Here's my selection of events in Rochester this week:
Thursday, March 19

• Today from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. is the RIT/NTID's ASL Lecture Series with Dr. Flavia S. Fleischer discussing America's Constructed Image of Deaf People as Drawn from Newspaper Articles on Coclear Implantation in the SDC Room 1300-1310 on the RIT Campus. [source: NTID events site, 2015-Mar-16]
• From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Abilene is a Fundraiser for Cobblestone School—Where Children Love to Learn! with music by The Strings. At 8:30 p.m. is Margo Price and the Pricetags. [source: Abilene website, 2015-Mar-16]
• Tonight at 7 p.m. in Dewey 2-162 on the University of Rochester Campus is a Fast Food Worker Speaking Tour Launch. [source: Facebook, 2015-Mar-16]
• Erik Larson will present tonight's Rochester Arts and Lectures in the Downtown United Presbyterian Church (121 N. Fitzhugh St.) at 7:30 p.m.
  

  Erik Larson has written four New York Times bestsellers. His most recent is his portrait of the American ambassador and his family in Berlin during the first years of Hitler's reign, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin, which remained on the list for 35 weeks. His account of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, including that of a ruthless serial killer, The Devil in the White City, was on the New York Times hardcover and paperback lists for a combined total of over three years—it also won the Edgar Award for nonfiction crime writing and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His previous books, Thunderstruck and Isaac's Storm, also became bestsellers. Among his other books are Lethal Passage and The Naked Consumer. The New York Times Book Review has said, "Larson is a marvelous writer…superb at creating characters with a few short strokes." Larson was also a staff writer for the Wall Street Journal and a contributing writer for Time magazine and he has written for The Atlantic, Harper's, and The New Yorker among other publications.

  [source: Rochester Arts and Lectures site, 2015-Mar-16]

• Tonight at 7 p.m. in the Gowen Room on the UofR Campus is a screening of Fixed (Neil Matsumoto, U.S. 2005).
  

  Set in the art world Of San Pedro, this is the story of Matthew, a struggling artist, who falls in love with the much heralded painter, Deanna, while battling control of his sexuality. No one, not even Matthew, could for-see the life altering, permanent, choice he will make.

  [source: University of Rochester Cinema Group website, 2015-Mar-16]

• The Photographic Historical Society (TPHS) meets tonight at Barnes and Noble from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Grant Romer will speak on Daguerre's 1839 Gift to the Czar: A Daguerreotype Tryptich. [source: Facebook, 2015-Mar-16]
• Tonight at 8 p.m., the Dryden will screen London (Patrick Keiller, U.K. 1994, 85 min., 35mm).
  

  A fin-de-siècle personal portrait of an urban metropolis shot over a period of twelve months, which saw the election of John Major as prime minister, renewed IRA bombings, the "Black Wednesday" European monetary crisis, and the "fall of the house of Windsor." [source: Dryden website, 2015-Mar-16]

• Wake The Sun, Machine Gun English, and The Dirty Pennies perform at the Bug Jar tonight starting around 8:30 p.m. [source: Bug Jar calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

Friday, March 20

• Tonight at 5:15 p.m. is a Greentopia screening of Seeds of Time (Sandy McLeod, U.S. / Denmark / Italy / Norway / Peru / Russia 2013, 77 min.) at the Little.
  

  A perfect storm is brewing as agriculture pioneer Cary Fowler races against time to protect the future of our food. Gene banks of the world are crumbling, crop failures are producing starvation inspired rioting, and the accelerating effects of climate change are already affecting farmers globally. But Fowler's journey, and our own, is just beginning: From Rome to Russia and, finally, a remote island under the Arctic Circle, Fowler's passionate and personal journey may hold the key to saving the one resource we cannot live without: our seeds.

  [source: Greentopia website, 2015-Mar-16]

• Starting at 6 p.m. to night in the Rettner Hall Atrium on the UofR Campus is the kick-off of the 24 Hour Red Paperclip Challenge.
  

  You don't need a business degree or to invent the next Facebook to be an entrepreneur. Creative problem solving is at the crux of entrepreneurship. Join students of all majors, interests, and backgrounds for 24 hours. Enter as an individual or as a group (maximum of 4 people per team) with friends. Take a single red paperclip and see what you can make of it. Document your trades on Twitter and then present them to our judges Saturday night. The winning three teams will take home a $300 cash prize and we will celebrate with free food and a live WRUR DJ.

