From Albany to Buffalo...

As I've grown older, I've also become more cautious about biking, and I feel safer on bike paths than on even moderately trafficked roads (especially with so many distracted drivers and unmaintained shoulders).  The Erie Canal path near Rochester is almost ideal for a leisurely ride - the biggest downsides are having to share the path with pedestrians, dogs, and rollerbladers, and the occasional frost heave on the paved parts.  (Biking on the outskirts, where the pavement ends and packed dirt is the norm, reduces these inconveniences.)

Because the trail is virtually flat, there aren't the challenges of hill climbs that you'd get biking on roads, and you can practically stay in one gear.  The upside, though, is that you have to pedal almost constantly - no uphills mean no coasting downhill!  (It also means fewer "saddle breaks.")  In the summer, you're likely to see pleasure boaters and kayakers enjoying the waterway.  If you bike through Genessee Valley Park, you can also take advantage of some decently maintained bathrooms.

The Erie Canal was completed in 1825, and provided a much needed transportation route between New York City and the Great Lakes.  Unfortunately, competition soon emerged from the railroads, and later highways, and by the early 1900s, commercial traffic on the canal declined.  At times the canal path around Rochester crosses over the railroad tracks and under highways, and at other times it runs parallel to one or the other - a reminder of the progress of technology.  If you're from Rochester, it's easy to take the Canal Path for granted.  But as a recent transplant to the area, I am grateful for such a wonderful resource so close to home!

Henpeck Park in Greece

Fairport

(near the U of R River Campus)

The path is especially peaceful once you leave the Rochester/ Pittsford area and bike west towards Greece or east towards Fairport.  At times, as you bike alongside rolling farmland, you could imagine you were in the countryside, rather than the suburbs.






I'd love to bike the entire Erie Canal, but the annual organized ride, to cover the 400 miles over 8 days, involves... camping?!  No thank you.

Geva Cohort Club - Invitation

I attended the June roundtable presentation at the Rochester Arts & Cultural Council (because I'm treasurer of Concentus Women's Chorus, I am invited to these discussions, and it's too bad they aren't open to more people, because they are very informative, and the presenters deserve a larger audience than they seem to get!).  Tom Parrish, Executive Director of Geva Theatre, and Susan Chekow Lusignan, Director of the Nazareth College Arts Center, each had a half hour to talk about their organizations.  Having met Tom previously, and having become a supporter and subscriber of Geva, I was more interested in learning about the Arts Center, especially as a potential location for a Speaker Series.  However, when Tom started talking about the Cohort Club, my ears perked up, and my eyes must have lit up, because a few days later, I got an email from Sean Daniels, in charge of New Audience Programs, asking me if I would like to participate.  I would be given access to the scripts,  rehearsals and performances, and have a chance to interact with the actors, director, and possibly the playwright, in exchange for journaling about the experience, in an attempt to get the word out about Geva and their productions.  I couldn't say 'yes' fast enough!

My freshman year in college, I ambitiously decided that for a senior thesis in German, I would direct a German play.  As preparation, I needed to take a directing class, and the prerequisite for that was Acting 101.  Well, I completed both courses, but didn't follow through on the thesis.  It occurred to me only in my junior year that not only would the audience for a German play be extremely limited, but the pool of "actors"would be even more so!  Being young and inexperienced and uncreative, it didn't occur to me to take something like Schnitzler's Reigen (aka La Ronde) and turn it into a 2-actor play (a la The Blue Room).  I did get a chance to direct a friend's play written for her senior thesis, and enjoyed the process, as well as the creative collaboration.  But that experience, coupled with the courses, confirmed to me that my talents lay not on, behind, or above the stage, but in front, as part of an educated audience.

I can't wait until our kickoff meeting in August, and am looking forward to watching the process of 'putting it together, bit by bit.'  And I hope my excitement will translate into a few additional ticket sales!

For more information about the Cohort Club:
http://gevajournal.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/clubbing-at-geva/

To view the Geva season:
http://www.gevatheatre.org/

Niagara Falls

This is an 'attraction' that I can't imagine ever tiring of.  I don't have much memory of the first time I saw the falls, when Charlie took me in the late 90's, other than crossing over to Canada on the Rainbow Bridge and viewing the falls briefly from that country (we spent more time in the car to and from Rochester than at the falls themselves).  The second time I visited was in 2009, at the end of a bike trip with friends Theresa and Ryan.  We had biked along the Niagara River on the Canadian side and were on our way home, and Theresa treated us to a ride on the Maid of the Mist - it was incredible!  Not just to see the falls, but to hear them, and to feel their power.

