booths, plus craft and food vendors. Local craft beer will be available as well.

One big plus of the Owego move is curfew. While the Rec. Park festival has traditionally ended at 8pm, the new location, at Marvin Park, allows for music to continue until 10pm. With gates opening at noon each day, there’s going to be a whole lot of revelry going on.

So it’s not within walking distance anymore. Make the trek anyway. It’ll be worth it.

The Susquehanna River Big Splash Festival takes place May 24th and 25th in Owego’s Marvin Park Tickets are available in advance at Cyber Café West in Binghamton and at Las Chicas Taqueria in Owego. Weekend Passes run $20/advance, $25/gate. Day Tickets are $10/advance, $15/gate. Kids 12 and under are free. For more info and a complete lineup, visit grassrootsfestival.org.

Chris BodnarczukEditor-in-Chief

BIG SPLASH GETS BOOTED FROM REC. PARK,FINDS A NEW HOME IN OWEGO

Last year’s Big Splash Festival at Rec. Park. Photo by Ty Whitbeck

6 Vol. 2 Issue 5

Matt and Kim, the world renowned in-die-rock duo from Brooklyn, NY, will be headlining Binghamton University’s an-nual Spring Fling on May 3rd.

Matt and Kim reached the charts in 2009, with the release of their single ‘Daylight’. The song was a lo-fi dance hit and is a staple of national and local radio. It’s safe to say that if you like indie-pop mu-sic, you have probably heard some of their music. They have recently joined the ranks of artists like Tegan and Sara and Passion Pit in creating a new dance music, fueled by synth but not in quite the same overwhelming fashion as seen in EDM or pop. A combination of light synth and drums with bom-bastic happy vocals, their music is, in one word, fun. Their melodies are simple yet catchy, and the blasting drums make you want to get up and dance. In contrast to the indie-pop of Bon Iver, the lyrics are easily understandable, witty, and unpre-tentious. It doesn’t hurt that their last music video made for their latest single ‘It’s Alright’ is undeni-ably sexy. They are booked on some of the cooler festivals this summer, such as Electric Forest and the Capitol Hill Block Party. Contributing writer Phil Wescott was able to ask drummer Kim Schifi-no a few questions recently. Read her answers here, and get excited for what sounds like a phenomenal experience.

vvv

Your shows are known for their fever-pitch energy. What fuels you to perform at such a high level? Honestly, it’s the crowd. The crazier the crowd gets, the more amped that gets us. I get excited when I see people going nuts, crowd surfing and giving it their all. I feel like if we played in front

ing to go gold? When our manager contacted us and said a gold record was being delivered to us. I still think it’s crazy to look up and see a gold record on our wall. We recorded that ourselves in Matt’s childhood bedroom.

You recently played a big show in Mexico City. How was that? How do international crowds differ from stateside? We actually just got off the flight from Mexico City! The show was nuts. The promoter told us that neighbors of the venue were calling the venue because the building was shaking. The crowd was amazing there. I feel like crowds don’t really differ. Usually we are play-ing to people who are out to have a good time and let loose- doesn’t matter where they live.

There are videos of you guys crowd surfing at concerts all over social media, including one where Kim is “shaking her booty” over the crowd. Is there a reason you love to dive into your fans? I think it comes from the type of shows we used to go to and what we want. We’ve al-ways had our shows like we did from the beginning. When we started we always played house shows, loft parties, art spaces, etc. They were parties more than they were shows. You played on the floor sur-rounded by everyone. As the shows got bigger, we wanted to keep that intimacy.

Any advice for those bands just starting out? Play short sets! If people aren’t familiar with your band then don’t play for an hour and a half. And the big one we always live by…. do it because you love it!!

The concert starts at 6pm with a student band, 3LAU, Joey Bada$$, and RDGRNGLN opening. It’s also free, so that doesn’t hurt. Don’t miss this chance; you never know when the next show this big and this free will come around again!

What’s the story behind the music video for ‘It’s Alright’? Matt came up with that one. He comes up with a lot of our video ideas. I think it came from when we shared a twin bed for 3 years and when one person moved the other had to fol-low.

When did you know that ‘Daylight’ was go-

of a crowd who didn’t want to party, it would be a totally different show.

What artist are you most excited about shar-ing the stage with this summer? [I’m] excited to see Chance the Rapper. We checked out his show in [New York City] a few months back. I think he is on a few of the festivals we are doing this summer.

INDIE-POP MAINSTAYS MATT & KIM

we’re not singing our own compositions, Patrick will perform some of his favorites by Townes; Corty is taking on the massive catalog of Bob Dylan mate-rial; I’m doing my level best to channel Tom Petty. Call it “playing tribute.” We’ll play some of these songs solo. We’ll collaborate on the rest- singing harmonies and picking out leads. The show is load-ed with dynamics!

It’s hardly new for artist to imitate (or emulate) their heroes. Townes Van Zandt recorded covers of Hank Williams, and he even took it so far as to die on New Year’s Day. On his early albums, it’s obvi-ous that Bob Dylan had a bowl of Woody Guthrie for breakfast, and the influence of old folk ballads and blues music is present throughout his stag-gering career. When you hear the jangly guitars and his vocal inflections, it is clear that Tom Petty was influenced by the Byrds, the Beatles and Bob Dylan; three acts who, incidentally, were all influ-encing each other in real time. The question has been asked in a famous song: Will the circle be un-broken? On the Spring Roadshow tour we offer this answer: not on our watch.

If you share our appreciation of the music of these legendary songwriters... if you understand that this music lives and breathes... if you like to be engaged and sing along... if you’re game for a good time... MARK YOUR CALENDAR. We’re bringing the good time to Binghamton, NY on Friday, May 2nd.

Cyber Cafe West is located at 176 Main St. in Bing-hamton, NY. There is a $5 cover. Music starts at 9pm. This stop of the “For the Sake of the Song” Roadshow is presented by Cyber Cafe West and Triple Cities Carousel.

the artists who have influenced their art. On a given night in Somerville or Cambridge, MA, you might find a number of us musician-types have gathered to play a concert with a theme. That theme might be John Prine. Or Joni Mitchell. Or Steve Earle. The list goes on.

Twice a year, there is a For the Sake of the Song Roadshow that travels about the region, carrying with it the spirit of the historic and vibrant Boston music scene. I toured with the Roadshow in Octo-ber 2013, and it was a hoot. When Patrick invited me to join the tour again this Spring, well, seeing as how I’ve been doing the road since August 1998, I didn’t need a lot of convincing. When we were put-ting our heads together on who might best round out the lineup, at first we were focusing on our hometown friends. Then I returned to Somerville from a stint through Pennsylvania and had a clear vision for this tour. His name is Corty Byron. He

[EDITOR’S NOTE: We were approached a while back about presenting “For the Sake of the Song,” a wild roadshow paying homage to, well, the song. Of course, we jumped on it. The idea was too cool to turn down. In antic-ipation of the show, we felt the only true way for readers to understand what the road-show was about was to hear it straight from the source. Greg Klyma, one of the involved musicians, was nice enough to oblige.]

At the time Charles Caleb Colton wrote it down, it was an aphorism. It has appeared in so many col-lections of memorable quotes that it’s become a cliche. Still, it’s no less true today than when it was first put into words: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

On Friday May 2nd, a ragtag trio (including my-self) is going to take the stage at Cyber Cafe West in Binghamton. They will be paying forward the promise of the music created by Townes Van Zan-dt, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. You’re going to want to be there.

For the Sake of the Song is the title of a Townes Van Zandt song. It is also a Boston-based concert series dreamed up by Patrick Coman. It (the series, not the song) features an ever-changing mixture of some of the Northeast’s best songwriters, collabo-rating to perform the music from and inspired by

PLAYING TRIBUTE: FOR THE SAKE OF THE SONG

CELEBRATE THE SEASON AT BU’S SPRING FLING

resides in Lancaster. He’s a force of nature.

The way I understand it, expectations inform every-thing. If you expect something to taste sweet and it turns out to be salty, you’ll likely be let down. So here’s a taste of what to expect when the Roadshow plays First Fridays at Cyber Cafe West on May 2:

We’ll take the stage and likely play a song written by one of us. Or maybe we’ll be feeling like kicking things off with that popular Bob Dylan song. You know the one I’m talking about. Expect that I’ll probably be playing mandolin. That is, of course, unless I decide I’d rather play my acoustic guitar. Patrick will definitely be playing guitar, maybe elec-tric. Corty will also be playing guitar, but you’ll still be so captivated by his beard that it’ll take you a couple more songs before you notice this.

We’ll all sing lead on our respective songs. When

Phil WescottContributing Writer

Greg KlymaContributing Writer

Matt and Kim. Photo by Caleb Kohl.

For the sake of the Song. Photo provided by Greg Klyman.


In 1966, a promising young British musician took it upon himself to send some samples of his music to Eric Burden, lead singer of The Animals and the voice behind the classic “House of the Rising Sun.” Burden liked what he heard, and in turn sent the recordings to some friends who were looking for new members for their blues-rock band. That band was

the Moody Blues, and upon hearing the music of the young, but accomplished Justin Hayward, they asked him to join the band.

The rest, as they say, is history. Hayward was at home in the frontman position of the Moody Blues- playing guitar and singing- and catapulted the band into fame and fortune. The Moody Blues were a fairly well known band by the time Hayward joined, but it was with his added creativity that they went on to record the legendary Days of Future Past, which contained the Hayward penned “Nights in White Satin.” The album, an early exploration into the fusion

of rock and roll and classical music, provided an early template for what came to be known as “Prog Rock,” and has since become a staple in every audiophile’s collection.

The Moodies recorded several other hits, and continue to tour to this day. Hayward found a future with them and with solo projects, and found further fame with several hits in the 1980s. Almost half a century

since his initial contact with Burden, Hayward continues to tour and record. He recently ended a tour with the Moody Blues, and is now occupying his time with a two month solo tour, which kicks off on May 14th in Pittsfield, MA, and makes a stop at Binghamton University’s Anderson Center on the 19th.

Carousel was able to touch base recently with Hayward, who called us on a rainy afternoon from Paris, France. Here’s how it happened:

Last month you embarked on the second Moody Blues Cruise… how did that go? Any highlights? Is it nice to be able to connect with the fans in such an intimate environ-

ment? It’s went very well. I like the music bit the most, apart from the movie shows. I wish they’d let me be more direct with the fans. Everyone seems to enjoy it, though! With everything happening, I think they could do it without the band playing, and the fans would still be happy.

What is it about the Moody Blues that has such staying power? Probably it’s that we’ve

gone our own way. For me, I think a lot of it has to do with the freedom- to write without an A&R guy standing over

us. We were lucky in the early days, with Decca: They said “we don’t know what you’re doing, but we like it!” And they let

us do it. That’s what’s needed, someone prepared to accept what the musicians will give them, someone that will trust our judgment and let us go.

Tell us a bit about your solo work. Do you have more freedom in your songwriting as a solo act? I’m able to say things on my own, whereas with the Moody Blues, I hesitate to speak for the whole group. I’ve been the gatekeeper of the Moody catalogue for years now, and I’m proud of that. A couple of years ago, our producer mentioned that the things he and I would toy around with would be good live. That’s what I do now. I bring my acoustic guitar out, and have a grand time.

Is there any one song or project from your career that you are most proud of? I think the best time for me- I was a bit stoned for the 60s part- but London in the 60s… It was

a privilege to be a part of a scene like that, you know, with the Beatles at the center. I was so busy trying to get by though, that I missed a lot of it. Then, the 80s, with the success of “I Know You’re Out There Somewhere”… to see singles on the charts;

that was wonderful.

How do you feel about the current state of popular mu-sic? There’ll always be a kid walking down the street with a great

song to turn me on. Great records will stay with you. I really think there are some great things happening now. And yeah, people can

discriminate between a product and a genuine artist. I give credit for that. I’m back to my childhood, now- with iTunes

and Spotify, I’m buying singles again! I really like Ben Rector and the Divine Fits. I don’t know if I’d want to be starting out these days, but I’m glad someone is!