  [source: UofR website events calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

• Updated: From 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Rochester Academy of Medicine is City Love, a fundraiser for NCS Community Development Corporation, South East Area Coalition, Inc. (SEAC) and South Wedge Planning Committee (SWPC). [source: Facebook, 2015-Mar-20]
• At the Little Theatre starting at 7:20 p.m. is a Greentopia screening of Cotton Road (Laura Kissel, U.S. / China 2014, 72 min.)
  

  Made in China: It's a phrase familiar to most of us, via a quick survey of the tags on the clothes hanging in our closets. But the secret origin of that shirt on your back is much more complex than any label can reveal. With her debut feature Cotton Road, filmmaker Laura Kissel pulls at the thread of this story to unravel a global supply chain that actually begins in South Carolina — where cotton remains a boom crop, if a challenging one for farmers — before moving overseas to the looms of Chinese manufacturers and, eventually, back to the U.S. With a photographer's eye for breathtaking detail and a social advocate's passion for discovery, Kissel reveals the distinct struggles faced along every mile of this "road" — and helps us develop a richer understanding of how our consumer culture sustains itself.

  [source: Greentopia website, 2015-Mar-16]

• The Eastman Chamber Percussion Ensembles perform at Kilbourn Hall tonight at 8 p.m. [source: Eastman School of Music calendar, 2015-Mar-16]
• The Irish Players of Rochester perform The Field by John B. Keane at the MuCCC Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through March 29.
  

  The Field is John B. Keane's fierce and tender study of the love a man can have for land and the ruthless lengths he will go to in order to obtain the object of his desire. It is dominated by Bull McCabe, one of the most famous characters in Irish writing today.

  [source: MuCCC website, 2015-Mar-16]

• Tonight at 8 p.m., the Dryden will screen Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, U.S. 1956, 99 min., 35mm).
  

  Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, and Lauren Bacall star in this deliriously stylized melodrama about a Texas oil millionaire who begins to suspect his best friend of having an affair with his beautiful wife. With as much strife, intrigue, and over-the-top theatrics as a Shakespearean tragedy, this is one of the most ingenious and beautiful illustrations of the creative potential of Technicolor.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Mar-16]

• Starting around 9:30 p.m. at Abilene is "acclaimed singer-songwriter…and ukulele player" Cammy Enaharo followed by the "original roots-reggae" of Mosaic Foundation. [source: Abilene website, 2015-Mar-16]
• Tonight at 10 p.m., the Little will screen The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, U.S. / U.K. 1998, 117 min.) as part of the Mondo Movie Series—bizarrely subtitled, "movies so bad they're good," to which Lebowski does not apply.
  

  When "The Dude" Lebowski is mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, two thugs urinate on his rug to coerce him into paying a debt he knows nothing about. While attempting to gain recompense for the ruined rug from his wealthy counterpart, he accepts a one-time job with high pay-off. He enlists the help of his bowling buddy, Walter, a gun-toting Jewish-convert with anger issues. Deception leads to more trouble, and it soon seems that everyone from porn empire tycoons to nihilists want something from The Dude.

  [source: Little Theatre website, 2015-Mar-16]

Saturday, March 21

• Today from 12:15 p.m. to 1 p.m. at the George Eastman House is a Focus 45 with Lisa Kleman discussing George Eastman and the Dossenbach Quartet.
  

  Researcher Lisa Kleman will discuss the musical happenings in Rochester at the turn of the last century. She will share personal stories about her familial ties with the Dossenbach Quartet and their contributions to the musicales at George Eastman's home as well as the vibrant music scene throughout the community.

  [source: Eastman House calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

• At the Little Theatre starting at 3:45 p.m. is a Greentopia screening of Beginning With The End (David Marshall, U.S. 2014, 64 min.)
  

  At our own Harley School in Rochester, an unusual elective has joined "readin', writin' and 'rithmetic" on the curriculum. In the class called simply "Hospice," students refine their understanding of the meaning of death — as a part of life, and as an essential concept unto itself. As instructor Bob Kane escorts his teen charges through the more sensitive dimensions of volunteering at a Penfield hospice home, the students find their expectations challenged and their minds opened about the mortality that awaits all of us and inevitably shapes our lives. Directed with candor and insight by Emmy-winning filmmaker David Marshall (2004's Hitching a Ride on the Great Lakes), Beginning With The End invites all of us to follow these students and contemplate just how much we all have to learn about what matters most.