When Charlie and I got married, Parker and Paul had intended to squeeze in a visit to Niagara, but were thwarted because of snow.  So when they visited this summer with their daughter Emory (with whom Parker was pregnant at our wedding), while Charlie and Paul golfed, we girls went off to see the falls.
Of course we had to take the Maid of the Mist (this time from the American side), and then we walked up a steep flight of steps overrun with foreign tourists for a better view before braving immigration to take Emory on her first 'trip' to Canada.  Crossing over, our response to the question about how long we would be in Canada was 'about 10 minutes,' and after about 20, we crossed back, paying the $.50 toll to leave the country.  Car traffic on the bridge was crawling, and we felt pretty smug about being on foot until we encountered the pedestrian line at U.S. Customs.  What should have been just be a

formality took way longer, with questions like where we were from, why we had crossed to Canada, and what we had bought and were bringing back in (just maple cream cookies, I swear!).  Still, I can't wait till the next time I get to go back - maybe to do the Journey Behind the Falls or even the Whirlpool Jet Boat?

Strong Museum of Play

Last year when a friend and her family (2 small girls) visited from Connecticut, the only thing on their 'to do' list was the Strong Museum of Play, and they asked me to join them, but I was busy.  I needed to wait almost a year till more kids visited to have the excuse to go!  Finally, this summer, on a hot day when Charlie's nephew's girlfriend, Sheila, was here with their not-quite-2 year old daughter, Fiona, I decided to take them to the museum, especially to the Dancing Wings Butterfly Garden.  The museum turned out to be such an engaging place for a toddler (Fiona's favorite activities were the Wegmans supermarket - nothing like teaching them young to shop, and to be on the lookout for the Wegmans brand! - and the Post Office, where she could deposit a 'letter' then retrieve it from the back of the box and redeposit it, endlessly) that we barely scratched the surface of the ground floor of the museum, and never made it close to the butterflies.

My college friend Parker, from Baltimore, and her family visited during the recent heat wave, and her daughter, Emory, decided we should go to the Strong Museum to see the butterflies - hurrah!  The exhibit was great, except that it was almost as warm and muggy inside as out.  Beautiful butterflies flew everywhere, and you had to walk carefully to avoid the cute little button quail scurrying on the ground.  There were also tortoises in various enclosures around the garden, and a case where many kinds of chrysalises hung, waiting for their occupants to emerge from their metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly.  The case also displayed a gigantic creepy-looking nocturnal moth from South Asia.  One of the staff had a slightly lame butterfly on her hand (its crinkled wings made it difficult, although not impossible, for it to fly), and Let Emory hold it as well - she said it tickled a bit.

After emerging from the butterfly house, we made our way upstairs, where the more grown-up exhibits are, and what fun!  The first thing we encountered, after making a slinky descend some steps a few times, was Crayon Physics - we were glued to that screen for at least 15 minutes until Emory finally broke the trance and urged us to explore further.  There were banks of arcade games, so Emory played several rounds of Galaga (she was pretty good - really able to focus, and had good eye/hand coordination), and I played one of Asteroids.  I managed to make it into the top 10 scores, despite playing really poorly and pretty much giving up near the end.  Either they must unplug the game periodically, or not many people are nostalgic for Asteroids...  Next, we wandered through the doll  (Barbies, other dolls, doll houses) and the train exhibits, awed by the breadth of the collections, and the ingenious use of space - under many of the glass cases were banks of drawers with more glass cases.  It was overwhelming, and we'd reached our attention span limit, so we headed out, but not without a quick peek into the newly explanded Wegmans (I guess they had to keep pace with the real one on East Avenue?!).  But I'm already plotting my next visit (maybe dragging my sister?), and debating whether it makes sense to just become a member.