Any advice for those young musicians just start-ing out? You have to develop your own style, and stick to

that. Trust your judgment. Find your essence, then elaborate on that. If I had listened more to that voice, my own voice, in the beginning, things would be different. Trust your judgment.

Justin Hayward comes to Binghamton University’s Anderson Center for the Performing Arts on Monday, May 19th. Seating is reserved, and tickets are on sale now for $35. They can be purchased at the Anderson Center box

office, by calling 607-777-ARTS, or online at Binghamton.edu/anderson-center.

JUSTIN HAYWARDTALKS MUSIC, MOODIES, AND MORE

by Chris Bodnarczuk

Justin Hayward. Photo by Marcus Way.

8 Vol. 2 Issue 5

There’s a new block party coming to Bing-hamton, and it’s happening on Chestnut Street. Pioneering what’s turned out to be a lofty endeavor is Kristen Vynorius, a 19 year old part-time student at BU.

It is to be called Chestfest, and Kristen plans for it to be only the first installment of an annual fes-tival that brings local people and students together to share art and music, and a fun, friendly atmo-sphere. They idea of a block party on the Chestnut St. came to her on a ski trip, while she was speak-ing with another student who she learned was her neighbor. “You know when you have those ideas where you think to yourself, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if somebody did ____?’ So I just thought, well, why someone else? This is something I can do.”

However, the task is certainly not a one man job. The Chestfest team consists of Vynorius, Gavyn Humphrey, Luke Thrasher, Adam Van Guilder, and Ryan Carbone, all of whom are involved in prepar-ing the event through finding sponsorship, promot-ing, stage managing, or general organization.

As a part-time student living off campus and work-ing within the community, Kristen feels lucky to have the time and the connections needed in order to plan an event like this, not to mention some pri-or experience with event promotion. Don’t let the blue hair fool you- she’s incredibly professional for her young age and has all the energy and ambition needed to pull off a big show in a small amount of time.

The party starts bright and early at 10am on May 10th, and continues on through the evening. Chest-nut, between Leroy and Davis on Binghamton’s West Side, will be transformed into a concert space, a dance stage, a carnival, and a bazaar… all at once.

“We have Jungle Science coming. We have lots of local artisans, lots of jewelry makers, just a big wide representation of all the beautiful things there are to go and check out in Binghamton.” As the party is scheduled for the day before Mother’s Day, they are also expecting to have some vendors selling flowers, and possibly chocolate, so that slackers can pick up a last minute gift.

There won’t be a quiet or dull moment through-out the day. The musical lineup consists of 10 live bands, starting with Liberty Belle and the Union Boys and ending with Milkweed, as well as 20 DJs. Sometime in between, there will be performances by a hula-hooping squad, as well as one by Bing-hamton’s resident fire dancer, Amber Tedesco. If the idea of fiery batons being whirled around in your vicinity is making you sweat, don’t worry- there will be a dunk tank nearby (and rumor has it Mayor David has volunteered to get dunked, in case that’s something you’d like to see).

Chestfest is aiming to be everything you could want out of a summer festival. If all goes as planned, what you’ll see at the festival is a microcosm of Bingham-

ton’s arts scene, condensed into two blocks on one of the west side’s most vibrant streets and infused with the spirit of a carnival and a crowd to take it all in. And with over 700 people RSVP’d on Facebook two weeks before the event, Kristen and the gang expect that crowd to be significant.

“It’s just a fertile environment,” Kristen says. “Ev-eryone just has this kind of feverish feeling that something great can happen here, and they’re just waiting for someone to tip over the first domino and make it happen.” She thinks of herself as the one who knocked over that domino, and everything else is falling into place.

In future years, Kristen sees the festival expanding far beyond the two blocks. Growing to the scope of existing Triple Cities festivals like Rec Park Fest does not sound out of reach to her, even within the next couple of years. “Hopefully we can move it to a park next year and turn it into a large, regional music and arts type festival that will attract a lot of attention to the city of Binghamton.”

What will really distinguish Chestfest from these festivals is its occurrence while most of the BU stu-dents are still in town, so there will be a truer rep-resentation of what our area’s population looks like for the majority of the year, all gathered where our homes mingle on the west side.

Kristen is a BU student who has fallen in love with the local life, and she hopes that Chestfest will pro-vide a setting to bring out the best of student and local life and be a step toward breaking the barrier between them. “There’s going to be a mixture of stu-dent entertainment and local entertainment, and what I think that’ll do is really promote students and locals working together and have the locals see what the student have to offer- see the enthusiasm, the talent that we bring to the table.”

Kristen also hopes to showcase to students the unique local culture and hopes to encourage them to get involved in it. “I really want other students to see how much they can do in this community,” she says. “When you have a huge regional event that takes off like this and people are coming from all over the place, even from other parts of the state and from other states, you can’t say there’s nothing to do here. You’re just wrong! I just want to make it impossible for students to have that complaint.”

The major sponsors of Chestfest are JJB Manage-ment and Kellam Developments, both of whom rent out spaces for students. Kellam owns most of the student rentals on Chestnut St. Other major sponsors include Bingo Rento and Defiant Designs. The event is not for profit, and all proceeds, includ-ing 15% of the vendors’ earnings will be donated to two charities, Lifehouse Youth Services and Gro-cery Day, a charity Vynorius is starting which will provide shuttle buses for local seniors to go to gro-cery stores.

Kristen and the Chestfest crew hope that the sun shines on the event, but more importantly that you all come out and bring the fun. So grab your friends, your dog, your mom, and come to Chestnut Street to celebrate our city and what it has to offer.

The inaugural Chestfest starts at 10am on Satur-day, May 10th, on Chestnut St. between Leroy and Davis. The rain date is Sunday, May 11.

CHESTNUT ST.Ilana LipowiczStaff Writer

BLOCK PARTYLIGHTS UP THE WEST SIDE


“Oh, we gonna have a big party up in there!”

So promises Preston Frank of his May 13th Big Daddy Zydeco show at Galaxy Brew-ing Company. Given the leg-endary intensity of the zydeco player’s live shows, it’s easy to believe him.

Zydeco, the accordion led, backbeat driven Black Creole music of Southwest Louisiana, came early for Frank, a fourth generation musician. As he remembers, “I started off with accordion. My dad had one in the house and all. There was this old man that was my step grandfather, well he’d play music. Pretty much three, four songs… When I was a youngin,’ they had house bands and stuff; my parents would play music together. And they had a house band; parties. They’d cook and have a good time. I was more interested in, when I was young though, growing up, in rock and roll music and blues and stuff.”

There is a rock n roll influence in Frank’s brand of zydeco, certainly. The genre which stemmed off of Louisiana La-La music only came to its own in the past 60 years or so, so the rock influence shows itself in zydeco just as much as blues and traditional Creole music. Yet, Frank manages to keep tradition close.

“Me, I’ve been brought up with it in my past. My mom and dad trained us to speak French [the language of choice for many in the Louisiana bayou]. I learned more from my grand-ma- her and my grandfather didn’t speak English… But, the generation now, it’s English. They’re going with the times, I guess.”

Going with the times, of course, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Preston’s son Keith fronts the acclaimed Soileau Zydeco Band, alongside sister Jennifer and brother Brad. That group has been instru-mental in bridging the gener-ational gap between the old school Creole purists and to-day’s more R&B and hip-hop influenced zydeco.

“Every week they was prac-ticing. Every week. And they hated it so much, but when it paid off I was happy. We’d be home, and they’d be complain-ing, and I’d say ‘play it right or don’t play it at all.’ So I was very strict on them, and Keith, too, I guess. All that work we did when they was young, coming up, I think it paid off for them.”

The entire family has played together for years as Preston Frank & the Zydeco Family Band, whose

yearly performances at a handful of festivals in up-state New York are perhaps solely responsible for introducing zydeco music to the region.

“Jim Miller [of Red Dog Run and Demijohn, for-merly of Donna the Buffalo] said to me, he said

‘we’re having this festival, Grassroots, and then I ended up getting started with them.”

Miller, plus Tara Nevins and a few other members of Donna the Buffalo, had seen Frank play on a trip

to Louisiana. Enthralled by the music he made, he was the perfect fit for their inaugural Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance, which is now gearing up for its 24th year in Trumansburg, NY.

“Jim Miller called me and he asked me if I remem-

bered him from the show. I said ‘no.’ And then I said ‘I remember people there from out of state, and one guy had a hat on like a leprechaun.’ He said ‘I’m the one you’re talking about!’ I remembered him because he had a leprechaun hat on. And I had

to think a while. The Family Band was just getting started.”

Hauling a band that included his still young chil-dren halfway across the country was a haul, but they made it happen. The Frank Family late night

zydeco dance tent has become a yearly highlight the festival, for many.

“I started up with them, and I enjoyed it so much, and the people, they look like they appreciate the music when you’re playing out there, so that’s how we ended up doing the tradition. My kids was real young, but we started off play-ing at the all-night gig Satur-day nights… I asked how long to play, and they said ‘if they like it, sunrise.’ It’s a tradition now, playing till daylight. I kind of backed off, but Keith is doing the same thing, now… I’m getting kind of old for this kind of stuff now. But, it’s still going.”

The spirit of that festival will no doubt be intact at the Gal-axy Brewing Co. show in May, during which Frank will lead Big Daddy Zydeco through many of his most popular songs. Jim Miller will accom-pany Frank’s accordion on guitar, and joining them are Jed Greenberg on bass (Red Dog Run, formerly DTB), Ros-ie Newton on fiddle (Red Dog Run, Richie and Rosie), Ryan Cady on drums (Horse Flies, Boy with a Fish), and Thom-as Bryan Eaton on guitar and pedal steel (Yvette Landry, Kelley and the Cowboys).

“Most of them, I’ve played with in Donna, and just jam-ming. They’re all good musi-cians. They got a whole bunch of them, and they all profes-sional musicians. Just about everything we gonna play, I do with my family band. [My] kids were brought up with it, but up north? They got to hear it, but they know music and all!”

The news of a Big Daddy Zydeco tour was welcome news for many of Preston’s fans. His wife passed recently, and there have been rumors of an eminent retirement. When asked if the rumors were true, he sounded confused. “Retire from work? Or retire from music? Music? No, no no! I retired from a job working in the mill. I worked there for 43 years, and I needed to take off my shoes. I’m not gonna retire from the music, no. The job, the work job; that’s what I re-tired from.”

Good thing. This particular journalist has a whole lot more dancing to do. Keep it coming, Preston.

Preston Frank and Big Daddy Zydeco come to Gal-axy Brewing Co. (41 State Street, Binghamton) for a free show at 9pm on Tuesday, May 13th.

PRESTON FRANK AND BIG DADDY ZYDECOChris BodnarczukEditor-in-Chief

TWO-STEP INTO GALAXY BREWING CO.Preston Frank. Photo by Rosie Newton.

10 Vol. 2 Issue 5

If you’re going through Hell, you might want to stay there for a while. Sepsis is at the gates for their final requiem and they’ve brought with them heavy ampli-fication and their battering ram.

Hailing from the Triple Cities, Sepsis was formed through a local music message board in 2009. It was a year earlier that singer Dennis Lamp post-ed a link to a band that got guitarist Jason Kruger and drummer Dom Costantino’s attention. The lat-ter pair had played together in Primordium in the early 2000s, and since its demise, had a whole lot of displaced energy. The idea to start a new band had sparked a fire. Kruger and Costantino resumed writing songs together. Soon Lamp joined the band, and shortly after, they found their bassist, Tom Doud. Bending the rules of traditional punk and metal with a spit-soaked mouth and gashes to their foreheads of its members, it was grindcore, an extreme style of hardcore punk that is not meant to be taunted. The four have been musically involved since middle school, but this was Lamp’s first expe-rience singing with a band (if singing is what you call the savage growl that emanates a lion’s roar). Doud, traditionally a guitarist, would provide Sep-sis’s low end.

