Here's my selection of events in Rochester this week:
Thursday, January 8

• This evening from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Center for Disability Rights (497 State St.) is a Rock the Voter Bloc Party.
  

  Getting involved Can be fun! Join us to celebrate the NY Disability Vote Network (NYDVN), New York's first-ever disability voter bloc! Don't miss this opportunity to bring your friends and enjoy great food and live entertainment as well as a chance to join the network! We will be inviting new members to take selfies with their friends that we can post on our Facebook Page, and enjoying celebrity Rock The Vote You Tube videos during breaks in the entertainment.

  [source: City Newspaper events calendar, 2015-Jan-5]

• From 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at the Flying Squirrel is a Public Meeting of the Green Party. [source: Flying Squirrel website, 2015-Jan-5]
• The Bertrand Russell Forum and The Rochester Claude Bragdon Theosophical Society meet tonight at 7 p.m. at Writers and Books. Tonight, Walter Uhrman, and Steve Huff will host with David White discussing William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. [source: Writers and Books website, 2015-Jan-5]
• Thursday, Friday, and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through January 17 at the MuCCC are performances of Judgment at Nuremberg.
  

  Abby Mann's riveting drama Judgment at Nuremberg not only brought some of the worst Nazi atrocities to public attention, but has become, along with Elie Wiesel's Night and Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl, one of the twentieth century's most important records of the Holocaust.

  [source: MuCCC website, 2015-Jan-5]

• Lewis Black performs at the Auditorium Theatre tonight starting at 8 p.m. [source: City Newspaper events calendar, 2015-Jan-5]
• Tonight at 8 p.m., the Dryden will screen Jiao you (Stray Dogs, Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan/France 2013, 138 min., Mandarin w/ subtitles, DCP).
  

  For all of us still under the spell of Hou Hsiao-hsien's transcendent cocktail of realism and poetry from our series earlier this winter, Stray Dogs is no less audacious, rigorous, and hauntingly beautiful. Mere hints of unconventional plot feature Lee Kang-sheng, the director Tsai Ming-liang's enigmatic mainstay since the early 1990s, as a downtrodden single father trying to provide for his two children on the streets of a nameless, hostile metropolis. An epic mural of unyielding (and unspoken) solidarity and compassion among the human stray dogs of society, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival in 2013.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Jan-5]

Friday, January 9

• Starting at 6 p.m. at Joe Bean is a Gallery Opening for Wall\Therapy.
  

  Started in 2012 by Dr. Ian Wilson, the Wall\Therapy project works to address the collective need for inspiration by creating pockets of vibrancy and color in our neighborhoods. This gallery looks at the process of creating these larger-than-life murals, the communities they impact, and how these murals integrate into our neighborhoods. Board members will be on hand opening night to discuss both Wall\Therapy and its sister project Impact!, which seeks to bring improved health care to underdeveloped communities around the world through teleradiology. What's the tie between x-rays and paint on walls? The use of imagery to heal body and soul.

  [source: Joe Bean e-mail, 2015-Jan-6]

• At the Greenhouse Cafe, Rachel McKibbens will host a Poetry Workshop starting at 6 p.m. followed by the Breathing Fire: Teen Poetry Slam. [source: Writers and Books website, 2015-Jan-5]
• From 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Writers and Books is a Big Brick Review Publishing Party. "Building on the narrative of our lives…one brick at a time. Join us to celebrate the inaugural issue of The Big Brick Review and enjoy readings by several of the first-issue authors." [source: Writers and Books website, 2015-Jan-5]
• Tonight at 7 p.m. at the Flying Squirrel is a Meeting of Building Leadership and Community Knowledge (B.L.A.C.K.). [source: Facebook, 2015-Jan-5]
• This week's 7 p.m. movie at the Cinema is The Interview (Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen, U.S. 2014, 112 min.) "Dave Skylark and producer Aaron Rapoport run the celebrity tabloid show 'Skylark Tonight.' When they land an interview with a surprise fan, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, they are recruited by the Cia to turn their trip to Pyongyang into an assassination mission." The 8:55 p.m. movie is Dear White People (Justin Simien, U.S. 2014, 108 min.) "The lives of four black students at an Ivy League college.[sic]" [source: Cinema coming soon page, 2015-Jan-7]
• At 8 p.m., the Dryden will screen Awakenings (Penny Marshall, U.S. 1990, 121 min., 35mm).
  

  This poignant drama, based on true events of the 1960s, pits freshly appointed neurologist Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) against the prejudice, ignorance, and neglect that surrounds a group of elderly catatonic patients. Survivors of the 1917—1928 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica, also known as "sleepy sickness," they lie nearly forgotten in a hospital terminal ward. The good doctor Sayer starts experimenting on them, speculating he can awaken them from their decades-long unresponsive stupor. His stubborn humanism finds its match in a painfully raw performance by Robert Deniro as one of the patients. Awakenings is a hymn to life that could also be seen as a modern retelling of the Snow White story.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Jan-5]

• Tonight at 10 p.m., the Little will screen a film in the Mondo Movie Series on 35mm film: Heavy Metal (Gerald Potterton, Canada 1981, 86 min.)
  

