Weekend at Allentown

Every summer I look forward to Allentown Art Festival and this summer was no different. As usual, it didn't disappoint; I got my fried dough, I spent quality time with my family, I got some exercise and time out of the house, and I was able to purchase new art!

This year I went pretty early on Saturday so it didn't seem as crowded when I was there, always better to see the art, and it wasn't too hot. My friend, Alison, said that she sold a lot that day, which has been unusual in the recent years due to the stressful economy. I noticed that she, as well as many other artists, have been focusing on Buffalo a lot more lately. Wherever you turned there were Buffalos on t-shirts, hand-embroidered, painted, sculpted, drawn, and carved. There was Buffalo scenery (usually at the Buffalography booth) along with the actual Buffalo animals and a cool new booth full of shirts with such phrases as : "My city smells like Cheerios," "McKinley's Last Stop," and "Born in Buffalo." Website here: http://borninbuffalo.net/shop/

The other big seller was garden accessories (I would know because my mother bought two custom-designed signs since she is obsessed with her garden this summer):

On Sunday I spent the whole day there. It was harder to find something healthy to eat when all you smell is the sizzling philly cheesesteaks, the sweet sugar-topped fried dough, and the savory Sahlen's hot dogs. I was surrounded by pastries, cookies, onion rings, fries and pretty much every other caloriefied junk food. But the pedometer on my phone kept me in check, needless to say, I went way over the daily 10,000 miles that day.

There was also a marching band! I didn't get to hear them play, but

when we stopped to rest in the nearby park the band also came to take a breather.

I liked the work at this booth: http://www.cehullphotography.com/vegetables2.html

Mainly because I want to decorate my kitchen with canvases like these of vegetables.

I think the best part about Allentown is that it lets Buffalonians get together to appreciate the finer things in life: music, art, crafts, food, and the company of others. Despite the high heat everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. They were even partying on the rooftops.

There was some pretty glassware that was painted with flowers:

And Alison's booth was full of a mix of paintings and 3-D media. I liked the painting with the martinis and the olives were 3-D with their own little attitudes. I bought the smaller Buffalo print with the three different Buffalos for my sister for Christmas. Here is a look at her booth:

Haha, the other highlight of my Allentown adventure was mentioning www.artvoice.com in my normal conversations with my sister:

"Hey, I was online looking at something ..." -me

"On artvoice.com?" -my sister

"Yes, artvoice.com has a lot of interesting things!" -me.

Next up, my review of Pano's, since it was my first time there after Allentown.

My favorite genre

Young Adult Lit. I love it. I read it. I write it. I devour it. I live it. I just adore it.

Don't knock it until you've tried it. Sometimes the best thing to get back your inner child is to live their life for a couple hundred pages. Or it's the best way to live vicariously through a rebel, the opposite gender, someone more charming than you, someone with a different passion than you, or just a different culture or sex drive. How else can you experience life as someone else? That's truly the best thing about literature.

When I was younger I would read a book or two a day (another good thing about young adult lit is that it's quick to read, even though the themes and plot can be as emotional and struggling as many adult texts). I remember a reading log I had to keep in 5th or 6th grade and I read over 100 books that year. I think my teacher thought I was making some of them up but I promise I read them all cover to cover.

Just recently I got rid of hundreds of books I had kept from my childhood. We tried to sell them at a garage sale but I suppose no one wants children's/young adult books from 10 years ago. That's sad. I ended up donating many of them to the Goodwill. However, there were many that had emotional significance for me and had to be kept. Such as the Sweet Valley High: Senior Year books from Francine Pascal, the Fearless Series from Francine Pascal, and many of my more recent young adult picks, such as Meg Cabot, E. Lockhart, and the classics like Catcher in the Rye and Weetzie Bat. Speaking of which, Weetzie Bat's author, Francesca Lia Block, has written a new book of poems, the cover of which I simply adore!

How cute is that?! Plus the excerpts I have read from it seem emotionally captivating. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post an excerpt here due to the copyright, but I am taken aback by "thirteen: the little oven ..." so if you have a chance to read it, go for it! If that's an example of what's to come, I definitely will need a copy of this book.

My recommendations for the moment are on the left of my page. There are so many books I want to read at the moment, however my unemployed status has significantly limited the amount of books I can buy, and my lack of mobility due to my learner's permit and my mom's constant double shifts have limited the amount of libraries I can visit.

However, if you have a chance to pick up any young adult books at the moment, I recommend Audrey, Wait! if you want to know how one girl's life can change due to an ex's song about their break up, Cathy's Book if you want to know about a teenage female artist and her encounter with an interesting group of individuals who don't appear to age, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower if you want the perspective of someone who feels like they're on the outside looking in.

Of course I have a million more recommendations, so as soon as I have a new place and a bookshelf with all of my books proudly displayed, I'll let you know some more wonderful finds. I can't wait to rediscover them with you.

P.S. Until then, lit city events in Buffalo courtesy of Artvoice: http://artvoice.com/issues/v8n24/literary_buffalo/lit_city .

The Queen City

Did you know that Samuel L. Clemens (aka. Mark Twain) helped found the Buffalo and Erie County Library before he left the Queen City? It's true! Just check out www.buffalofilmfestival.com.That could be why there is a special exhibit in the library dedicated just to him. Plus the fact that he left the library with a handwritten manuscript of Huckleberry Finn. If you've never been to the downtown library it's worth it to go just to see this room full of history. 

Did you know that Millard Fillmore (1800-1874), the 13th President of the United States, is buried in the Forest Lawn Cemetery? He is buried in Section F. "Today, there are more than 10,000 trees in Forest Lawn, representing 200 different species and varieties and making the cemetery an important arboretum. One tree, an American beech, became Buffalo’s winning tree in the country’s bicentennial, when it was confirmed to have been standing in 1776" (http://www.forest-lawn.com/?select=about&data=history). 

