Man did I have a busy week. Last Thursday I got out to The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.). First up was Yer Mom (formerly Your Mom) who were awesome — still spewing raw female sex-energy and rock-and-roll. Unfortunately they had a guy who did some poetry and played tambourine, giving the band a Linda McCartney style, girly edge. I got another look at My Penis as well and found them to be kind of like punk-groove-rock, or ska without most of what makes it ska but with a heavy rock sound instead (if that makes any sense).

On Friday I didn't get up early enough to get to all those lectures at RIT (One Lomb Memorial Dr., campus map) so I spent most of the day ripping all my CD's instead — or at least finishing off the collection as I had most of them in the computer already. I still want to keep the CD's around, but I don't have a need for them to be accessible so I put the discs in the cake boxes I had for blank CD's. I realized I could use a 5 1/4" disk box to store the liner notes and back covers — they fit great. So now all my CD's fit in about a quarter the space they originally did. I also made some fresh bread and recorded it on the camera. As I had promised (prior to editing this paragraph) I did indeed get it posted — on Saturday morning with plenty of time to spare!

That night I went to The Rochester Contemporary Art Gallery (137 East Ave.) to see the Upstate Invitational. To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed. Everything seemed rather sterile and more a demonstration of technique than of substance. Not to say that it was awful, just not great.

From there I went to the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) to see Visual Music: The Animation of Oskar Fischinger. Most of it was at least interesting, and some downright fascinating. In his München-Berlin Wandering (Walking From Munich to Berlin) he snapped single frames of people and lanscapes on his film camera which then formed a natural animation of the whole trip — fascinating both in its documentation of 1927 Germany and in its fast-forward, point-of-interest-centric view of the journey. Seelische Konstruktionen (Spiritual Constructions) was a silhouette film (I gathered that animating silhouettes was a common technique of the time) where the characters mutate unnaturally before your eyes. The techniques used here seemed to be recalled in one of his last films, Motion Painting No. 1 in which (according to the title card) he filmed oil painting on sheets of glass, creating the illusion of a painting being constructed without a painter. It's really a fascinating work as the images transition from one style to another gradually by covering prior styles to obliteration. For Ein Spiel in Farben (A Play in Colors), because abstract art was banned in Nazi Germany, it failed to pass the state censors, yet by resubmitting it unchanged as a demonstration of a new color film technique, it passed. All in all, it was a tremendously interesting presentation.

Later on I went to the Saints and Sinners burlesque show at TiLT Nightclub and Ultralounge (444 Central Ave.) I thought this fell far short of my expectations — I have this idea that burlesque is somewhere between titilating and erotic, and that it has a high-brow contrast to it. (Just to prove I'm not nuts, or at least prove that I'm nuts in another way, I checked my The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language (1992, Houghton Mifflin; 1994, INSO Corporation) and found that it says, "a literary or dramatic work that makes a subject appear ridiculous by treating it in an incongruous way, as by presenting a lofty subject with vulgarity or an inconsequential one with mock dignity.") This show was okay although it missed on both ends of the spectrum. I mean, it was a bit titilating, but disconcerting to watch actresses who weren't confident; and it touched a bit on "lofty subjects" but not-that-lofty. I guess I'm looking to have my prejudices and stereotypes turned inside out by, say, a couple sexy, scantily clad, women debating string theory.

On Saturday for lunch I stopped at the new Saint Aubyn's House of Soups (133 Gregory St., formerly M & J Deli) I was particularly impressed by their cream of mushroom soup because it was made with big slices of mushroom tasted mostly like mushroom instead of like butter, cream, and salt with a little mushroom taste as I've had before. Someone I met didn't like it because it was thickened heavily with wheat, but I like wheat too. And heavily thickened soups. They are open until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and are close enough to the bars near South and Gregory to take a trip there to grab something.

That night I went to the Dryden to see Some Like It Hot. It's a pretty hilarious movie about a couple male musicians trying to escape the Chicago mob after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. They hide out by by dressing in drag and joining an all-girl band.

After that I stopped at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) for what I had predicted would be a great show. First was Four Barrel Ghost" who surprised me by doing some spectacular fast rock/rockabilly. The Motorpsychos were next: a 3-girl-fronted band (with a guy drummer) who do tight-ass, lightning-fast rock-and-roll. The Grinders were next and rocked hard and briefly to fit The Blastoffs who didn't even get to start until around 2 a.m. and rocked the house one more time.

It was at this show that I realized that I really like loud music because I can't hear people's idle conversation — unlike at the movies, nobody can talk over a thousand-watt sound system.

Sunday evening I went to The Little (240 East Ave.) to see CSA: The Confederate States of America. I thought the movie was pretty good — a fictional documentary about the history of America from the time of our Civil War assuming the Confederacy had won and the guts of it was that slavery was never abolished. Logically, this led to things like the denial of women's suffrage (since the argument for the 17th Amendment was rooted in the 15th Amendment.) However I thought it illogical that the stock market would have crashed in 1929 — would the Industrial Revolution have been such a dramatic event if there had been a source of slave labor? Similarly, where the heck did John F. Kennedy come from in this alternate reality — wouldn't he have grown up with slaves like everyone else and become a completely different person?

Regardless, it does bring the state of racial equality in this country to the forefront of discussion. Although the commercial interludes seemed to be a distraction and an highlighted too strongly by the filmmakers, the contrast of a fictional TV show called "Runaway" (where they capture escaped blacks) to what is its identical twin, "Cops" (where they capture criminal suspects, and disproportinately more blacks relative to the population-at-large) was a good one.