  Adventures from deep space to futuristic New York, and beyond. Each world and story is dominated by the presence of the Loch'nar — the sum of all evils manifest as a glowing green sphere whose power infects all times, all galaxies, all dimensions. To some, it appears as treasure, a green jewel they must possess. Others worship it as a god. Few escape it. Even in death and through death its powers continue. From war to war and world to world it seems invincible.

  [source: Little Theatre website, 2015-Jan-5]

Saturday, January 10

• Today from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. is a Brainery Bazaar at the Rochester Brainery. [source: Facebook, 2015-Jan-5]
• In the Curtis Theatre at George Eastman House from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m., Stacey Doyle, and Ken Fox will present a Focus 45 discussion on Manuscript Collections in Moving Image Archives. [source: Eastman House calendar, 2015-Jan-5]
• Updated: Today from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the AXOM Gallery and Exhibition Space (176 Anderson Ave., 2nd Floor) is the Closing Reception and Artist Talk with Matthew Langley, "who will discuss his philosophy and approach to his paintings and the techniques he employs such as the use of cold wax medium." [source: Facebook, 2015-Jan-9]
• From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. tonight at The Little Flower Community (499 Parsells Ave.) is a Lots of Food Potluck.
  

  The next gardening season may be a ways away, but we just can't wait that long to see our LoF friends! Let's get together on January 10th to celebrate all that Lots of Food accomplished in 2014 and all we hope to accomplish in the year to come! We're especially looking forward to seeing those of you who were able to volunteer your time in order to help make the important work we're doing a reality. We're also hoping to see some new faces who might be interested to learn more about Lots of Food, so feel free to invite friends and family. It's a potluck, so please bring a veg-friendly dish to pass and a pair of slippers if you like warm feet!

  [source: Facebook, 2015-Jan-5]

• The Dryden will screen Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, U.K. 1973, 110 min., 35mm) tonight at 8 p.m.
  

  Donald Sutherland stars as John Baxter, a conservator who is mourning the loss of his young daughter. Attempting to find respite in his work, Baxter takes a commission in Venice where he begins to experience intense visions of her likeness. Adapted from Daphne du Maurier's 1971 short story, the film is perhaps best known for its ambiguous and fatalistic conclusion. The supernatural, in this case, provides a unique allegory of the grieving process. Critics have championed Anthony B. Richmond, whose spellbinding cinematography is rivaled only by the on-screen chemistry between Sutherland and co-star Julie Christie.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Jan-5]

• Starting around 9 p.m. at the Bug Jar is The Michael Vadala Trio, Red Kettle Collective, and Cammy Enaharo. [source: Bug Jar calendar, 2015-Jan-5]
• Starting around 10 p.m. at the Dinosaur is The Fools. [source: Dinosaur Bar-B-Que website, 2015-Jan-5]

Sunday, January 11

• From 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. today, the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley presents a Tara Reunion at Abilene. [source: Abilene website, 2015-Jan-5]
• Today at 1 p.m. at The New York Museum of Transportation (6393 E. River Rd, Rush), Jim Dierks will discuss The Rochester Subway. "Images from the museum's vast photo archive portray the Rochester Subway from construction, through operation, to its abandonment almost 60 years ago." [source: City Newspaper events calendar, 2015-Jan-7]
• At 2 p.m. at the Memorial Art Gallery is a What's Up lecture on Bonnard's Quiet Modernism with Crystal Kui.
  

  Crystal Kui, an archivist with experience in arts education and research, examines the use of color and its relationship to time and memory in Pierre Bonnard's 1909 painting The Linen.

  [source: MAG website, 2015-Jan-5]

• At 2 p.m., the Dryden will screen Jumanji (Joe Johnston, U.S. 1995, 104 min., 35mm).
  

  Siblings Peter and Judy Shepherd (a young Kirsten Dunst in one of her earliest performances) stumble upon a mysterious board game, start rolling the dice, and unknowingly unleash chaos of grotesque proportions. Attempting to set the world right again, they are assisted by an unruly man-child (Robin Williams) who once upon a time made the same mistake of playing Jumanji, only to spend the next 26 long years trapped in its deadly jungles. A popular dark fantasy, Jumanji is renowned also for its pioneering use of CGI.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Jan-5]

• From 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Penfield Public Library, Kirk Miller, and Robyn Miller will present In A Stir Fried Country—A Chinese Travel Smorgasbord.
  

  In 2014 Kirk and Robyn Miller traveled to Hong Kong to visit their daughter and then proceeded to mainland China. While there the Millers visited Guilin, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing. Highlights of our trip included a raft ride down the Li River, exploring West Lake, visiting the Garden of the Master of the Nets and walking on the Great Wall. They were struck by the juxtaposition of the old and the new. Join us as we revisit our discovery of this fascinating and beautiful place.