Grindcore is unabashedly brutal. It might leave you bloody and coughing up pieces of your own teeth and possibly the skin off a few knuckles. Sepsis is no stranger to this. Their non-conformist, ‘don’t take no shit’ attitude is evident in the atmosphere of their shows. You’re not going to see them on a big stage or taking sponsorship from some liquor company. ”We’re happy playing at floor level, face to face with a hundred dirty motherfuckers singing along to our songs. That is where the true music lies. No outside influence,” prides Kruger, “and without the desire to become something we aren’t,

that’s how it stays fresh and innovative. We can play whatever we want with no push to do anything we don’t want to do.”

Inspiration for their lyrics, written by Lamp, is channeled through some pretty dark themes and messages. The song ‘Pseudo Omega,’ contains the lyric, “Sift through the ashes of human beings,” re-ferring to a post-apocalyptic world of chaos brought on by ourselves. “It’s not always super intense, though,” assures Kruger. “We all like to joke around and have a good time.” A popular song when played live is “Hipster Deth” (spelled that way in tribute to the metal bands of the 80s). It’s intended as a humorous jab at those who concern themselves too much with image and less about being their true selves.

Sepsis will be throwing in their sweat drenched towel for their final show at Fitzies Pub on May 10th. “The main reason [for the end of Sepsis], in my opinion, is that we have done everything we set out to achieve with the band, musically,” says Kruger. “At this point, pumping out new songs would run the risk of becoming repetitive and for-mulaic, and I want it to stand as a solid testament to what we were able to accomplish within the genre.” That’s not to say they are hanging up their instruments. The gears of a new project are already turning. All of the current members of Sepsis, with the addition of a couple more players, will be mov-ing forward in a new direction. “Something darker, bigger sounding, and not so up front in your face but more subtly extreme,” Kruger describes. At this show, they will be releasing a final album contain-ing a ton of re-recorded material that didn’t make it to previous releases. It will be a free CD, limited to 40 copies given out to the first 40 people to show up as a way of saying ‘thank you’ for all the support and camaraderie.

Joining them will be Hellkeeper (extreme metal from Syracuse) and Pissing Match (Buffalo hard-core). There’s a $3 cover, age restricted to 21+, and the starting gun sounds at 9pm.

SEPSIS BIDS FAREWELLWITH ONE LAST GIGTy WhitbeckCreative Consultant


mother’s day.

Wasn’t it the reason you made that CD for me Ma? So you could try to justify the wa- No Krissy. NO. You are not going to quote that Eminem song about his mom- about your mom- for an article about Mother’s Day. Come on! You’re not here to clean out any closets!

It’s just hard, because when given this as-signment, the subject simply said “Mother’s Day,” which immediately sent me into a pan-ic, as I don’t really have the best relationship with my mother. I’ve been dreading writing this piece all month. The topic of my relation-ship with my mother is the very reason I’ve quit therapy with no notice every time I’ve ended up quitting therapy. Thinking back on all thir-ty-one Mother’s Days I’ve been alive, the only one I can actually remember is the time I called my dear mother to wish her a happy holiday, only to have to answer that I was in rehab upon being asked if I was coming over for lunch. So, you know… not a lot in the pool to draw from on this topic.

As a result of my anxiety over writing about my moth-er, I ended up putting this off until the very last minute (for real, it’s due today). When I woke up this morning (afternoon), frantically searching for my phone to check the time, it occurred to me that the assignment wasn’t to write about the dysfunctional relationship I share with my mother. The assignment was to write about Mother’s Day, and that’s all! So now I just have to go Google that real quick…

The first Mother’s Day took place in West Virginia (which real-ly hits home with me, as my favorite mother ever, the grandest of mothers, my... grandmother- that was rather anticlimactic- lives there, along with all of my best childhood memories). Since the year was 1908, Anna Jarvis couldn’t just text her mom the way everyone gets to now, and she had to think fast. Apparently she actually liked spending time with her mom, and she wanted to dedicate to her an entire day, one where dear mother could be shown appreciation in the form of hand-written letters and fresh bread… with the gluten still in it and everything! Slowly, the tradition of sons and daughters honoring their own mothers on one special day of the year caught on, and by the 1914, the holiday was made “official” nationally.

That’s when it all started to hit the fan in a bad way for Anna.

What was meant to be a day reserved for telling your mom how awesome she is (but in a heartfelt Olde English-y kind of way, like how they spoke in those days, sort of) quickly snowballed into a consumer-fest full of flowers, cards, and Cathy mugs full of Hershey’s Kisses. Disgusted at the commercialism of the newly celebrated holiday, Jarvis flipped the switch and tried to do reversies on the whole thing, fighting to have the holiday removed from the calendar, which is about the most “controlling mom” mom-

type behavior I’ve ever heard in my life. She resented the fact that sev-

eral groups used the holiday to raise funds for various charities, and spent

the remainder of her life, and much of her fortune, campaigning to have the

new Mother’s Day abolished, only to end up old, broke, and defeated, like so many

other great historical characters that are now gone and often, unfortunately, forgotten

(Tesla, TESLA, I’m looking at you, Tesla!!).

To me, the entire thing sounds like the great-est Mother’s Day story ever told, as her struggle

could basically be seen as THE ultimate archetype for motherhood in general. Think about it; she had

an idea, raised it to become what it was, then has to stand by helplessly as the idea gets corrupted and

manipulated until it’s an unrecognizable caricature of its original self. Never one to recognize her powerless-

ness over anything outside of her own selfish wants and needs, Anna attempts to control everything and everyone

around her, at one point insulting Eleanor Roosevelt and even getting arrested for crashing a fundraising event, un-

til she is eventually left old and alone, her offspring of an idea now so far out of her reach that it customizes it’s Face-book status updates so there’s no way she will ever be able to see them, since she’ll only send passive aggressive emails every time I use the F word and God, JUST LET ME LIVE MY LIFE, I’M A GROWN WOMAN!! Except the “idea” is, of course, a human child, and the “arrested for crashing a fund-raising event” is getting sloppy hammered and then thinking it’s still a good idea to go to that PTA meeting.

I can, like, so relate.

When I think about what it must have been like for my mother to raise me, then stand by and watch me grow up into my very own

human person, I realize I’ve never really actually considered what it may have been like for her, ever. It was always about me. Growing up,

and even still, I often felt like the victim in my relationship with my mom. I’ve spent so many years being angry with her. I’ve been embarrassed of her

often, and left to feel a profound sense of guilt-induced sadness for her the rest of the time, scrambling to repair a long damaged relationship RIGHT NOW!

It’s really easy to recount these feelings surrounding my mom, because to me my “mom” is just a technical title, I don’t really know anything about her or her experi-

ence, because she never offered, and I never asked. Years have been wasted wishing our relationship looked different than it does, but time and experience (so, therapy,

basically) have finally left me with some acceptance that this is just the way it looks be-tween us. Even though it sometimes feel this way, neither of us are failing at the character

of “mom” or the character of “daughter,” because those are just terms anyway, and it’s often so easy to forget that there are actual human people behind those terms, doing their best, and

working with whatever life has given them to work with.

So to be honest, Mother’s Day, to me, doesn’t bear a lot of weight. If the world could somehow start over, and whoever gives out the jobs could make me in charge of interpersonal dynamics

within familial relationships, I would love a shot at getting to know the person who happens to be my mother, but I’m afraid that might be a lot to ask.

THE HISTORY OFMOTHER’S DAY

AS TOLD BY A JADED DAUGHTERby Krissy Howard.

12 Vol. 2 Issue 5

comedy. COMICS TO WATCH

This month’s featured comic is Darian Lusk. A senior at Binghamton University, original-ly from Scarsdale, he is the Vice President of Bing Stand Up, a comedy collective based at BU. When asked what drives him to perform, Darian responded “I love bad bitches; that’s my fucking problem.” Some problem. He’s a musi-cal comedian with a solid delivery and a collec-tion of songs about things like finger banging and having two dads. His childhood piano les-sons are evidently paying off in a way that his parents would be horrified to admit to. Having performed in numerous comedy shows at BU campus and around Binghamton, Darian has built himself a spot in Binghamton’s comedy scene as someone who always delivers. A crowd favorite, he is definitely a comedian to watch.

What got you into stand up comedy? When I was 15, I saw Demetri Martin live. Since then I have wanted to do stand up. I also studied classical piano until I graduated high school, so when I came to college, I had the idea to com-bine the two. I have been performing stand up for two years now, and my set is fully accompa-nied by my keyboard.

What is your favorite memory in come-dy? Our stand up group’s final show of last se-mester was broken up by the police. Apparently, someone damaged the doorstopper in the room we were performing in, or something. Point is, we don’t play by the rules.

What is the worst set you can remember? Probably the one where I got paid the least. Ac-tually, my worst set was when I committed a cardinal sin of stand up by performing a set in front of a large group of family members. We were at a family dinner and they kept asking me. I guess I was feeling uncharacteristically confident that day, because I caved and started telling jokes. Every joke I told bombed. I kept going. There were children. There were disap-pointed parents. We don’t talk about it.

Being a comedian who uses music as a medium, what is the writing process like for you? Half of the time, I write my stand up away from the piano and then set it to music, but the other half I sit at the piano trying to think of ideas. I don’t have a set writing process, but advice that I would give to aspiring comedi-ans about writing is this: write all of your ideas down, no matter how small. Have funny friends so you have people to bounce ideas off of/write with. And watch/read everything comedic that you can get your hands on. Then you will be un-stoppable.

Who are your favorite comedians to watch? My 9 year old brother Peyton is my comedic inspiration. This is his twitter: twitter.com/peytonlusk.

Darian Lusk is one of the many featured com-ics performing at The 2nd Annual Binghamton Comedy & Arts Festival this September, which is presented by Binghamton Comedy and The Bundy Museum, and proudly sponsored by Tri-ple Cities Carousel. For more info, tickets and a full line up, go to binghamtoncomedy.com.

Writing a list of original “yo’ mama” jokes is not the best Mother’s Day gift idea. Taking your mother to see some very funny women is. Fortunately for all of us, the Ladies of Laughter: Funny and Fabulous Tour is coming to the Schorr Family Firehouse Stage, just in time for Mother’s Day, but definitely not limited to maternal audiences. The show consists of three vibrant, multitalented performers, who have never shared a bill with each other before, and who are thrilled to be coming to the Triple Cities.

Erin Harkes made her name as a musician, but is breaking into comedy with tenacity and zeal. “It’s like a fantastic drug- I was hooked immediately.” She was recently voted Best Solo Musician and Best Local Comedian in New York’s Capital Region, her stomping ground, and is getting to know the world of standup as she acquires her accolades. “Music is my spouse,” she explains, “but comedy is my mis-tress. Because comedy is new, it’s exciting, and it’s different, and it’s, you know, thinner.” Like her fellow performers, she draws inspiration from her everyday life. “The world gives you material, if you look for it. It’s everywhere.”

While Ms. Harkes is comfortable in her skin as a musician, as she can perform her songs regardless of audience engagement, she understands that comedy is an entirely different beast. “If I don’t get a reaction, I feel like I’m drowning. So when you get them to laugh, it’s like somebody finally took

comedian. I’m comedy-plus.”

In fact, none of the women performing at the Fire-house Stage are “just” comedians. L. Michelle has been acting for most of her life, and found her way into comedy somewhat unexpectedly. “I got a Grou-pon for half-off a comedy writing course, and my jokes were bad.” Bad until she was given the assign-ment to write a piece in the voice of one of her fa-vorite comedians. She chose Chris Rock. Refusing to fail, she presented the piece to the class, and it killed. “And then it became about writing jokes for me, to see how it spoke to my personal experience.”