  [source: Greentopia website, 2015-Mar-16]

• At the Little Theatre starting at 6:00 p.m. is a Greentopia screening of Misconception (Jessica Yu, U.S. 2014, 94 min.)
  

  After masterfully chronicling our planet's relationship with water, as Jessica Yu did with her 2012 Greentopia | Film selection Last Call at the Oasis, what could she take on next? Nothing less than the seven-billion-and-counting humans who call our world home — and whose very numbers threaten to overwhelm the planet's resources. To explore the consequences of our unprecedented ongoing population explosion, Yu peers through a uniquely intimate lens: The personal stories of a 29-year-old Beijing man about to wed; a pro-life activist in Alberta, Canada; and a Ugandan journalist on a humanitarian mission. These three highly distinctive perspectives add powerfully diverse dimensions to Misconception, a film that looks past a global headcount to emphasize the ground-level realities of our swelling planetary ranks — and how each of us can make a difference.

  [source: Greentopia website, 2015-Mar-16]

• The Dryden will screen Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, U.S. 1946, 144 min., 35mm) tonight at 8 p.m.
  

  A screen spectacle in the manner of Gone With the Wind, this western/melodrama hybrid is an epic tale of inter-family rivalry and romance. Gregory Peck has never been as naughty and lascivious as he is here, diving for Jennifer Jones's Pearl. Critics mocked the film's lurid excesses by dubbing it Lust in the Dust; producer David O. Selznick winced all the way to the bank. No film can match this Technicolor dynamo, supersaturated in color, at times surrealistic—an epic in every way!

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Mar-16]

• Tonight at 8 p.m. at Bernunzio Uptown Music is From Theorbo to Harp Guitar: An Evening with Kinloch Nelson and Deb Fox. [source: Bernunzio Uptown Music website, 2015-Mar-16]
• At 9 p.m. at Hart's Local Grocers is the Greentopia Closing Party. [source: Greentopia website, 2015-Mar-16]
• Grand Canyon Rescue Episode performs at Skylark Lounge starting around 10 p.m. [source: Skylark Lounge calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

Sunday, March 22

• Today from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at The New York Museum of Transportation (6393 E. River Rd, Rush) is a presentation of Railroad Safety and Operation Lifesaver.
  

  Since 1972 Operation Lifesaver programs have augmented important engineering improvements and law enforcement efforts to produce a steady decline in injuries and fatalities at highway-rail grade crossings (an 83% decrease in incidents since our founding). Certified Operation Lifesaver presenter Dave Coon will present a video on safety around trains that offers important reminders of the dangers in trespassing near railroads.

  [source: City Newspaper events calendar, 2015-Mar-18]

• This afternoon at 2 p.m., the Dryden will screen The African Queen (John Huston, U.S. 1951, 104 min., 35 mm).
  

  John Huston's adventurous drama The African Queen—co-scripted by ace film critic James Agee and beautifully shot on location by the legendary Jack Cardiff—is the first and only pairing of two of Hollywood's most iconic and independent stars, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. The boozy riverboat captain and the devout British missionary form an unlikely friendship by challenging each other's ideological prejudices while fleeing from a remote African wilderness at the beginning of World War I. Huston and company suffered many hardships on location in what was then the Belgian Congo. Yet with humor, star chemistry, a magnificent setting, and thrilling Technicolor photography, they created a natural winner not to be missed.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Mar-16]

• Free Throw, Darn Wishes, Scope and Figure, and Goodbye Ronnie will be at the Bug Jar starting around 9 p.m. [source: Bug Jar calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

Monday, March 23

• Today at 1:30 p.m., the Dryden will screen Corn's-A-Poppin' (Robert Woodburn, U.S. 1955, 58 min, 35mm) for a Senior Matinée.
  