To play the addictive crayon physics computer game:
http://crayon-physics.en.softonic.com/ or http://www.crayonphysics.com/

To learn more about the Strong Museum of Play:
http://www.thestrong.org/

Kevin Meaney / Bill Maher

It amazes me that a small comedy club in Webster can draw such talent as Drew Carey (coming in August), Gary Valentine in February (Kevin James' brother), and recently Kevin Meaney ("that's not right!").  We dragged our friends Daren and Cleve to see Kevin perform, and since we were among the first to arrive, got a table right down front. The 190-seat club was about 2/3 full, and a woman at the next table explained that the performer gets the cover fee (in this case, $15 per person), and the club makes its money on food and drinks.  Happy to support the venue, we did our part in ordering food and many beers before the warm-up comedian leapt onto the stage.  He was a kid (in his 30s...) from Buffalo and was very funny, but the real belly laughs came when Kevin took over.

He spent the first part of the show explaining his marriage in light of his actually being gay. Then he moved on to some fantastic impressions, sang a very funny 'duet' with Frank Sinatra (he actually is a very good singer) and ended his set by playing all of the singers from "We are the World" (his best were Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and of course, Michael Jackson).  There wasn't any give and take with the audience, so I was surprised when the warm-up guy returned and said he and Kevin would be in the back selling DVDs, etc.

As we headed out the door, we could see that he was posing for photos taken with audience members, so I dragged Charlie back to get a shot of me with Kevin.  Someone else offered to take the photo with my phone, but after several attempts with the flash not working, Kevin graciously offered to have the photo taken with HIS phone, and to email it to us!  So now we have Kevin Meaney's email address........


Two days later, with visiting friends Margie and Mokhtar, we went to see Bill Maher at the Auditorium Theatre.  We had decent seats (row S, orchestra right) in this 2900-seat venue ($58 per person and a nearly sold-out crowd - you do the math!).  He was hysterical, of course, first hitting on politics for about an hour (you can guess which party he ridiculed most, but the other one wasn't totally spared), then moving on to religion (in the same vein as his movie Religulous), and finally other random topics.  Interestingly, he consulted a notebook to prompt him for his 'bits' fairly frequently during the approximately 2-hour performance, and occasionally got ahead of himself in a joke and had to backtrack.  There was no 'meet and greet' afterwards, but we left smiling and looking forward to our next comedy outing - back to the Comedy Club in August to see Judah Friedlander (Frank of the funny hats from 30 Rock).

Susan B. Anthony House

Whenever friends visit, I try to make sure they see Rochester and surroundings in the best light possible, so they'll want to return.  This past week, when my friend Nanette visited from Florida, miserable weather prevented us from taking too much advantage of the wonderful outdoors.  Last year, we went to the Harriet Tubman House in Auburn, so this year we had to go to the Susan B. Anthony House.  Although their website is mum on the subject, you can only see the house by going on a tour (which is good, because without a docent, you'd just be looking at furniture).  And tours seem to be at random times, based on when visitors show up.  So when we arrived, two tours were already in progress, and the staff at reception weren't keen to start another one for us, or to ask us to wait for more people to arrive.  Instead, we joined a tour already in progress (each one only had 3 people).  We had hoped that at the end the guide would take us back to the room we'd missed, and give us the details that she kept referring to having mentioned earlier, but these hopes were not realized.

In any case, even though this was my third time on this tour, I learned something new, and Nanette also enjoyed the tour.  I think I will choke up every time I hear the story of how Miss Anthony voted.  And I don't think I will tire of taking visitors to tour the house - it's such an important part of history, and it's right here in Rochester!

On our way out, I signed their petition to have Anthony's birthday declared a holiday, although I think it's in vain, and I still think Election Day would be a more appropriate holiday in her honor.  Of course, I can imagine there is one political party who wouldn't want to make it easier for people to vote...

Eastman Summer Sings

I'd been looking forward to the arrival of the summer sings at Eastman, since I completely missed them last year.  It's not easy to find information on them by googling (except for the ones in the past), and in typical Rochester fashion, information isn't even available until very close to the event date.  Never mind...  I missed the first one, but I was free for the 2nd one, so I decided to go and sightread my way through Mendelssohn's Elijah, with Concentus conductor Gwen.

My only prior experience of summer sings was back in the mid 1980s, when I went to one in a rehearsal room at Carnegie Hall by accident - I didn't understand the concept and thought I was going to a performance.  Instead, as I entered the room, in exchange for my $5 I was handed a rental score of Carmina Burana. Luckily, I could sing, and I had chosen this 'concert' because I had sung the piece before, so I wasn't totally a fish out of water!