L. Michelle found no shortage of material in her life. “I grew up with a very funny woman. My grand-mother was hilarious. All of her gifts were used in the home, and pretty much used on me.” When she performs, L. Michelle is incredibly agile, in her tone and particularly in her face. But it wasn’t years of acting school that granted her this skill- it was Grandma. “I would be lying if I said that my train-ing is what taught me my facial expressions. It was sort of gifted to me.”

Comedy is a gift to share- with your mom, yourself, or anyone who could use a good laugh. Taking time to see the humor in life is vital, and, as L. Michelle says, “Finding the funny makes life better.”

As for anyone out there still clinging to the archaic notion that women aren’t funny? Nancy Lombardo has but one reply: “I dare you to say that to your mother.”

The Ladies of Laughter Funny and Fabulous Tour is coming to the Schorr Family Firehouse Stage, located at 67 Broad Street in Johnson City, on Fri-day, May 9th at 7pm. Tickets are $15 for general audiences, $12 for students and senior citizens. Visit goodwilltheatre.net for tickets and more in-formation, or call (607) 772-2404.

the weight off of you- like they’re like, ‘here, let me carry that for you.’”

Erin sees the tour as a “huge coup,” as male comedi-ans do tend to get easier billing- not that standup is an easy gig for anyone. As Executive Producer Peg-gy Boyce explains, “Ladies of Laughter was started in honor of comedian and booking agent Mary Jo Wobker, who booked shows for female comedians all over the East Coast.” Another woman who has worked to put ladies in the comedic spotlight is Nancy Lombardo, founder of Momedy. “I was try-ing to get more female comedians work,” she says, “and I was paying them out of my own pocket. Be-cause I just think, when you bring home a check, you feel a little bit better.” She is a mom, and she draws much inspiration from the matriarchs who came before her. “Growing up with a bilingual mother- she said she was bilingual; I didn’t under-stand a word of English she said- there was a lot of humor in our home. My mother was a very funny woman, and my grandmother was hilarious, and she didn’t speak any English.”

Now, Ms. Lombardo can do some pretty accurate impressions, and when asked what her mother thought of her career, she recalls, “She saw my act-ing, and she’d say (in a thick Puerto Rican accent), ‘You know that’s not a real job, right?’” Despite her mother’s concerns, her confidence kept her in the game. “All you need is one person who believes you can do something, and your confidence becomes a sharing experience.” A clearly resilient woman, comedy was an important social tool for her during her formative years. “Ever since I was a little girl I was telling jokes. It was a survival thing for me. I was getting beaten up, because I was always small, so I realized that telling jokes was a good way to stall a beating.”

A long way from being the runt of the schoolyard, Ms. Lombardo she has a natural presence on stage. “I consider myself to be an entertainer, not just a

Heather MerlisAssistant Editor

FUNNY AND FABULOUS IN JC

Kevin SalisburyContributing Writer

L Michelle. Top Right: Nancy Lombardo. Bottom Right: Erin Harkes. Photos Provided.

14 Vol. 2 Issue 5


art.

Some artists cannot help but let their art seep out of its frames and engulf their en-tire beings. This specific brand of artist can be found walking down the streets with peacock feathers hanging from their ears; scarves arrayed with Monet’s water lilies and beads hanging from their fringes. Char-lie Robins, who recently won the design contest for Carousel’s first ever t-shirt (look left) and whose art graces Carousel’s cover this month, is not quite as easy to pick out of a crowd.

Her demeanor is more of what one would expect from your jaunty bartender who’s got an answer for everything. She is uncontained in her own way, her self-designated potty mouth one symptom of a personal authenticity which she cannot help but stay loyal to.

Born and raised in Binghamton, she partly credits the city she grew up in for her manner of interacting with people. She thinks it’s easy to get along with people here, but it helps to have thick skin and to not take jokes too person-ally. There is a special connectedness about Bingham-ton that she’s grown to appreciate. When she left for college at SUNY Purchase, she immediately clicked with a girl who she later found out was from Endicott. “No wonder I like you so much!” she told her. Charlie has been living in Summit, NJ, but recently returned to Binghamton to take care of her mother. She’s currently looking for a house in the area to move into with her boyfriend.

Charlie is not confused about how she feels on most matters, and she’s not shy in sharing how she feels, but she is never heavy handed or over the top. Rather, it’s just the absence of armor and the inability to be anyone but her-self that makes her easy to get along with. Her vulnerability is perhaps what creates the illusion of a full picture, and so makes it surprising to people when they learn that she is also a talented and prac-ticed artist. “People will know me for months before they find out that I make art,” she says. It’s not that the artists’ depth-seeking, slightly erratic sensibility does not reside within her, but it waits below the surface, emerging at intervals with a gripping urge to create something.

The artist in Charlie reveals itself in ways that surprise her as well. Her process is largely spontaneous, her work generated through a stream-of-consciousness release of images. Many of her pieces contain strange, unsettling images that suggest themes of death: devil-ish faces and anatomical figures appear grotesquely in all their intricate details.

“I’ve been creating weird imagery since I was 11 or 12.”

She says that when her mother first saw what she was drawing, she asked her if she needed to see a psychiatrist. Charlie was a happy kid and remembers having always had a generally positive outlook on life. If there are any demons taking hold of her, she’s excavated them through her work. Art, as she describes it, does bear resemblance to a ghostly presence. It inhabits her until she is able to get it out of her head and into a work of art.

This ghost also visits her in her sleep. She explains that much of her inspiration comes out of her own strange, vivid dreams. Once, in a high school art class, a professor took a look at a painting she was working on and asked, “Do you have horrible nightmares?” She told him yes, and he said, “I can tell.” Much of Charlie’s artwork is reminiscent of dreamscapes. Often several images are combined, obscured in their connections and by complicated lines and shapes. As in a dream, transitions between settings and things are eerily smooth. Bits of each part are surrendered and made

subordinate to the fluidity of the whole. Looking at one of these drawings or paintings is like waking up with the memory of a dream. It comes at you all at once, and you may dismantle it for its parts or look at

it whole as it first appears to you. “I frequently combine many images into one, so people can look at it again and again and see something different every time.”

Charlie’s artwork is far from limited to paper and ink. When she started making art as a young girl, she had to take a more diversified view on what materials can make up art than a child would usually have. Her family was encour-

aging, but not versed in the intricacies of art and the sup-plies that are needed to make it. Charlie’s early inclination

towards art is also mysterious because there were no oth-er artists in her family. “I came out of nowhere,” she says.

Lacking the conventional supplies forced her to get creative with materials, and she sees her early limitation not as a weakness but as a part of what shaped her as an artist. “I

would just take junk off a curb and make something out of it,” she says. “I would just find stuff from around

my house and make something out of it, and that continued later on.” It was a positive limitation

for her, as her interests are always oscillating between media.

When she attended art school at SUNY Pur-chase, she had trouble narrowing down her interests. She toyed with graphic de-sign before realizing that much of what she appreciated about art was being able to work with her hands. “I’m a hands-on

person,” she says. She has worked in litho-graph, woodcut, silk screen and sculpture, as

well as with paints and pen and ink. In a silk screen class, she was the only one making her prints on paper that she handmade herself, with a process that involves operating a huge

hydraulic press.

The mask photographed on our cover is a piece she calls the product of one of her more ambi-

tious endeavors of sculpting out of bronze, a process she called a labor of love. She knew it was worth it, however, when she removed

the plaster and saw what she’d created. “It was smooth and pretty- prettier than anything I had created ever before- but it was still haunting.”

Woodcuts and sculptures require a careful plan-ning, which doesn’t allow for the type of on-a-

whim creativity that Charlie enjoys, but she ap-preciates the physicality of working with rougher

materials. There is a certain release to be found in hacking at a hunk of wood. All of her woodcuts have

been done in large scale. “I’ll be in my room to get away from people for days, just carving away.”

Making art is, to Charlie, a way of letting out some feel-ing or some burden, some ghost hounding her to be let out.

It is more about the act of making something than the final re-sult. She describes a painting she made after having a dream so strange and vivid that it hung over her for days, becoming so nag-ging that she had to translate it onto a canvas. Putting the dream into a painting was a relief. Some time later, she painted over it so

she could use the canvas for something else.

You may not be able to immediately identify that artist in Charlie. You certainly won’t be able to pick her off the street as someone with a creative

mind. She’s okay with this and seems to value the privacy this allows her. She holds strong-ly to the belief that it’s not the clothes you wear or the words you use, but what you create that makes you an artist. “Everyone should make art,” she says. It doesn’t need to be a masterpiece. There is a certain magic creating even for the most novice artist. “That’s something that was in your head, and now it’s on the canvas,” she gleams, and that essential piece is enough to make it all worthwhile.

THE SECRET LIFE OF CHARLIE ROBINS

NIGHTMARES REIFIED:

by Ilana Lipowicz

triple cities carousel MAY 2014sunday. monday. tuesday. wednesday.

Nukporfe Afican Drumming/Dance Ensemble (AC)Springing Into Summer (SJC)

Jazz Jam w/Miles Ahead (LDC)Rob Stachyra (CCW)

Live Music (KING)Open Mic (JBC)

Comedy Open Mic (MB)

German Diction Class Recital (BU)Rick Iacovelli (CCW)


Jazz Jams w/Miles Ahead (LDC)Milkweed (CCW)


Comedy Open Mic (MB)Muralfest (DTB)

Percussion Ensemble Concert (AC)Speakeasy Open Mic (CCW)

Swing Dance (REX)

Preston Frank & Big Daddy Zydeco (GXY)Swing Dance (REX)

A Visual Journaling Experience (SWC)War Master/Bloodshed/Bleak/Valnad (FTZ)

Swing Dance (REX) Muralfest (DTB)

Open Art Studio (SWC)Swing Dance (REX)

Jazz Jams (FHS)Comedy Writing Workshop (BUN)

Open Mic (BEL)Open Mic w/Dan Pokorak (KING)

Tour of New York State (PMM)

Royal Hanneford Circus (ARENA)Stephen Sondhein’s “Company” (TCO)

Chamber Bridge Run (DTB)Anne Boleyn (BU)

Die Fledermaus (TCO)Where the Holidays Go (EPAC)

Lutheran Skirts (CCW)

John Covelli’s Mother’s Day Concert (FHS)Deathhammer (Norway)/Rabid/Cain, more (FTZ)

Sirens (CMP)Mother’s Day Brunch (LDC)

Comedy Writing Workshop (BUN)Old Fashioned Card/Game Party (PMM)


Steven Nanni (FHS)Sirens (CMP)

Take Back the 80s Burlesque (EPAC)Muralfest (DTB)

Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues (AC)Jazz Jams (FHS)

Graduation Brunch (LDC)Comedy Writing Workshop (BUN)


Muralfest (DTB

Susquehanna River Big Splash Festival (TCFG)The Jauntee (FTZ)

The Traditional (HCS)

Comedy Writing Workshop (BUN)Open Mic (BEL)

Open Mic w/Dan Pokorak (KING)

04 11 18 25

05 12 19 26

06 13 20 27

07 14 21

West Side Story (FORUM)Live Music (KING)

Open Mic (JBC)A Taste of Broadway (BHS) 28

The Triple Cities Carousel Events Calendar is featured each month as a courtesy to our advertisers, however we welcome everyone to submit their events to [email protected] by the 15th of the month prior to publication. Space is limited, so calendar entries, which have no cost, are picked on a first come/first serve basis. Triple Cities Carousel reserves the right to reject any submission deemed to be non-arts related, or, well, for any reason.

