Weekly Rochester Events #352: One Big Carolina

Thursday, October 6, 2005

Well, I had another sparse week ... at least as far as you are going to hear about. I was going to just review Proof which I saw at The Little (240 East Ave.) on Friday but first I'll do a bit on my ride with The Critical Mass Bike Ride.

We started at the clocktower in front of The Wilson Commons at The University of Rochester (Library Road, details on River Campus Map) around 5:30 with a group of 35 people or so and rode to The Liberty Pole (Liberty Pole Wy.) by 6 p.m. to join everyone else. My impression of "critical mass" events has been that it is not productive to the cause of raising awareness of bicyclists because by slowing the pace of automobile traffic, those drivers just become irate about bicyclists even more. What I found was that I felt exactly the same as I rode; I stuck with it to the end of the ride, but it was very unnerving. I didn't take it as a point of pride that we had a huge line of cars behind us. It didn't make me feel good about what I was doing. Someone commented that they had already thought to print flyers with information about the event to hand out to motorists but that was a couple weeks ago and there still aren't flyers: understandable because the event is supposed to be absent of leadership — in part to protect the people involved in case of intereference.

Anyway, I'd like to have seen flyers and I'd like to have seen us better obey the rules of the road: no more than two cyclists abreast for one, and that alone still would have put us in the way. Oh, and was also tremendously bothered when I ended up being in the last row of bikes ... you could feel the cartoon daggers from the eyes of the drivers. However, it's a great place to resolve a vendetta against all those cars who have sideswiped you, or cut you off, or otherwise put your life at a lower priority to getting to their destination one minute earlier.

But yes, about the movie ...

The first third of the film launches into a crawling pace with bad dialog as we're introduced to Catherine's relationship with her father, Robert, who has recently passed away. It's a whole lot of "showing" us about their relationship and the state of her mind — by "showing" and not showing, I mean that the writing appeared to be straight from an outline like this:

A. Robert is disappointed in Catherine's eduational choices.

1. Robert tells Catherine that he is disappointed in her educational choices.

Anyway, Robert was apparently some kind of mathematical genius but his mind fell apart toward the end of his life and one of his students (Hal) is there to try and decipher his notebooks — trying to find something that is coherent.

Fortunately things pick up a little. Catherine's irritating sister Claire shows up to settle the affairs concerning the house and all, entirely ignoring Catherine's individuality. Unfortunately, Claire is so thinly drawn that her solitary personality trait is that she is the character with a planner-oriented life. Wow.

To spice things up a little, a notebook is found with a coherent mathematical proof that proves something really exciting in the world of mathematics — so exciting, in fact, that the concept itself cannot even be uttered by the characters. To demonstrate how important this is, we're treated to a mathematical proof montage: blandly up-beat classical music plays while we observe people scribbling math stuff in notebooks and on chalkboards, people nodding in understanding, and a generic black composition notebook being handed back-and-forth.

This is used to show the passage of time.

In the end, the proof is shown to be probably correct, but then it becomes a thing of who-wrote-it? Was it Robert or was it Catherine? You wouldn't know it from how strongly this plot point is played out, but the real story is in the characters. Is Catherine really just a child-like college student who wants to mope around all the time, or was she deeply scarred watching the decline of her father? But, since the storytelling is brutally plot-centric, the really quite touching relationships between characters is almost completely drowned out.

On The Internet Movie Database there's a lot of complaints that the film is too thin on math — that to earn the name "Proof" you need to soak it with math. Shut up, nerd.

The real problem is that Gwyneth Paltrow is not a 26-year-old college student. In real life she just turned 33, and she looks great. However, the only people who tell her she's 26 are guys guessing her age who think they have a shot at fucking her — like Hal, I guess. And she'd say, "Oh, you are too kind dear gentle-man," although I don't think her natural accent is that of the deep American south.

T H U R S D A Y

This afternoon at 4 p.m. at The Centers at High Falls (60 Brown's Race) is a Public Information Meeting concerning the High Falls Interpretive Signage. This afternoon at 6:30 p.m. in the Gamble Room (#361) of the The Rush Rhees Library in The University of Rochester (Library Rd. near Intercampus Dr., details on River Campus Map) is a lecture titled In the Shadow of Punk: The Experimental Music Scene in New York's Downtown by Bernard Gendron. Wendell Castle will speak at The Memorial Art Gallery (500 University Ave., near Goodman St.) at 7:30 p.m. tonight with a lecture titled Fair Game about the use of appropriated imagery. [source: Memorial Art Gallery calendar] Cellist Hank Roberts will be at The Bop Shop (274 N. Goodman St., in Village Gate Square) tonight at 8 p.m. [source: Bop Shop calendar] [all ages] There will be another performance by Ossia New Music tonight at 8 p.m. in Kilbourn Hall at Eastman Theatre (60 Gibbs St.) featuring Living Toys by Thomas Adès, Notturno by Donald Martino, and Nunn by Beat Furrer. [source: Ossia New Music calendar] [all ages] Updated: The Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) will be showing Where the Buffalo Roam starting at 8 p.m. ... from the pen of Hunter S. Thompson. [source: Eastman House calendar] [all ages] Updated: The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) will be hosting Hangar 18, The Cryptic Atoms Family, and really great, tight, current punk-rock from 5 Watt Bulb starting around 9 p.m. [source: Bug Jar calendar] [18+] Pure Kona Poetry Open Mic Night is at Daily Perks (389 Gregory St.) tonight starting at 7:30. [source: Daily Perks calendar] [all ages]