  [source: Monroe County Library website, 2015-Jan-5]

• This afternoon from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall is a Concert celebrating William Warfield.
  

  World-renowned Grammy Award winner Dr. William Warfield (22 January 1920 — 26 August 2002), was an American concert bass-baritone singer, actor, orator, and educator raised in Rochester, NY. Recognized as one of the great American classical singers of the 20th century, his many credits include: the role of Joe singing the famous song "Ol' Man River" in the 1951 MGM film Showboat, the acclaimed world tour of the Broadway production of Porgy and Bess opposite his wife, opera star Leontyne Price, and was considered one of the world's leading interpreters of German Lieder and quintessential performances and recordings of the oratorios Messiah and Elijah. William Warfield holds the record for the most international tours for the United States State Department among numerous honorary doctoral degrees and awards. The William Warfield Scholarship Fund was established in 1977 at the Eastman School of Music.

  [source: Eastman School of Music calendar, 2015-Jan-5]

Monday, January 12

• The Coalition of Concerned Residents of Monroe County meets at the Flying Squirrel tonight at 6 p.m. to discuss "strategies related to finding housing/shelter for all". [source: Flying Squirrel website, 2015-Jan-5]
• Tonight starting around 8 p.m. at The Forvm (4224 Maple Rd., Buffalo) is beat-charged, experimental extravaganza, one-man-band That1Guy. [source: band e-mail, 2015-Jan-6]

Tuesday, January 13

• Today from 12:12 p.m. to 12:52 p.m., Bob Duffy will present a Tuesday Topics on My Time in Albany in the Kate Gleason Auditorium of the Bausch and Lomb Library Building.
  

  Rochester has followed Bob Duffy's career from police chief to mayor to New York State Lieutenant Governor. Duffy will talk about his experience as Lieutenant Governor, his outlook on New York State government and what it means for Rochester.

  [source: Monroe County Library website, 2015-Jan-5]

• The Dryden will screen Key Largo (John Huston, U.S. 1948, 101 min., 35mm) tonight at 8 p.m.
  

  A violent storm's a brewing in otherwise bucolic Key Largo; that is, as soon as former army major Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart) steps into the dark, foreboding world of gangster violence and social decay set amidst a rundown hotel in off-season Florida. Key Largo was the fourth and final pairing of famed cinema couple Bogie and Bacall, and one can sense their distinctive chemistry. The complex role of dignified, resilient, wartime widow Nora was a notable departure from the usually sleek, sophisticated Bacall, and was a very compelling performance. This engrossing noir unfolds with style thanks to Huston, and features equally memorable turns from Edward G. Robinson as the hot-blooded, vulgar Rocco, and Claire Trevor as his faded, alcoholic moll in this, her Oscar-winning turn.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Jan-5]

• Starting around 9 p.m. at the Bug Jar is Gamma Pope, and Father Lemon. [source: Bug Jar calendar, 2015-Jan-5]

Wednesday, January 14

• At the Wood Library (134 North Main St., Canandaigua) at 7 p.m. is a Wood Library-Hobart and William Smith Speaker Series lecture to discuss Garbage, Geography and Sustainability in the Finger Lakes.
  

  The topic of the second Wood Library-Hobart and William Smith speaker series season. Three of the largest solid waste landfills in New York are in the northern Finger Lakes region, disposing of 10,000 tons daily. Is this situation sustainable from an economic and environmental point of view? Can we get to zero waste?

  [source: City Newspaper events calendar, 2015-Jan-7]

• At 7 p.m. at the Barnes and Noble College Bookstore (Collegetown, 1305 Mt. Hope Ave.), author Jason Vines will discuss his autobiographical book, What Did Jesus Drive: Crisis PR in Cars, Computers and Christianity. "Jason Vines takes readers on a graphic, sometimes sad and often hilarious behind-the-scenes romp through some of the most publicized and studied crises in recent history." [source: City Newspaper events calendar, 2015-Jan-7]
• Starting at 8 p.m., the Dryden will screen Stella Dallas (King Vidor, U.S. 1937, 106 min., 35mm).
  

  Stella (Barbara Stanwyck), an ambitious, seductive working-class girl from a rundown factory town, marries an executive and soon bears him a daughter. Appearing as a greedy, selfish gold-digger at first, Stella is eventually revealed to be a mother who will sacrifice absolutely everything to enable her daughter to have a better, more prosperous life. This supreme tearjerker could also be seen as a bitter, systematic, melodramatic inversion of all the "remarriage comedy" tropes, or as a penetrating examination of the (still) conflicting gap between being a mother and being a woman. Barbara Stanwyck claims that this film was her favorite role and finest acting.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Jan-5]

• Tough Old Bird, Doc Baker's Traveling Musicological Extravaganza, and Sonic Primate perform at the Bug Jar starting around 9 p.m. tonight. [source: Bug Jar calendar, 2015-Jan-5]