(AC) Anderson Center(ARENA) Broome County Arena(BBW) Black Bear Winery(BCAC) Broome County Arts Council(BEL) Belmar Pub(BGL) Beagle Pub(BHS) Binghamton High School(BTP) Blind Tiger Pub(BOB) Bobby’s Place(BU) Binghamton University(BUN) Bundy Museum(CCW) Cyber Café West(CHST) Chestnut St. Binghamton(CMP) Cider Mill Playhouse(DTB) Downtown Binghamton

(DTO) Downtown Owego(EPAC) Endicott Performing Arts Center(FHS) Firehouse Stage(FIVE) Number 5(FORUM) Binghamton Forum Theatre(FTZ) Fitzies Pub(GIP) Gallagher’s Irish Pub(GOC) Greek Orthodox Church Vestal(GXY) Galaxy Brewing Co.(HCS) HCS Skatepark Vestal(JBC) John Barleycorn(KING) Kingsley’s Pub(LDC) Lost Dog Café/Lounge(MB) Matty B’s(MRLN) Merlin’s

(MOS) Mosquito Lounge(OUH) Old Union Hotel(PMM) Phelps Mansion Museum(REX) Rexer’s Karate(ROB) Roberson Museum(RPZ) Ross Park Zoo(SJC) St. James Church(SWC) Sunrise Wellness Center(TCFG) Tioga County Fairgrounds Owego(TCO) Tri-Cities Opera(TEK) Tech Works(TTC) Tioga Trails Café(UEHS) Union Endicott High School(UMC) United Methodist Church(VCH) Vestal Coal House

(WHIP) Windsor Whip Works(WSKG) WSKG Studios(WW) Worldwide

MAY 2014wednesday.

Nukporfe Afican Drumming/Dance Ensemble (AC)Springing Into Summer (SJC)

Jazz Jam w/Miles Ahead (LDC)Rob Stachyra (CCW)


Comedy Open Mic (MB)

German Diction Class Recital (BU)Rick Iacovelli (CCW)


Jazz Jams w/Miles Ahead (LDC)Milkweed (CCW)


Comedy Open Mic (MB)Muralfest (DTB)

West Side Story (FORUM)Live Music (KING)

Open Mic (JBC)A Taste of Broadway (BHS)

events calendarthursday. friday. saturday.

Uncle Buford’s Traveling Roadshow (BOB)Sirens (CMP), String Concert (BU)

Brass Ensemble Concert (BU)NYC Ladies of Laughter (FHS)200 Miles Off Broadway (TCO)

The Beatles Band (BTP)Terrapin Station (CCW)

Splash (FIVE), Live Music (BBW)Tractor Beam (FTZ), Moefest (BU)

Pete Ruttle & Friends (OUH)Cans N Clams (HOL)

Bing. Phil. Tribute to Louis Armstrong (FORUM)Woodshed Prophets (BOB), Chris Cernak (CCW)

Joyful Discoveries (ARENA)2nd Edition w/Mary Meier (FIVE)

Sepsis, more (FTZ)Open Mic (MB)

The Revelers (OUH)Bluegrass w/the Hilltoppers (TTC)

Chest Fest (CHST)Sirens (CMP), Acoustic Voodoo (BTP)

Sirens (CMP), Beauty & the Beats (BTP)Take Back the 80s Burlesque (EPAC)

Wreckless Marci (BOB)Jamie Willard (CCW)Brotherhood (FIVE)

Live Music (BBW)Third Friday Art Walk (DTO)

Pocket Vinyl (FTZ)Pete Ruttle & Friends (OUH)

Rod Serling Video Festival (WSKG)Cans N Clams (HOL)

Anatomy for Artists (WHIP)Into the Light Film Series (BUN)Sirens (CMP), Outer Reef (BTP)

Take Back the 80s Burlesque (EPAC)Mixmaster DJ Castle (LDC)

Heritage (BOB)Michaela Anne (CCW)

Jeff Pettit (FTZ), Open Mic (MB)Mel & the Boys (TTC)

Technology That Drives Us (TEK)Muralfest (DTB)

Mike Whittemore (BTP)Rooster & the Roadhouse Horns (FIVE)

Changing Modes (LDC)Never Enough (BOB)

Magnolia Drive (CCW)Live Music (BBW)

Thoughts as Devices (FTZ)Pete Ruttle & Friends (OUH)

Cans N Clams (HOL)

Susquehanna River Big Splash Festival (TCFG)Into the Light Film Series (BUN)

Doug Mosher (BTP)Grace’s Ghost (CCW)Beard of Bees (FIVE)

Open Mic (MB)Jenell & Tom (TTC)

Run Wild! Bing. Zoo 5k (VCH)Zydeco Po’ Boys (JBC)

CMT: Killer Klowns from Outer Space (BUN)Harpur Chorale/Women’s Chorus Concert (AC)

Sirens (CMP)Vermont Cheddar (BTP)

Mid-Day Concert (BU)InnerMission (CCW)Strauss & Co. (GXY)

Local Hip Hop (MOS)Antiques-Style Roadshow (PMM)

Sirens (CMP)Chris Mollo (BTP)

Take Back the 80s Burlesque (EPAC)Enerjee Jazz w/Ayana D (LDC)

CMT: Two-Lane Blacktop (BUN)InnerMission (CCW)

Local Hip Hop (MOS)An Evening of One Act Plays (UEHS)

Writers Group (SWC)Vermont Cheddar (BTP)

CMT: The Warriors (BUN)InnerMission (CCW)

Nate Gross/Patrick Strain (GXY)Local Hip Hop (MOS)

08 15 22

09 03 10

16 17 23 24

Writers Group (SWC)Mid-Day Concert (BU)

Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek (BU)Sirens (CMP)

Chris Mollo (BTP)CMT: Altered States (BUN)

InnerMission (CCW)Duo Sonic (GIP)

Tom Graham (GXY)Local Hip Hop (MOS)

First Friday (DTB), Chamber Concert (BU)Broome Art 3-D (BCAC), Anne Boleyn (BU)

Die Fledermaus (TCO), Salsa Libre (MRLN), Sirens (CMP)

Rick Iacovelli (BTP)Our Friends Band (LDC)

Beard of Bees (BOB)For the Sake of Song (CCW)

Royal Hanneford Circus (ARENA)Ultra Vibe (FIVE)

Pete Ruttle & Friends (OUH),Cans N Clams (HOL) 01 02

Pasty White & Double Wide (BTP)Kolby Oakley (BOB)

Brian Wolff Band (CCW)Live Music (BBW)

Raibred (FTZ)Pete Ruttle & Friends (OUH)

Grecian Festival (GOC)Cans N Clams (HOL)

Anatomy for Artists (WHIP)Atlas Arrows/Crimson Brethren, more (BGL)

Into the Light Film Series (BUN)Downtown Singers Concert (UMC)

Rick Fry (BTP)Finer (LDC)

Open Mic (MB)Grecian Festival (GOC)

West Side Story (FORUM)Chris Mollo (BTP)

Acoustic Jam (EPAC)InnerMission (CCW)

John Scarpulla Trio (GXY)Local Hip Hop (MOS)

Grecian Festival (GOC) 30 31 29

Masty Huba Day (BUN), Anat. for Artists (WHIP)The Monster Who Ate My Peas (FHS)

Symphonic Smorgasbord (AC), Anne Boleyn (BU)Sirens (CMP), Dusty Wayne/Rusty Pete (BTP)

Where Holidays Go (EPAC), Odd Man Out (BOB)Andrea Di Cesare (CCW), Circus (ARENA)

Katie Scott w/Persuasion (FIVE)Neutron Rats, more(FTZ), Open Mic (MB)

Free Comic Book Day (WW), Dirt Farm (OUH)Dinner Duo (TTC), Falconers (BRK)

The Blind Spots (CI), BU Spring Fling (BU)

(WHIP) Windsor Whip Works(WSKG) WSKG Studios(WW) Worldwide

18 Vol. 2 Issue 5

the reBOLD crew and senior at the BU School of Management.

“We are trying to bridge the gap between the com-munity and the university,” Bogossian continues. “We really love what we are doing, so it’s really not about the credits.”

And this bridge is already being crossed by many community members and artists reaching out in support of these students efforts. Kady Perry, local artist, Binghamton native, and founding member of the Department of Public Art (DPA) has been working tirelessly to put the festival together and is looking forward to the promise it will bring.

“[MuralFest] is going to continue the momentum of the public art movement in Binghamton,” says Perry. As her comment points out, this festival is not the first sign of progression in the Binghamton art scene. Many other community members, much like herself, have been involved in similar public art projects over the past few years. Local painter and Broome County resident Jesse Ryan is just one of many continuing participants in such causes.

“My friend and I have been been doing what we can with helping paint at Cheri Lindsey Park,” Ryan ex-plains. “It can help give areas a cleaner look. I think Binghamton needs spots that people can go and paint on a regular basis.”

This past March Man One came to Binghamton and spoke at the university as well as at a public forum at Cooperative Gallery 213, which was attended by people in the community of all ages and back-grounds. Through discussions with locals as well as a walking tour of the city, Man One was able to take in the history, culture, and lifeblood of the city before conceiving the designs that will be painted this month.

“I really like to paint murals about the people,” Man One adds. “I think the best stories and images are the faces of the people, like young kids who are the future of the town or the grandmother who’s lived there all her life and has seen it all. That’s what I would like to paint: the colorful souls of the people in Binghamton.”

Even if you have not gotten involved so far does not mean you still can’t. The festival is still in need of wall space, painting volunteers, musicians, and participants in general. So be sure to check out the websites below and see how you can be a part of the movement.

“I’m really excited for all this to happen and hon-ored to be part of it in general,” concludes Man One. “It would be amazing if this Muralfest took off and became a yearly event! Like with most things, there is always a challenge with funding but I think if people want it, it will happen!”

MuralFest will be held from May 17 to May 21 in Downtown Binghamton. Please check the website (reboldbinghamton.com), Facebook, and Twitter (@Lead480) for updates on specifics times and lo-cations of projects. If you are an artist, musician, or property owner looking to get involved please e-mail [email protected]. All skill lev-els welcome!

Be sure to keep an eye out for other public art proj-ects and events happening in the area this summer through the DPA (binghamtonbridge.org) or re-BOLD Binghamton.

It happened with Renaissance art, Im-pressionism, Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.

Before they were esteemed as important stages in the evolution of the art world, they were all called too edgy and unrefined to be considered art at all. Today, graffiti and street art are under the same scrutiny that most art movements were subject to during their formations. And just like these now classic forms of visual art once did, graffiti and street art are beginning to be embraced. No lon-ger dismissed as media of vandalism, they are fre-quently being used for community outreach and public beautification.

Come mid- May, the revolution will be hitting the streets of Binghamton in the form of MuralFest, in which local artists and community members will work with world renowned artist Man One to paint murals throughout the city.

“I’m just an artist with a vision,” says Man One humbly when asked about his involvement with the upcoming projects.

The festival will last about four days, and is expect-ed to consist of four or five murals being painted in various locations in Binghamton. Some of the an-ticipated sites are Lost Dog Cafe, Anthony Brunelli Fine Arts gallery, and inside of the Roberson Muse-um and Science Center. This will be Binghamton’s first public art event of this capacity, but it will be nothing new for Man One.

“I think the town could really use this as a great marketing tool to bring more tourism and interest into the area,” he continues. “It can also bring in corporate dollars and attract new businesses into the community, I’ve seen it happen in different cit-ies all over the world.”

Although his talents will be playing a huge role in the festival, don’t let his singular name fool you, Man One is not working alone on this. Local artists and politicians, residents, and especially university students have been working together for months in order to make this event possible.

“There is nothing more powerful in community than coming together with one voice and letting it be heard,” Man One goes on. “I just want to thank all the students, artists, and community members who are fighting to make Binghamton the best it can be. It’s very inspiring!”

A major piece in the foundation of this festival is the reBOLD Binghamton crew, from Binghamton University. reBOLD is made up of a group of stu-dents from the Binghamton School of Management who are taking an innovation and creativity class that was newly introduced to the program this past fall. The class has since birthed GEN10, a student and faculty organization that is working on pro-grams (such as reBOLD Binghamton) that will use the power of public art and community to facilitate positive change and collaboration within the area.