F R I D A Y

Daily Perks (389 Gregory St.) will be hosting The H.S.P.Z. Jazz Quartet starting around 8 p.m. [source: Daily Perks calendar] [all ages] There will be another The Eastman Musica Nova Ensemble show at 8 p.m. tonight in Kilbourn Hall at Eastman Theatre (60 Gibbs St.) featuring Mark Scatterday conducting Torke's Adjustable Wrench, Schwantner's Sparrows, and Liderman's Barcelonazo. [source: Eastman School of Music calendar] [all ages] Tonight in the May Room at The Wilson Commons at The University of Rochester (Library Road, details on River Campus Map) is Guns Like Girls, and Royden starting around 9 p.m. [source: WBER calendar] Updated: Tonight at Spy Bar (139 State St.) is excellent power-rock/punk rock female-sex-driven band Yer Mom (formerly Your Mom) starting around 10 p.m. [source: band flyer]

S A T U R D A Y

O'Bagelo's, 165 State Street, noon. Micah Pastore's 5th Avenue Revisited — Color Street Photographs NYC 2005 opens tonight at 7 p.m. at A|V Art Sound Space (#8 in the Public Market, off N. Union St., formerly The All-Purpose Room) [source: artsound website] Great rock from The Grinders, good fast rock from The Franks, and The Lost Marbles will be at Monty's Krown (875 Monroe Ave.) starting around 10:30 p.m. [source: Whole Lotta Shakin' calendar] [21+] Tonight at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) is the really good one-man synth-gospel rockabilly band, Voodoo Organist, Reverend Glasseye, The White Devils, and The Lobster Quadrille starting around 10:45 p.m. [source: Bug Jar calendar] Tonight's another Betty's Sing-a-Long at Betty Meyer's Bullwinkle Café (622 Lake Ave.) starting around 10.

S U N D A Y

Teddy Geiger, and 1960's-style rock band St. Phillip's Escalator (among many others) will be at Water Street Music Hall (204 N. Water St.) starting around 1 p.m. for A Katrina Benefit for The American Red Cross Relief Fund. [source: Water Street calendar] [all ages] Over at Kilbourn Hall at Eastman Theatre (60 Gibbs St.) starting around 8 p.m. is the really tight cello-and-drums hard-rock band Break of Reality. [source: Rochester Music Coalition calendar] [all ages] The Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) will be showing Die blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) starting at 7 p.m. A man in Nazi Germany avoids reality by refusing to grow up. [source: Eastman House calendar] [all ages] Today from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. is another Community Garage Sale at The Rochester Public Market (280 Union St. N.) [source: City Hall press release] Starry Nites Café (696 University Ave., formerly Moonbeans) is hosting their weekly Open Mike Poetry tonight at 7 p.m. [source: Starry Nites calendar] [all ages]

M O N D A Y

Columbus Day (observed) Over at The Club at Water Street (204 N. Water St.) starting around 5 p.m. is The Fully Down, Maida, and Four Year Strong. [source: Water Street calendar] [all ages] Bored? Why not check out 1980's DJ night at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) starting around 11 p.m. [source: Bug Jar calendar]

T U E S D A Y

Today from 12:12 p.m. to 12:52 p.m. is another Books Sandwiched-in featuring retired FBI agent Richard Foley discussing Secret Man: The Story Of Watergate's Deep Throat by Bob Woodward in the Kate Gleason Auditorium of The Rochester Public Library (115 South Ave.) [source: Rochester Public Library calendar] Tonight in the Theatre at Monroe Community College (1000 E. Henrietta Rd.) in Building 4 is a lecture by physicist Brian Greene at 7 p.m. [source: Freetime] Murphy's Law, good punk-rock/hard-rock and a little rockabilly band The UV Rays, and good punk-rock from The Emersons will be at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) starting around 9:30 p.m. [source: Bug Jar calendar] Tonight at Geva (75 Woodbury Blvd.) is the start of A Marvelous Party, The Noel Coward Celebration which runs until November 6. [source: Geva Theatre website] The Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) will be showing Saturday Night at the Baths starting at 8 p.m. The Eastman house calendar says: "A straight, desperate-for-work young pianist accepts a gig at a gay New York bathhouse during the carefree 1970s. This provocative indie was shot within the legendary Continental Baths." [source: Eastman House calendar] [all ages] Daily Perks (389 Gregory St.) is hosting an Acoustic Open Mic from 8 to 10. For this one, there's no microphones and it's pretty open ended. [source: Daily Perks calendar] [all ages]