I hadn't really set my expectations that high - I mean, this is Rochester, not New York City, right?  Wrong!  First, the sings are held in the beautiful Kilbourn Hall, which seats 444, and has wonderful acoustics.  Second, the soloists were not only all performance quality, but were actually professional singers - I would have been happy just to listen to them for 2 hours!  Third, William Weinert, the conductor, was professional but also injected humor as he stopped us to redo a few passages that we managed to mangle.

Incredibly, there were over 200 singers, mostly seniors, but a large contingent of students created an age barbell.  Some seemed familiar with the work, but there were many like me to whom it was (almost) totally unfamiliar (I say almost, because I've actually sung 2 movements - Lift Thine Eyes in Concentus, and He Watching Over Israel in college;  the latter brought back a juvenile moment as we sang "slumbers not nor sleeps"...).  What we all had in common was the joy of singing and the desire for the camaraderie of making music together.  It took about 2.5 hours to sing through the 200 pages, and I was slightly intimidated sitting next to Gwen;  I felt like I was re-auditioning and not doing too well, as I stumbled through several passages la-la-laing (at that point, it was either get the notes right and ignore the words or give up) or worse, completely lost or on a wrong note.  When the final "Amen"s came, I was tired, but exhilarated, and I'm sure this won't be the last sing I attend.

Now, if only one of the programs for a future summer sing would be Sondheim songs...

6x6x2013 at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center

What a fantastic concept - get a bunch of artists (in this case, over 2500, although not all are professional) to donate a bunch of artwork (in this case, over 6000 works) with the unifying theme that they are all a particular size, and then charge only $1 admission and sell each piece for a modest $20, so that the art is accessible and affordable!  The gallery's goal was to sell 2000 of the 6000+ works, and they achieved their goal and then some.  What doesn't sell goes on their website and continues to be available forever, apparently (judging from the works that remain unsold from prior years), or until storage becomes an issue...

By the time I visited the gallery for the first time, most of what I would have considered purchasing was already sold, although I did manage to find three that sang to me.  When I returned a second time, I could only identify two of the three, so when I pick them up at the middle of July, I'll get a little surprise!  Next year I will be sure to attend the opening, when the gallery runs a raffle for the right to be among the first 20 purchasers (again, as Executive Director Bleu Cease explained to us, the raffle concept, rather than auctioning those spots, helps keep the event more egalitarian).  And even though I am the farthest thing from an artist, I am even considering submitting a few works for next year's exhibit (I've already bought supplies at Michael's and have a few ideas, but we'll see if I have the follow through, and the humility to see my pieces end up on the growing list of works that continue to be available on their website).  Was I disappointed to discover that the artists of my three purchases were not famous?  Not really, just as I hope whoever might buy my 'artwork' won't be next year!

For more information about the RoCo or 6x6 exhibits:
http://www.roco6x6.org/6x6x2013_intro.php
My only wish is that the website were more user-friendly, in terms of viewing the art.  It would be nice to be able to sort by sold/not, or move back and forth between the thumbnails and individual photos without having to start back at #1.

Turning Point Park

This isn't a ride for speed, but for scenery.  Starting at the parking lot at the defunct ferry terminal, you head towards Pelican's Nest and cross the railroad tracks to find a nicely paved, wide bike trail.

Biking on the boardwalk, you wouldn't think you were in Rochester.  The bike trail isn't as long as one might like, and dumps you out on the streets and sidewalks, but if you duck into the parking lot of St. Bernard's Park Senior Living you come upon a lovely, secluded garden.

http://www.cityofrochester.gov/article.aspx?id=8589936619






http://www.rochestertrails.info/RochesterTrails/genesee-river-trail

"Fingers and Toes" at the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival, August 2012

"Fingers and Toes" was the sixth of nine musicals in the inaugural season of the Finger Lakes Musical Theatre Festival in Auburn, NY.  

The good:  The musical is a "let's put on a show" story with a twist.  I won't give away the end.  There are only three characters - Tristan "Fingers" St. Claire (Ian Lowe), Dustin "Toes" McGrath (Danny Gardner), and Molly Molloy (Deidre Haran) - and each requires a broad range of skills.  I'm always incredibly impressed when an actor not only acts and sings, but also plays the piano on stage. Here, "Fingers" is required not just to play the piano, but to be the entire accompaniment, and to play in all manner of styles.  Throw in some tap dancing (and there's plenty of it here), some witty lyrics, and actually believable character development, and you have an extremely entertaining evening.  It didn't hurt that all three actors were extremely talented.  As fantastic as they all were, however, looking at the program one could be forgiven for being slightly disappointed that they weren't all sick;  the understudy for "Fingers" is the composer himself, the understudy for Molly is the choreographer, and the understudy for "Toes" seems to be the assistant everything.