  Scripted by 28-year-old Robert Altman after his disappointing sojourn as a Hollywood screenwriter, Corn's-A-Poppin' is a bargain-basement backstage musical that puts the corn in cornpone. Real-life crooner Jerry Wallace plays Johnny Wilson, the down-home star of the Pinwhistle Popcorn Hour, a low-rent variety show with acts ranging from ex—hog caller Lillian Gravelguard to Hobie Shepp and His Cow Town Wranglers. Might the tone-deaf bookings be an act of corporate sabotage engineered by rogue PR man Waldo Crummit in his bid to gut the Pinwhistle empire? It's up to Wallace and his kid sister Little Cora Rice to save the day. Along the way, they perform such memorable songs as "On Our Way to Mars," "Running After Love," and "Mama, Wanna Balloon." Shot in Kansas City by a band of young talent schooled in the production techniques of the Calvin Company, the Midwest's most innovative industrial film studio, Corn's-A-Poppin' saw extremely limited play at rural drive-ins and hootenannies before disappearing for decades.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Mar-16]

• In Hoyt Auditorium on the University of Rochester Campus at 7 p.m. is a screening of Love is a Verb (Terry Spencer Hesser, Stephan Mazurek, U.S. 2014, 55 min.)
  

  Love Is A Verb is an examination of a social movement of Sufi-inspired Sunni Muslims that began in Turkey in the l960s and now spans across the globe. The group is called Hizmet, the Turkish word for "service" or The Gülen Movement after its inspiration and teacher, Fethullah Gülen, a man Time magazine named as one of the most influential leaders in the world in 2013 for "…preaching a message of tolerance."

  [source: UofR website events calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

• At 7 p.m. in Dewey Hall 1101 on the UofR Campus is a screening of Miss Representation (Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Kimberlee Acquaro, U.S. 2011, 85 min.)
  

  Explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America, and challenges the media's limited portrayal of what it means to be a powerful woman.

  [source: UofR website events calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

• The Eastman Wind Ensemble performs in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre tonight at 8 p.m. [source: Eastman School of Music calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

Tuesday, March 24

• Today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Link Gallery at City Hall is the Opening of Photo Club's Art Exhibition, on display through May 5. [source: City of Rochester website, 2015-Mar-18]
• Today from 12:12 p.m. to 12:52 p.m. in the Kate Gleason Auditorium of the Bausch and Lomb Library Building is another Books Sandwiched-In on Blindfolds Off: Judges On How They Decide by Joel Cohen. [source: Monroe County Library website, 2015-Mar-16]
• The Dryden will screen Working Girl (Mike Nichols, U.S. 1988, 113 min., 35mm) tonight at 8 p.m.
  

  A working-class working girl (Melanie Griffith), eager to climb the ladder of career, uses her boss's (Sigourney Weaver) absence to orchestrate an important merger deal, seducing a business partner (Harrison Ford) in the process. This original and energetic mixture of drama, thriller, comedy and romance is bursting with fine performances and plentiful hair, and has even been labeled as The Graduate for the feel-good era of the '80.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Mar-16]

• Dave Hause, Mikey Erg, and Declan Ryan perform at the Bug Jar starting around 9 p.m. [source: Bug Jar calendar, 2015-Mar-16]

Wednesday, March 25

• From 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Pittsford Community Library is a TED Talk Discussion of Misconception.
  

  Watch or listen to the following talks in the "Misconceptions" series: Malcolm Gladwell, "What's the Real Story of David and Goliath?" and Leslie T. Chang, "What Are the Lives of Chinese Factory Workers Really Like?" The series is available at NPR.org. A third talk will be viewed before discussion.

  [source: Monroe County Library website, 2015-Mar-16]

• From 7:15 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. is a Climate Action Night at Church of the Assumption (20 East Ave., Fairport). [source: Facebook, 2015-Mar-16]
• The Eastman Wind Orchestra performs at 8 p.m. in Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre. [source: Eastman School of Music calendar, 2015-Mar-16]
• The Dryden will screen The Alamo (John Wayne, U.S. 1960, 161 min., 35mm) at 8 p.m.
  

  History lesson #2. John Wayne directs John Wayne as the legendary colonel Davy Crockett, leading a squad of volunteers to the Alamo to prevent the Mexican invasion of Texas. A grand educational epic, originally photographed in 70mm, and—according to some historians—even carrying some accurate historical details.

  [source: Dryden website, 2015-Mar-16]

• Starting around 9 p.m. at Abilene is Medicine Wednesdays with good, crowd-pleasing reggae from Thunder Body. [source: Abilene website, 2015-Mar-16]