“I really love Binghamton, personally, but so many of the services and things happening in the city are fragmented,” explains Jake Bogossian, co-leader of

Maria “Murph” MurphyStaff Writer

CITY GEARS UP FOR FIRST MURAL FEST

Man One. Photo Provided.

“Like” Holiday Inn Binghamton On Facebook For More Info


Make no mistake: Die Fledermaus is not an opera. “This is an operetta,” beams Judy Berry, interim General Director of Tri-Cities Opera and Assistant Stage Di-rector of the production. “The show is hysterical,” she says of the “crown jewel” of TCO’s 65th anniversary season.

The operetta, whose title translates into English as “The Bat,” is the brainchild of the Waltz King him-self, Johann Strauss II. It premiered in Vienna in 1874, and TCO first staged it fourteen years ago, with costumes and sets designed for the period. But this Die Fledermaus is an entirely new production, with all new sets and costumes updated slightly to the 1890s. “So it’s actually relatively modern in terms of shape and silhouette,” says costume de-signer Andrea Lenci-Cerchiara. She explains that in fashion in the Gilded Age, “even five years makes a difference.” Dress designs shed their bustles during this period, to site one example, to make way for svelte backsides.

Strauss was Austrian, and the work was originally

very snobbish thing,” Judy says of opera in general, “and that you have to get dressed up to come to the theatre. All those things might have been the case a long, long time ago, but they certainly aren’t with Tri-Cities Opera.” Whether the fare is frothy op-eretta or dramatically tragic opera, TCO’s website states, “Regarding your attire, it’s your choice: tails, jeans or anything in between.” Lizzie and Chris will presumably be wearing tails.

The lushness of Die Fledermaus and the “65 and SO Alive!” anniversary season might be a tough act to follow, but TCO should not disappoint in the seasons yet to come. In the meantime, beware of Flash Mobperas (flash mobs that break into oper-atic excerpts). They have been known to pop out at bars, restaurants, a liquor store, churches- “When and where you least expect it,” warns Berry. She describes a typical TCO singer as often looking like a, “model from a magazine,” and when a bunch of these suddenly start singing opera to you in a public place, it can be hard to know what to think.

Die Fledermaus appears on Tri-Cities Opera’s mainstage at the Forum Theatre on 236 Washing-ton Street in Binghamton. Performances are on Fri-day, May 2nd at 8pm and Sunday, May 4th at 3pm. Tickets are $20 to $70. For more information or to purchase tickets, call (607) 772-0400 or visit trici-tiesopera.com.

out their lives as adult performers. When this hor-rifying practice came to an end, composers started writing trousers roles for contraltos or mezzo-so-pranos like Emily Geller, who plays Prince Orlofsky in the TCO production. The extravagance of Prince Orlofsky’s party, and the flamboyance necessary for the sets and costumes, have spawned a natural collaboration. “We are very excited to be doing the design elements of our Die Fledermaus production with the BU Theatre Department,” Judy Berry says. In addition to Lenci-Cerchiara on costumes, Karen Kozlowski designed the sets and John Vestal the lighting; both are Binghamton University Theatre Department faculty.

In spite of the story’s subject matter of adult rela-tionships and romances, Berry says that the piece is absolutely kid-friendly. “The show is for the entire family,” she asserts. There are even two pin-up dogs in the cast for everyone’s delight. Yes, pin-up dogs. Chris and Lizzie were competitors in the Canine Cameo contest, after having appeared in TCO’s MUTT-ropolitan Opera Dog Calendar 2014. There was supposed to be only one winner for the “wag-on” role, but the votes kept coming in right up until the last minute of the voting deadline in this fund-raising event, and it was declared a tie.

While the characters may be dressed to the nines in this madcap libretto, audiences, as always, are free to wear what pleases them. “You might think it’s a

written in German. But, “because of the comedy, and because it is so light-hearted, it is often per-formed in English,” Berry says. It was performed this way for the first time in London in 1876. “We decided we wanted to do that as well, so everybody gets all the jokes and all the fun.” Remember, it’s an operetta- not an opera- so the singers speak di-alogue at times throughout the singing. Berry says that makes Die Fledermaus more like a Broadway musical than like what we may think of as opera. “Nobody dies! There’s lots of partying and reveling. And lots of beautiful music that people will actually recognize.”

The title, which is sometimes embellished in trans-lation to “Revenge of the Bat,” refers to the backsto-ry between two of the lead characters. Act I provides the delicious set-up for the spectacular second act, which is riddled with pranks, confusions and mis-taken identities.

The audience is transported to a lavish masquerade ball and meets the host- a rich, eccentric, fun-lov-ing Russian prince who is traditionally played by a woman. Such roles are written for a lower female voice to mimic the sound of a young man and they are known, as the assistant stage director points out, as “trousers roles,” “pants roles,” or sometimes “breeches roles.” There was an era, centuries ago, when some male singers were castrated in boyhood to preserve the high register of their voices through-

theatre and dance.

TCO PRESENTS DIE FLEDERMAUSFelicia WaynesboroStaff Writer

Prepping Costumes for Die Fledermaus. Photo by Randy Cummings.

22 Vol. 2 Issue 5

On May 28th and 29th, the Broadway national tour of West Side Story will be making a pit stop at Binghamton’s Forum Theatre. This beloved classic, for those unfamiliar with it, is a retell-ing of Romeo and Juliet set in 1950s New York City. The warring families of Shakespeare’s play are replaced with ri-val gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, whose racially-charged disputes prevent young lovers Tony and Maria from being to-gether.

While the play’s themes of prejudice and thwarted love are timeless, Arthur Laurents, the author of the original West Side Story script, was concerned that some of the dialogue was becoming outdated, so he made some changes for the 2009 Broadway revival. The current nationwide tour is staying true to his updated vision.

Jarrad Biron Greene, the actor who is playing Tony, explains the revisions. “Now, 10% of the dialogue and songs will be in Spanish, giving the Puerto Ri-can gang, the Jets, a chance to speak in their native

language. It kind of levels the playing field for the gangs. The play is darker, grittier, and more vio-lent.” Due to the increased violence and mature themes, the play has been rated appropriate for ages 13 and up, so parents should avoid bringing young children.

Though the script is updated, the same choreogra-phy and songs that led to West Side Story’s massive success will remain. “I think what really stands out is the original choreography by Jerome Robbins and the score by Leonard Bernstein,” Jarrad sug-gests. “The songs are catchy and really give off in-fectious energy, and there are some awesome dance numbers.”

As only two months of the show remain ahead, Binghamton will be one of the last stops on the na-tionwide tour of West Side Story. The young, tal-ented actors have already sang and danced their way through over 100 cities. “It’s my first tour of any kind and I’m proud to be a part of it,” says Jar-rad. “It’s a big bag of mixed feelings- exciting and nerve-wracking but a really positive experience.”

West Side Story promises an extremely positive ex-perience for audiences as well. The performances will take place on May 28th and 29th at 7:30 PM. Tickets cost $35-$55, and can be purchased at the Arena Box Office and Ticketmaster. For more information on ticket sales or the production, call (607)778-6626 or visit BroadwayInBinghamton.com.

Rose Silberman-GornStaff Writer

WEST SIDE STORYSTOPS AT THE FORUM

Wednesday, May 7th is your chance to go out and experience something new. Binghamton University’s Nukporfe Af-rican Dance-Drumming Ensemble will be preforming their semester show from 7 to 9pm at Watters Theatre, and at $5 ticket, it would be a crime not to check it out.

The group boasts dozens of drummers, along with dancers, and everyone joins in the chorus perform-ing traditional songs and dances from Ghana and other African and Caribbean countries. African Dance-Drumming is a high-energy mix of dancing, storytelling, and oral history set to the complex beat of traditional African instruments.

Although comprised of students, Nukporfe is much more than a student group. Binghamton University students go through a strenuous audition and many students have several courses on African Dancing and/or Drumming under their belt before audi-tioning. Professor James Burns, Chair of the Music Department who founded Nukporfe in 2006, ex-plains, “Nukporfe is a collaborative effort between the departments of Music, Africana Studies, and Theatre Dance, and draws in a diverse group of stu-dents from many different cultural backgrounds.” Since the group’s inception, the university has been bringing in professors from Ghana to teach

the courses required to prepare students for audi-tions. Along with Burns, this month’s performance is co-directed by Professor Elikem Nyamuame, who was raised in a musical family in Ghana and received his PhD in Ethnomusicology from the Uni-versity of Florida.

Nukporfe is a Ewe proverb meaning, “Seeing is Believing,” and you’d have to see this group in ac-tion to understand what a remarkable collection of people contribute their talents to the ensemble. Many members hail from Africa and the Caribbe-an, where African Dance-Drumming ties into their shared heritage. However, looking at the sixty-plus members in Nukporfe, the amount of cultural di-versity is astounding; the love of the music unites students of an array of different backgrounds.

Nukporfe succeeds in bringing a cultural aware-ness of the Ewe music tradition of West Africa to the greater Binghamton area. The Ewe ethnic group located in Ghana, Togo, and Benin, is host to a rich musical culture centered on Ewe drumming, which includes several drums, a bell, and a rattle, which set the pace for several dancers and singers. In ad-dition, Nukporfe incorporates the new and the old: within the traditional framework of the drumming, several modern and Afro-Cuban dances are per-formed.

Tickets can be purchased at the Anderson Center Box Office from noon to 5:30pm (weekdays only), at anderson.binghamton.edu, or at the door. Wat-ters Theatre is located in the Fine Arts Building on the Binghamton University Campus. For more in-formation visit music.binghamton.edu

Kaitlin MooneyStaff Writer

DANCE AND DRUMMINGWITH THE NUKPORFE ENSEMBLE


From May 15th through 18th, the Endi-cott Performing Arts Center will be pre-senting its repertory company in a night of Take Back the 80s Burlesque, the third in an annual series of burlesque nights that aim to present a clean but sexy version of the classic singing-and-danc-ing theatrical art form. True to burlesque tradition, the large cast of dancing talent in will be performing original choreog-raphy in costumes specially designed for the show.

After last year’s circus-themed “Carn-Evil” bur-lesque, director John Penird says he had little trouble coming up with a theme for this year’s per-formance. He put it simply: “Everybody loves the eighties, and there are so many songs that I had just been longing to do.” Penird belongs to a local eighties-music cover band called The Mixtapes, so he knows the music of the era inside and out. He wanted to be sure to include a selection that rep-resented a fusion of styles from a musical decade that spanned a wide range of genres, so each act has at least ten numbers, ranging from Chaka Khan to Queen.

The music of the 1980s has been experiencing a re-vival of popularity as of late, and Penird is aware of this trend: “If you loved ‘Rock of Ages,’ this will really be a show for you,” he says, referencing Chris D’Arienzo’s 2006 eighties-rock jukebox musical and its subsequent film adaptation. “This is the perfect time for a show like this.”

As Penird points out, though, “Putting in a bit of humor is a really important part of the burlesque experience,” and as a performer as well as a direc-tor, he will be helping to provide that humor. Un-

People often associate burlesque with an old-time performance in the style of the 1930s or 40s, but Penird emphasizes that staying tied to preconcep-tions of what the art form should be is less import-ant than putting forward a show that people will love. “We didn’t have a theme our first year, other than just ‘Burlesque,’ and I think doing something new with the the idea keeps it fresh with something for people to enjoy that they haven’t seen before.”

In keeping with the burlesque style, performers choose their own enticing names such as Kitty Fly-nn, Ann Prospect, Lexi Fox, Scott Sky, Lacey Bels, Emerald Raine, Roxie Divine, and Ginger Rose. But in a contrast to the traditional burlesque shows of ages past, EPAC’s burlesque will feature no actual nudity. Penird maintains, “That’s not necessary. Not everybody wants to see naked people dancing around. And it gives us the opportunity to bring in different types of people who wouldn’t otherwise necessarily come.”