The not-so good:  Auburn is a bit of a hike from Rochester, so going to this theatre makes for a very long day or evening out.  However, there is enough to do in the area to make this a reason to stay the night.  Both the Harriet Tubman House and the Seward House Museum are nearby and worth the hour-long tour each provides.  

The bottom line:  Based on the opening night performance of Fingers and Toes, written and directed by Logan Medland, let's hope it's the first of many seasons to come.  

For more information on the Theatre Festival:
http://fingerlakesmtf.com/

Paula Poundstone at Cathedral Hall, August 2012

Paula Poundstone performed on Friday, August 3, at Cathedral Hall, to a very appreciative audience, which might have been bigger, had the event and venue been promoted more adequately.

The Good:  Paula Poundstone is an incredible comedian and a wonderfully entertaining performer, and she had the audience laughing so hard that our faces ached.  As you'd suspect from her show 'Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!' she's a master at improvising when talking with specific audience members she picks out (or on).  One of her conversations with a male audience member down front was so funny that it even had her laughing, and wishing that she had caught this particular exchange on a live CD.  Paula graciously came out quickly to the lobby post-performance to sell and autograph CDs and pose for photos with the purchasers.  The ticket prices were reasonable, and appropriate, given the drawbacks of the space.  

The not-so-good:  First, this was apparently the 'inaugural' performance of Water Street Music in this new venue.  You wouldn't have known it from their website, which kept the location fairly secret, when it should have trumpeted that fact.  Even on the day of the show, the map link on their site showed the Water Street location, rather than the correct address on East Main Street.  I wasn't the only audience member who was confused, but at least I finally figured it out.  Apparently, many did not - they showed up at the wrong place initially, which must have been a bit of a shock.  Second, the air-conditioning, if there was any, didn't compete with the heat of the day.  Some smart audience members were in shorts and t-shirts, but those of us in 'going out' clothes regretted our choice.  Paula must have been melting in her suit and tie.  I'll make a mental note next year to dress more appropriately, or skip buying tickets in the summer entirely.  Water Street Music should make a mental note to warn people on their website of the lack of adequate a/c.  That is, in addition to telling people where the performance really is.  Finally, since the hall is simply a cavernous multi-use space, the main-floor seating consisted of mostly-uncomfortable metal folding chairs.  The first dozen rows of 'VIP seating' had cushioned chairs, but I suspect as the number of patrons purchasing VIP seats rose (there was only a $5 difference between that and regular seating), instead of holding to a specific number of VIP seats, Water Street Music simply increased the number of VIP tickets and moved the dividing rope back to the point where most of the seats in that section were only VIP "ish" - they weren't close enough to the stage to be differentiated from those slightly further back, and they weren't padded, as the true "VIP" seats were.  The best seats in the house for this performance, because Paula stayed down-center stage the entire show, turned out to be in the cushioned side balcony seats.  She even had some back-and-forth with a patron up there who gloated about the comfort of his 'cheap seat.'  On the plus side, because the folding chairs aren't permanent, the rows were spaced generously apart, so there was plenty of leg room.  It would have been nice if they had been set up with some offset as well, instead of rigidly being placed one chair right behind another, so that sight lines would be slightly better.  Since there is no pitch to the floor (because it really is a ballroom space, not a theatre), and the stage is only a couple of steps higher than the seating floor, if you get stuck behind someone taller than you, you really have almost no chance of seeing the performer.

The bottom line:  I'm sure as the managers work out the kinks (and make an investment in more comfortable folding chairs...), over time this will become a very useful additional performance space for Rochester.  It appeared to be able to hold around 5-600 people, which gives the space the ability to feel more intimate than the enormous Auditorium Theatre, but at the same time allows the managers to book performers whose fee requires, or whose popularity draws, a larger audience than the smaller Water Street Music Hall can accommodate.  Now, if only there were more restaurants in the immediate vicinity, so you could just park once for the evening...