Well, I tried to get to the Monroe Avenue Merchants Assocation Holiday Celebration on Thursday but it appeared to be a hoax. Either that or it was so non-obvious that I just missed, being much more accustomed to the blatant displays by Park Avenue. Either that, or it actually took place at 5 a.m. like it was listed on the online calendar at The Genesee Center for the Arts (713 Monroe Ave.) I swear it was supposed to have happened.

Nonetheless, I got a bite to eat at The Little Theatre Café (240 East Ave.) and headed to George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to see their Sonorous Shorts program in the Dryden Theatre. They started things off with two different versions of Bridges-Go-Round: one with the original jazz-based soundtrack by Bebe Barron and Louis Barron and then a second with the synthesizer-based soundtrack by Teo Macero. The film is, well, interwoven and overlapped shots of various bridges and cityscapes taken from the perspective of a moving observer — either in a car or stationary but panning. The jazzy version was neat but I kind of liked the synthesizer-based one better — comparing, it was interesting to note where my eye fixated based on the music. Next was Money which was an absurdly rapidly edited piece which I deemed "1985 on coke." There were parts that implied people saying things (from clips spliced and pitch-adjusted together) but it appeared to just be gibberish. I liked it. Straight and Narrow was next and my immediate reaction was "a skull fuck." The screen blinks between black and white, sometimes with stripes and sometimes at different tempos hovering around 5 flashes a second, generally following the beat of the jazz soundtrack. When I could stay focused, it did induce a little hallucination or lightheadedness. Otherwise, I was checking the audience for anyone having a siezure. Our Trip to Africa was peculiar — a strangely edited documentation of a hunting trip to Africa that disconnects sound from picture, giving it the surrealness that I'm sure the real trip had (albeit for different reasons.) Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies and Street of Crocodiles were done by "the Brothers Quay," Timothy Quay and Stephen Quay whose animation style was emulated for the videos of Tool. It's based on very surreal worlds and puppets.

On Friday I went to a double-birthday party for friends of mine and on Saturday was my Uncle's annual Christmas Party near where I grew up in Schenectady. Needless to say, I was thoroughly orally fixated, desiring at times to have one hole for talking and another for eating and drinking.

I returned here on Sunday in time to make it to The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) to see the photography show by Frank De Blase titled FOTO-RAMA. Since I already know his public persona as a local musician, a music-writer, a frequent enjoyer of rockabilly bands, and an occasional listener of non-rockabilly bands, I knew I had a bias, so I carefully considered my expectations. I figured he'd take the kinds of pin-up girl pictures you'd find on the covers of present-day rockabilly albums and websites. Essentially, medium- to wide-angle photos taken at low, high, or otherwise oblique angles of meaty, attractive women showing a lot of skin and wearing uncomfortably dramatic shoes posed like women who believe in a solitary stereotypical male sexuality would think "all men" think women look the sexiest. [Let's see you diagram that sentence, Mrs. Foley!]

I hoped I was wrong — that maybe he would be a really spectacular photographer who broke new ground in the well-established pin-up genre — but I pretty much hit it dead on. His composition and the technical aspects of the images were generally good. Oddly defying my disdain of rules, I tended to like the photos that closely followed the "rule of thirds" — for instance, one where a woman was seductively reclining in a sitting pose where her shins and back were right on the 1/3 and 2/3 horizontal divisions of the image and her thigh and head were on the 1/3 and 2/3 verticals.

However, the unexpected side-effect is that the people who came were (at least among the ones I already knew) were more open to sexuality than usual. I had a frank (no pun intended) discussion with an old friend of mine about our sexuality ... er ... our respective sexualities. Separately. In particular, we talked about the things we're each working on to be more mentally healthy about it. I'm curious if this continues when I go there when bands are playing in the coming weeks.

On Monday evening I was late to the performance of The Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble at Kilbourn Hall at Eastman Theatre (60 Gibbs St.) Apparently Rochester's nightlife is so dead because there aren't enough parking spaces to get to things (which reminds me, I can't fucking wait to get back on my bicycle!) I missed most of the first piece, Triangular Antiphonies by Christopher D. Brakel but what I did hear sounded really good. Next was Messagesquisse for 7 Cellos by Pierre Boulez which was interesting and busy but I don't have the musical education to find any of the nuances. The same with Steven Stucky ' s Boston Fancies — it was interesting and complicated sounding and it felt a bit like a suspenseful movie score at times, what with its lulls and crescendos, but I'm sure I'm missing big pieces without the music background.

Tuesday I did a bit of shopping. First at JCPenny — each year they send me a coupon for $10 off a $10 purchase, and each year I make exactly one purchase for slightly more than $10, thereby making me one of their "best customers" deserving of another coupon next year. On the other hand, I went all around town trying to find the red LocTite (the one that's permanent) and eventually found it at Wilson Hardware (812 Monroe Ave.) Well, it was just a single-use 0.02 fluid ounce tube for $0.99. I commented that this is more expensive than an equivalent amount of gold (which would actually be in the ballpark of $10 worth by weight.) However, it does actually work out to $6,336 per gallon ... too bad they didn't have a more economical size and would additionally allow me to return it at the per-volume price.

That night I went to see Ossia New Music at Christ Church of Rochester (141 East Ave.) György Kurtág's Officium Breve seemed to be mostly about harmonies between 2 violins, a viola, and a cello. Jacob Bancks' selection of Three Sad Songs was, as advertised, sad but surprisingly warm at the same time. I found Wolfgang Rihm's Canzona to be a dismally boring and long piece for 4 violas ... I think the performers got a second ovation just for enduring the performance. Then again, it might be something that is very exciting to people who understand it — kind of like those movies of pretty ladies in their underwear who just put on shoes over and over again. At least they finished on a much more amusing note for us non-experts with György Ligeti's Zehn Stücke für Bläserquintett which was full of surprises to my relatively untrained ear.

Finally, Wednesday night I went to the Dryden again to see Dark Passage which is this slick film-noir-ish movie. In it, Humphrey Bogart plays Vincent Parry, a man just escaped from prison serving time for his wife's murder that he didn't commit. He's picked up by Irene played by Lauren Bacall for mysterious reasons. Well, everything spins round and round as he unravels the mess of his life and try to figure out who really killed his wife. I was impressed at how suspenseful and tense the film is for its duration — it's not very easy to figure out and I was happy at the amount of information left out to throw the audience off the plot. Heck, even when I got home I was still looking over my shoulder.

• Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic (at The Little) - Comic Sarah Silverman performs some of her risqué brand of comedy.
• Ushpizin (at The Little) - A couple in financial trouble pray for help but end up believing a couple criminals that enter their lives are a test of their faith.