The decision to present a family-friendly show is keeping with EPAC’s status as a provider of chil-dren’s theatre courses and production in the area. But it doesn’t keep the show from having an in-souciant and deliberate edge. And the interplay of that combination has kept EPAC’s burlesque shows popular with audiences thus far. “I am hoping it can really become a local tradition,” Penird says, “and EPAC has been gracious enough to host us, which I’m really grateful for.”

But above all his emphasis is on providing an enjoy-able night for all, “I want people to feel like they’ve gone to a concert,” he says. “It was hard to choose, but I think we’ve got some of the best songs of the decade. We’re out promoting it now, and when show time comes I think it will be a great night for everyone.”

Tickets for ‘Take Back the 80s Burlesque are on sale now, $18/Seniors, $20/Adults. They can be purchased online at endicottarts.com or by calling the EPAC box office, (607) 785-8903. EPAC is lo-cated at 102 Washington Ave. in Endicott.

Penird has formidable talent on hand to help him bring the show together. Experienced choreogra-pher and performer Alery Patton, who also worked on last year’s show, will be returning to devise all of the dance numbers. Accomplished costume design-er Julia Kelly has also returned to conjure the ex-traordinary spirit that characterized the costumes of the eighties.

like last year’s performance, the eighties burlesque show will not attempt to follow a particular sto-ryline, but will instead create a general setting and place the numbers there. Namely, the performance will ostensibly take place within an 80s California gentlemen’s club, and the hosts taking the audience through the proceedings will be three drags queens, one of whom will be played by Penird himself.

When I visited the Rod Serling School of Fine Arts at Binghamton High School this past autumn, I was invited to take a tour of the theatre and dance facilities. De-spite my hesitation- I was there for strict-ly journalistic purposes- I was brought through the school’s labyrinthine halls to the dance studio, where I bore witness to WillowDanse. The dancers were diverse and adept; the atmosphere was profes-sional yet welcoming. The creative gods had smiled upon me. I had found a place to dance.

Months later, I am proud to say that I have had the great challenge, joy, and honor to study with Kar-en Koyanagi, who is in her twentieth and final year directing the dance program at the Serling School. I spoke with Karen (who is affectionately known as “K2” by her students) about her life and her pro-gram, the nature of dance, and their upcoming con-cert, Dance by Numbers.

vvv

think artists can change society. If you create some-thing that touches somebody, they’re going to take that with them.

You are something of an icon at this school, and you are retiring this year. What kind of legacy do you hope to leave here? Dance is healing. When you dance, you are whole: it is an integration of mind, body, spirit, and emotions. So that if you truly dance- without fear- then you are, at that moment, free. So I hope that this place continues to be a haven, a place where students can come and feel safe, feel beautiful, feel strong, feel that they belong, feel that they can connect to each other. A place where they are seen and heard, a place where they learn to be self-disciplined, learn about themselves, and can develop into strong young adults. I hope that they learn discipline, that they learn to work with each other, that they learn self-control, that they learn to find a goal, to prob-lem solve: these are the things that I think a dance class teaches, that it should teach.

vvv

“Dance by Number” will take place on Friday, May 2nd, and Saturday, May 3rd at the Helen Foley Theatre, located inside Binghamton High School, at 7:30pm. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for stu-dents and senior citizens. Families of three or more attending will be admitted at $5 each. Children under five are admitted for free.

thropological artifact.

What is WillowDanse? WillowDanse is the inter-generational contemporary/modern dance company, which we started in 1996. So the oldest adult was, like, sixty-five or seventy years old danc-ing; the youngest person in the company was eight. We would do the performances in the school, but we would also perform around the community, and around New York: at First Night in Saratoga; we performed in Ithaca. We have gone to Europe: we did an exchange with La Teste, our sister city in France, and performed there, and then in 2000 we went to Zimbabwe, and performed at the Zim-babwe Festival.

You are an inspired choreographer. From where do you draw your inspiration? Cho-reography comes from a state of being. For me, it comes from whatever inner life you have, in terms of your emotional state, or things that are going on around you. Artists are really influenced by the zeitgeist of the world. I’ve seen this happen so many times, where people will be choreographing independently, not knowing anything about each other, and then they look, and they’re dealing with the same themes. I think there are so many things going on in the world that influence the way that we feel and the way that we think, and our attitudes and our everyday life, and that’s going to come into the choreography. Sometimes it’s an image, sometimes it’s a piece of music, sometimes it’s an emotional state, sometimes it’s a belief or a value. I

Tell us about your path as a dancer. I took ballet from the time I was seven until I was four-teen, then I took a jazz class, and then I actually stopped dancing from the time I was fifteen until I was twenty-four. I got a degree; I’m a marine biol-ogist. Then I was a park naturalist for a few years, teaching in nontraditional settings, but at the same time, I sort of rediscovered dance. I started studying with Paula Ross, a renowned Canadian neo-Graham practitioner of modern dance. It was a challenge, so then I started taking, like, six classes a week, and then I did a degree in dance at York Uni-versity in Toronto. I was in the community there, working with other dancers and artists, and an op-portunity came up where a friend had sold a piece to the Roberson Museum in Binghamton and they were looking for a curator. So I came down here, and after two years at the Roberson, and a variety of other positions, I ended up at the high school. I founded this program and I’ve been here ever since.

What can you tell us about the dance pro-gram at the Rod Serling School? The kids can come in at any level, and they can take dance for four years. They learn different techniques: ballet, modern; they do some West African; they do some hip-hop; they do some ethnic dances, such as sal-sa, different social dances- a variety of things. So they do the physical component and training, but they also have to understand the nature of dance. We talk about how every dance, from any culture, reflects that culture, and is tied to the political, so-ciology and history of that culture. Dance is an an-

Heather MerlisAssistant Editor

DANCE BY NUMBERS AT BHS’S SERLING SCHOOL

AQUANET AND LEG WARMERS:EPAC TAKES BACK THE 80S WITH NEWEST BURLESQUE SHOW

AND A FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT...

Charles BermanStaff Writer

They’re maniacs. Maniacs. Photo Provided.

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food and drink.

If you’ve ever explored the booming me-tropolis of the Triple Cities, then you’ve probably passed by The Village Diner. It’s at 255 Floral Avenue in Johnson City, across the street from the park and the fire station. It’s situated in the middle of a small strip of local businesses and a barber, so perhaps you haven’t noticed it, or just never thought to stop in.

Well, enough dilly-dallying. Just do it, already! You have been missing out on a fantastic meal and it’s time you experience some of Broome County’s fin-est gourmet diner food.

I grew up a couple blocks from The Village Diner, and it saddens me to have only stopped in for my first time last week. The ownership has changed hands a few times, a proper business model has been put in place, and it’s starting to see some ef-fect. “The Diner is breaking records every month in sales,” owner Matt Smith says. “A lot of the repeat customers tell their friends and then they tell their friends.” The Village Diner is gaining a positive reputation quickly, and by looking at what they’re offering, there’s no question it’s legit. They are serv-

cally made Kaiser roll. Sounds good, right?

I opt for “That” Fried Chicken Sandwich, though, and let me tell you why. They take a chicken breast, pound it out and marinate it in their own spiedie sauce, then hand-bread and toss that bad boy in the deep fryer for a few minutes. Meanwhile, the cook preps the Kaiser roll on the flat top and dresses it with lettuce and onion on a plate next to chips and a homemade pickle. Spiedie purists would say you never add cheese to a spiedie sandwich; however, in this case, it’s totally welcome. The chicken is su-per-crisp and juicy, likely to induce textural-sen-sory overload. It’s got a crunchy, well-seasoned breading, with notes of black pepper and spices, and the chicken breast is so tender and packed with flavor that it’s hard to put the damn thing down. Pair that with the cool, crisp veggies on your bun, washed down with an unsweetened iced tea, and you’ve discovered the recipe for greatness.

After all is said and done, I’ve still got room for dessert. Well, I don’t have room, but the Blueber-ry Cheesecake is taunting me, and it’s been on my mind since I got here. It’s silky smooth and velvety, with the right amount of tartness. And the blueber-ry topping is just perfect. You have to eat here.

I had a great experience at The Village Diner. The dishes at every table looked incredible, and can’t wait to go back and give the BBQ Smoked Pork a shot. They’re open from Monday through Saturday from 7am to 2pm, and on Sundays from 8am to 2pm. Tell ’em I sent ya!

ing up good food quickly, and being a small place, the ambience becomes familiar and conversations are not shy.

From the chromed-out barstools at the counter to the requisite hotrod inspired décor, this place has small-town diner written all over it. The menu is painted on a chalkboard above the flat top grill, and everything is right out in the open, so customers can see the love that the cook is putting into every meal. Just by looking at the spread, I know I’m go-ing to need a minute to decide, so I sip my chocolate milk slowly.

Breakfast is served here at anytime, but I’m not much for breakfast food. However, a place that can do Sausage Gravy and Biscuits to perfection has a special spot in my heart- literally. They also make Breakfast Pizza, Root Beer Float Pancakes (that’s one giant pancake topped with vanilla bean ice cream and homemade root beer syrup), and French Toast Breakfast Sandwiches.

Lunch starts at 11am. There are some pretty hearty things on this side of the menu, including a Ba-con Chipotle Ranch Cheeseburger, cooked to your liking, and a few stuffed burger options. They do Grilled Reubens, Cubanos, Fish Tacos, and Que-sadillas as well. Now, what I’m having a hard time deciding between is “That” Fried Chicken Sandwich and the BBQ Smoked Pork. The pork is smoked in-house with Jack Daniel’s oak barrel chips, topped with Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce, homemade chi-potle slaw, and pepper jack cheese on a grilled, lo-

HEALTHYEATS

Asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables. Grilled, broiled, stir-fried, and even raw, I will always choose the green stalk as my main veg. Lucky for me, and you other asparagus lovers, now is the best time for fresh asparagus, mak-ing its debut in the spring season. When shop-ping for asparagus, choose firm, bright green stalks with closed, compact buds. The diameter of the stem isn’t as important as these qualities, but I enjoy thinner stalks myself! Asparagus flaunts zero fat and only 3 calories per spear, and is a great source of fiber, potassium, B6 and folic acid. It’s a rather versatile vegetable, and in the recipe below, it is prepared in one of my favorite ways (my second favorite is raw, diced up and tossed into salads! Try it!). If grilling you can simply wrap the spears in some foil and fol-low the same recipe- just check for tenderness to determine if it is ready to eat!

Roasted Asparagus

1 pound of asparagus

1 cup of thinly sliced bell peppers (I used red, orange and yellow)

1/2 cup of thinly sliced purple onion

3 cloves garlic, minced

Lemon pepper, salt, black pepper to taste

1/2 lemon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F. Wash and dry all vegeta-bles. Halve asparagus, and thinly slice the pep-pers and onions into strips. Using extra virgin olive oil, lightly oil the bottom of a baking dish (can use glass/ceramic/pan). Place asparagus in pan, then top evenly with onion, peppers and minced garlic. Lightly drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkle with lemon pepper, salt and black pepper to coat evenly. Squeeze 1/4 of the lemon over the dish. Cover with aluminum foil, making a few slits to vent. Place on center rack and roast for 15 minutes (times may vary depending on size of asparagus). Remove and toss, adding more salt/pepper if needed, and squeezing the remaining lemon juice over. Re-turn to oven and cook until tender.

*Note: I tend to not “measure” ingredients when I cook, but I’ve done my best to estimate what I toss in. Cooking time may vary depend-ing on the girth of your stalk.

Stacey Burke is a Holistic Health and Wellness Coach, and founder of New Roots to Health. She works with busy individuals whom strug-gle with stress around weight loss, cravings and low energy by supporting them in setting personal goals in balancing diet and lifestyle. How often do you get the personal attention you deserve when talking about your health and nutrition? Email her at [email protected] or visit her website www.newrootstohealth.com to learn more about programs that could change your life. Men-tion you read about her in Carousel, and receive 25% off a 6-month, personalized program!