Oh yeah, and the sound at the theater was very quiet, marring the presentation. I mean, it was barely as loud as a normal speaking voice, so every time somebody moved in the theater or coughed, you'd miss dialog. Strangely, there was also someone who appeared to be reading the text to someone else whose vision wasn't very good — although they were trying to be quiet, they were still louder than the movie.

After that I was once again at The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) This time it was to see Gaybot who did a typically wild and chaotic set finishing with a great rendition of Louie, Louie. The Donkeys were next and were kind of like a 1960's flavored power-pop band and not very interesting to me because it's such a familiar style. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (also at LiveJournal) was still really good although I thought he was better without incorporating The Donkeys heavily in the set. Also, I got the impression he was trying to be an actor portraying the strong feelings he had for the songs in the past.

On Monday my old StarTac cell phone finally died for good. Well, it's not dead really — it's just that the top half doesn't work anymore. I took it apart and the little ribbon cable that connected the two halves tore. I tried fixing it by soldering the wires together, but they're spaced too close together: 6 wires are spaced across 2 millimeters (5/64") or about 75 wires per inch. I managed to get 2 connected but gave up after screwing up on the third. The funny part is that the phone still works — at least the bottom half does when it's plugged in, so I can still use it in my cradle at home and it'll still work in the car using a headset. It's only got to last through July and then I can cancel fucking Sprint, as that's when my 2 year contract is up.

That night I got the "tall bike" out of storage and headed to The Little (240 East Ave.) for Emerging Filmmakers Series. I was sad to see that the much smaller theater was only partly full, meaning that about a quarter as many people showed up as did in January to see the same group of films but couldn't due to projection problems.

Three of the films were by Maria Rosenblum with the expectation that she could attend — she made it here in January but couldn't attend this screening. Couch Lips was a poignant and somewhat amusing take on artists versus art collectors — an artist is selling one of his works to a snobbish collector but his daughter can't help but be drawn to touching the sensual lips-shaped couch. Railroad dealt with an artist who's wrestling with trauma from his childhood. It utilizes some clever edits to create a disjoint universe out of the manic creative process. Magnetic Poles was also very good: a polished short film about a couple at the end of a relationship — wherein the woman is forced to act to escape her disinterested and passive-aggressive boyfriend.

Real Men In a Locker Room by Seth Werlin and Caleb Durand celebrated Tango by Zbig Rybczynski — a film shown as part of the Wormhole exhibition last year at The Rochester Contemporary Art Gallery (137 East Ave.) In their version, Werlin and Durand copied themselves in overlapping actions inside a locker room. They followed a similar technique as Rybczynski although instead of using film mattes, they disassembled the sequences into single-image frames and manually cut themselves out using Photoshop. The effect was pretty good, and as they noted in discussion afterward, they selected the locker room because it's an incubator for pure masculine expression even though they (like many men) are not particularly athletic.

Finally, Reading Marcus by Rochester LoFilm was a funny piece about a guy who goes to get a reading from a psychic. Rochester LoFilm apparently gets together once in a while to create a spontaneous film. The idea is to bring a script ideas, flesh out a script, select locations, shoot scenes, edit, and complete a whole short film in a weekend. It was started in Hollywood (I think) by film-industry people who were waiting for their next job and wanted to stay in practice. I hope to get involved with them to gain some real-world experience in the medium.

On Tuesday I went with a friend of mine to try out the House of Sushi at Golden Port Dim Sum (105 East Ave.) Neither one of us though it was very good — certainly not artful sushi but just fish-and-rice (the rice, by the way, was rather al dente which further detracted from the experience.) We decided to do an A-B test so we went right over to California Rollin' at Village Gate Square (274 N. Goodman St.) While their "sushi" also wasn't artful, it was slightly fresher, slightly better, and the atmosphere was so much more casual and welcoming.

That night I again took the tall bike to Christ Church of Rochester (141 East Ave.) to see Ossia New Music perform three pieces. First up was Rolf Rudin's Two Essays. The first part felt like an orator making an empassioned speech. The second was unbridled ranting. Both were quite good. Krzysztof Penderecki's String Quartet No.2 was next. In it, three violins and a cello created whispering, stringed-voice demons growing to a more audible discussion. In the middle of the piece, a bat flew around the church for a few minutes then returned to its perch behind one of the columns, possibly drawn by the hissing strings. John Deak's Lady Chatterley's Dream featured snippets of speech taken from Lady Chatterly's Lover utlizing a spectrum of stringed instruments to punctuate a selected retelling in poetic brevity.

From there I went to The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) once again. First up this night was Roger Houston who played in his simple, melodic synth-and-vocal style. I have to appreciate his ability to hide behind nothing: no tricks, band, or vocal effects. Unfortunately it was only me and another loyal fan snapping digital pictures to enjoy the whole set. Next was The Spaces who are a solidly good, very loud, fat, full, and fast bar-rock band — well-worn territory but at least they do it well. Finishing up the night was Houston Bernard who pulled out his giant inflatable penis and did a raunchy bisexual (but mostly-gay) sex-themed hip-hop performance. It was absurdly spectacular.

Needless to say, I fell behind getting the website put together and didn't end up doing much of anything on Wednesday night. Well, at least as far as getting out to a show or anything. I do what I can to let my vicarious readers down.

• Oscar Documentary Shorts 2006 (at The Little) - This year's Oscar-nominated short films include A Note Of Triumph: The Golden Age Of Norman Corwin, The Death Of Kevin Carter: Casualty Of The Bang Bang Club, God Sleeps In Rwanda, and The Mushroom Club.
• Sorry, Haters (at The Little) - After September 11, something happens with a woman and a cab driver who's an Arab.
• Unknown White Male (at The Little) - A guy loses all his memories and works at reconstructing what life is based on what he knows now.