Did you know that Artvoice Newspaper is Buffalo's oldest and largest weekly newspaper? It was founded in 1990. It has been holding the Artie Awards for 19 years now. It has a circulation of 65,000. And if you're Artvoice Newspaper's friend on Facebook now you can get 3 of the "How Well do you know Artvoice Newspaper" questions right! Become it's friend here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1782521299&ref=ts. If you check out the website there are plenty of pretty still life pictures like this one: 

                                                                              

Which reminds me of a Buffalo photographer who is ALWAYS at the Allentown Art Festival (which is this weekend!) and has wonderful images of the historical locations in Buffalo. I can't wait to see if he has any new pictures this year. Also, my mom's friend, Alison Kurek, has a booth every year which features a ton of clay and print pieces focusing on cats. I have a bunch of her stuff and she is really talented. Find some of it here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5219717  if you don't have time to visit any of the art festivals in Buffalo this summer. There are adorable ornaments, magnets, little knick knacks, powerful photographs (not of cats), and some jewelry. 

                                        

It's always nice to support not only local spots (like the culural locations such as the museums, library, zoo and so on) but also local artists, local newspapers, and just take advantage of the freebies that are around your area. Which reminds me that I am still pissed at my boyfriend for not knowing about the Teen Lit Festival in Rochester in April! You can bet your booty that I am going next year! 

The Color Purple

I recently finished re-reading The Color Purple by Alice Walker, just in time for me to see the musical at Shea's Performing Arts Center (shown below) with my mom on opening night.


I absolutely loved the book and with good reason: it was well written in the Southern dialect, it was compelling and interesting, the plot was believable, and it delivered emotion and powerful knowledge on the African experience. The musical was also well executed, however, I feel it fell short of Walker's racially complicated themes and questions. In the novel form one was meant to feel the struggle blacks felt not only in the Southern states of America, but also the disconnect between themselves and their former relatives: those living in Africa who sold them into slavery. This wasn't even touched upon in the musical. I understand that in a 2 hour time slot it may be hard to force people to remove stereotypes and misconceptions about "the black woman" and furthermore to create a complicated relationship not only between white and black southerners but also between African-Americans and native Africans, but it could have been done. Frankly I am disappointed.

What also struck me as odd was the fact that Oprah Winfrey was so in love with the book (they say she handed out free copies to strangers) that she decided to help produce this musical, and also starred in the movie as Sofia. Okay, I may lose a few of you here because I'm not such a huge Oprah fan, but I believe that her role as the influential black woman that she is should be used to help her race in regards to equality. Instead, she chose the role of the "boisterous large black woman" to play in the movie. This seems to further the stereotype (as was also shown in the musical when the actress playing Sofia stole the show). Why would Oprah want people to continuously have this image of black women across America? Why wouldn't she want to convey more of Nettie's hardship in Africa to show the struggle that African-Americans have: they aren't accepted in America because they're black, yet they aren't accepted in Africa because they had been sold, they aren't black enough, they don't understand the customs, and they are Americanized. It reminds me of the feelings associated with "passing" : a black woman may pass as white however she doesn't feel connected to either race and therefore has no place, no culture, no people of her own.

Ironically, back when this was set the role of Sofia as a woman who refuses to be beaten by her husband, who stands up to the mayor, and who doesn't lie to a white woman simply to make her happy, was probably a rebellious role. She was the woman who the white people didn't like because she didn't go along with their view of how a black woman should act. Yet, when I was sitting there in the audience watching Sofia sing "hell no" to letting anyone beat her, listening to the audience cheer and roar in agreement, I realized that the tide had turned. Now Sofia clearly is the stereotypical black woman and it seems as if white people love her more for that. Is it because they can respect someone who stands up for herself? Is it because she says it like it is and doesn't give false sympathy? Or is it because when she acts loud and troublesome she doesn't remind the white majority of the weak slave bowing before the master, thus giving them a guilty conscious?

I admit that I didn't think of all of this during the show (after all, I LOVE musicals and enjoyed myself). But I was disheartened when key elements of Walker's narrative weren't even slightly mentioned onstage. And I was frustrated when women that barely paid attention during the second act (because they were chatting with each other and disturbing my experience) cheered the loudest for the actresses as if they could subconsciously feel their struggle and understand their pain without even listening, simply because of the color of their skin. I, on the other hand, couldn't relate to the characters without Celie's voice in my head. It was her broken spelling that lent itself to my imagination. It was her description and numbness towards Mr ___ that pulled at my heartstrings. It was her obsessive wondering about Shug Avery that fed my understanding of her character. None of that was strongly displayed in the musical, therefore I felt as if I was watching something entirely new and unconnected to Alice Walker's work.

When everyone burst out clapping in the final moments of the musical I couldn't help but feel cheated. We didn't have the same uncertainty as we had in the novel. We hadn't learned anything about Adam and Olivia. We didn't even experience the lengthiness of the time elapsed since Celie barely appeared to age (I suppose since she was the same height from age 14 to 50).

Don't let my questions and disappointment about this musical trick you into thinking I didn't enjoy it. It had wonderful music (loud, strong gospel voices which make you want to rise to your feet and let your lungs carry you onto the stage with them) and the set designs were equally beautiful and powerful. Also, it's a musical that has won so many awards it's worth it just to go and see the talent. Experience a Broadway phenomenon!

Just make sure you read the book too.


P.S. None of these comments were meant to offend, just simply the ramblings of the author.

P.P.S. Here's another review of The Color Purple: http://artvoice.com/issues/v8n23/theaterweek