Ty WhitbeckCreative Consultant

IT’S NOT “JUST” A DINER:

CHOWING DOWN AT JC’S HIDDEN GEM

Stacey BurkeStaff Writer

That Chicken Sandwich. Photo Provided.

26 Vol. 2 Issue 5

[EDITOR’S NOTE: We talk about Lost Dog Café a whole lot. Why wouldn’t we? Not only does Lost Dog stand as one of downtown Binghamton’s most storied eateries, they also host a whole slew of music and other events in their late-night Lounge. In previous months, Carousel has told you about the musical roots of the owners, showcased some workshops, and talked a whole lot about the bands they host weekly. And yet somehow, in over a year of publishing, we haven’t once given them a proper food review. We already know the food is amazing. You already know the food is amazing. Now, let’s immortalize that in print.]

Years ago, I remember grabbing a Jason’s Race-horse (a quadruple shot of espresso) in an old fish market on Main St. in Binghamton. The original Lost Dog Café offered a multitude of java drinks, baked goods and a variety of sandwiches. Now, many years later, with a great downtown location, Lost Dog Café is still creating authentic original food at a very reasonable cost.

Lost Dog Café sits on the corner of Water St. and Henry St. in the heart of Binghamton. The exterior of the building is well maintained, and the large windows that sit every few feet offer a view inside the café from the street. The interior is tastefully decorated with artwork on the walls and crystals dangling from the ceiling. The look reminds me of a well-dressed hippie. The main dining area has small and large table arrangements that can ac-commodate parties of varying sizes. The bar area has seating for about 15, as well as table seating for smaller parties. There are also two banquet areas used for private parties and events. The Lost Dog Lounge, which has been open for almost two years, is separate from the restaurant and has a large bar that seats 25-30 people. There are also high-top ta-bles, comfortable couches and an extensive martini selection.

I neglected to make a reservation, but my guest and I were seated promptly at a cozy table for two. Our waitress, a very nice young lady named Jami, quickly took our drink orders and informed us of the evening’s specials. The first was farfalle pasta in an egg and cheese Carbonara sauce, tossed with ham, peas, tomato, arugula and Asiago cheese. The other special was grilled tenderloin topped with fried onions and a white cheddar IPA sauce (Dog-fish Head 60 minute), served with mashed potatoes loaded with bacon, scallions and sour cream.

We started with a couple of martinis: a Hotel California for me and a Carrie Bradshaw for my guest. The Hotel California contained Effen cucum-

ber vodka, Midori melon liqueur, pineapple, club soda, fresh basil, rimmed with sea salt. I found it very refreshing, and the fresh basil combined with the cucumber finished very clean. The Carrie Brad-shaw was a classic cosmopolitan of Absolut citron, Cointreau, cranberry juice and lime. While it did not lead me to sex in the city, it was very tasty.

For appetizers we chose the asparagus cakes, the chicken lemongrass dumplings, and the sundried tomato dip. The asparagus cakes fully embodied the taste of my favorite vegetable and were textural-ly satisfying, with small bites of asparagus through-out the cakes. They were served with Sriracha hot sauce and a creamy vegan garlic & herb sauce. Both played well with the asparagus. The chick-en dumplings were nicely fried and served with a sweet chili-soy sauce- I enjoyed these the most of the three appetizers. The sundried tomato dip had a nice pop of fresh garlic and basil and was served with crostini. We shared a mixed green salad that contained red onion, grape tomatoes, cucumber and chickpeas with a chili-lime vinaigrette that was outstanding. The slight heat from the chili coupled with the citrus bite was unlike anything I’ve ever tasted in a dressing.

For our entrées, we chose the Smoked Mozzarella Ravioli and the Sesame Ginger Salmon. We decided to add grilled chicken to the Ravioli, which was pre-pared with grape tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, baby spinach, fresh basil, lemon, garlic, white wine and feta cheese. I expected from its description that the dish might have too many flavors competing,

A NIGHT ON THE TOWNAhlpheh Ohtis WilsonStaff Writer

but I found the exact opposite to be the case. Each bite had a unique profile; some bites were driven by the taste of the artichokes while other bites show-cased the basil and olives. The smoked mozzarella stayed a constant attribute and brought out the best in each ingredient. The salmon entrée was excellent as well, marinated in ginger and sesame and then grilled to perfection. Salmon can easily be over or under-cooked, but this salmon was done so that the flesh of the fish was firm and easily flaked to the fork. The toasted sesame seeds added texture and flavor, and the salmon was served on a bed of or-ganic spring greens and brown rice. Both entrees were nicely portioned and very reasonably priced.

In lieu of dessert, we chose an after dinner drink, one that won the 2013 Martini Walk… the Urban Smore- Wow! Containing marshmallow vodka, crème de cacao, chocolate and cream and rimmed with a chocolate and graham cracker mixture, it was garnished with toasted marshmallows and may have been one of the best martinis I’ve ever tasted.

I found my overall experience at the Lost Dog Café to be very pleasant. Our server Jami was atten-tive without being pushy, the pacing of the meal was relaxed, and the atmosphere of the restaurant was friendly and down to earth. From humble be-ginnings in an old fish market to the vibrant and exciting location downtown, the Lost Dog has cer-tainly made a name for itself. I would like to thank the staff and ownership for consistently providing a great dining experience, and I encourage you to stop by and enjoy.

AT BINGHAMTON’S FAVORITE HOTSPOT


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“We Won the World Series!” by Paul O’Heron

ACROSS

1. Team with 6 World Series championships, first in 1955 (Brooklyn), last in 1988 (Los Angeles)8. Team with 3 World Series championships, first 1914 (Boston), last in 1995 (Atlanta)13. New York team with 27 World Series champi-onships, first in 1923, last in 200914. They help you find your seat at the stadium16. Cincinnati team with 5 World Series champi-onships, first in 1919, last in 199017. Slang for $100 bill18. Hank Aaron is the career leader in this MLB category with 2,29719. “Look at misfortune the same way you look at success - Don’t _____! Do you best and forget the consequences.” – Walter Alston, Dodgers manager 1954 - 197621. The shape of an ash billet prior to lathe work that turns it into a bat23. Kansas City team with 2 Negro League World Series championships, first in 1924, last in 194225. Actress Katic who portrays Kate Beckett on Castle29. New York Yankees dedicated cable station30. According to healthyliving.azcentral.com: to determine daily caloric _____ for baseball play-ers, “you should multiply your weight by 23, if it’s game time and you’re in the starting lineup.”31. New York team with 2 World Series champion-ships, first in 1969, last in 198633. Kansas City team with 1 World Series champi-onship, in 198534. Miami team with 2 World Series champion-ships, first in 1997, last in 200335. Boston team with 7 World Series champion-ships, first in 1912, last in 201336. Baltimore team with 3 World Series champi-onships, first in 1966, last in 1983

DOWN

1. Jimmy Dugan: Taking a little _____ _____? Dottie Hinson: No, Bob and I are driving home. To Oregon. -- Quote from the 1992 movie “A League of Their Own”3. Florida spring training site for the team in 8-down5. Not odd7. St. Louis Browns Hall of Famer George _____, of whom Ty Cobb said, “nearest thing to a perfect ball player.”8. Toronto team with 2 World Series champion-ships, first in 1992, last in 199310. Team with 9 World Series championships, first in 1910 (Philadelphia), last in 1989 (Oakland)12. Dropped an easy fly ball15. Binghamton is in the Southern _____ region of New York20. St. Louis team with 11 World Series champion-ships, first in 1926, last in 201122. Chicago team with 3 World Series champion-ships, first in 1906, last in 200523. The “Say Hey Kid”, Willie _____24. What was unusual about the April 15, 1968 Astros vs. Mets game after 23 1/2 innings26. Cleveland Indians six-time all-star and Hall of Famer Earl _____27. Rabbit Maranville is the career leader in this MLB category with 8,96728. How infielders often hold their arms after making a poor throw?32. “Able was I _____ _____ saw Elba”, famous palindrome

BUYLOCALEVERYDAY

28 Vol. 2 Issue 5

fun stuff. B.C. by MASTROIANNI AND HART

WIZARD OF ID by PARKER, MASTROIANNI, AND HART

DOGS OF C-KENNEL by MICK AND MASON MASTROIANNI

TRIPLE CITIES CAROUSELis always looking for contributors!

Articles, Pictures, Comics, Puzzles, Poetry...We’re not going to pay you or anything, but

THINK OF THE FAME! THINK OF THE GLORY!THINK OF HOW MUCH COOLER THIS PAGE WOULD

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CROSSWORD ANSWERS!(CROSSWORD ON PREVIOUS PAGE)

HOROSCOPESEach month, CAROUSEL features a guest horoscope columnist. For May, we welcome Molly McGrath, a local University student. As far as we know, she knows nothing about astrology.

Taurus (Apr. 20- May 20) You will find yourself overcome with Spring Fever. Even that coworker or classmate who used to give you the skeevies will start to seem like a potential part-ner. Don’t let your sexual ardor translate into licentious behavior. Keep it in your pants, you ragin’ bull you.

Gemini (May 21- Jun. 20) Let’s face it: three beers deep, you think you’re God’s gift to earth and that everyone needs to hear about your lat-est project, be it a novel or a rap about man-atees. For once, be quiet. Let your ideas rumi-nate. No one cares right now.

Cancer (Jun. 21- Jul. 22) A seemingly nev-er-ending winter put you in homebody mode. You may be content to spend every night watch-ing Netflix and drinking Sleepytime tea, but it’s time to break the routine. Get out more and stop being such a grandma.

Leo (Jul. 23- Aug. 22) You’ve got a fine set of cajones and you know how to use them. This month, your courage will be tested greatly. It’s time to put up or shut up. The alignment of the cosmos indicates you’ll choose the former course of action.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sept. 22) As Hannah Mon-tana once sang, “Nobody’s perfect, I gotta work it, again and again until I get it right.” Don’t lis-ten to her. You spend far too much time trying to achieve perfection. Chill out, please.

Libra (Sept. 23- Oct. 22) Some people are handy, others crafty, but you’re a wordsmith to the core. An opportunity to mediate a dispute will arise, and onlookers may say it’s not your place to get involved. Do it anyway and let them sip their hater-ade.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 21) From your per-spective, the world is black and white. This month, you’ll meet someone who shatters this notion through their identity or behavior. When this happens, don’t freak out too much. The earth will keep on turning even though your neat little framework of understanding is dis-rupted.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22- Dec. 21) There’s an old saying that goes, “Don’t be so open-mind-ed that your brain falls out.” While this saying might be old, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s stupid advice. Feed your inquisitive mind with nutritious taboos other people can’t stom-ach because they’re too lame.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 19) “You are a fluke of the universe. You have no right to be here and whether you can hear or not, the uni-verse is laughing behind your back.” - Nation-al Lampoon’s “Deteriorata.” These words will ring true for you this month. You may feel like the universe is against you, but it’s really just indifferent. Take comfort in the fact that your actions do not matter.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 18) People are not science projects, and you cannot treat them as such. You’ve taken painstaking steps to change someone within your life. It isn’t going to work. Give up. The void they leave will lead you to seek out more feasible projects.

Pisces (Feb. 19- Mar. 20) Emotional depth is underrated. Many people aim to come off as cold and unfeeling. Your sensitivity is not a handicap- it’s a strength. This month, the sheer weight of injustice in the world is going to hit you like a ton of bricks. Let the tears flow, hon-ey.

Aries (Mar. 21- Apr. 20) It’s great to have a competitive edge, but this month you will be tempted to do anything to get ahead, stepping on others during your rise to the top. Think long term; the peasants you step on could become powerful allies.

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