A Preview of the 2012 Saratoga Springs Flurry Festival

Dust off Yer Dancin’ Shoes and Shake Your Groove Thing

The Saratoga Springs Flurry Festival rings in its 25th year this month, and unlike snow flurries, this event promises to warm you up.

The festival, a celebration of music and dance that occurs every President’s Day Weekend, will begin Friday, February 17th and run to Sunday, February 19th. This is a great opportunity to gather with music and dance lovers of all ages for workshops, jam sessions, dance parties; or just sit back and watch many of the festivals talented performers.

While Disney may tell you “it’s a small world,” the world of dance and music says otherwise. There are close to 250 sessions available with performances to match a variety of cultures and ages; and with so much to choose from, where do you begin? “Swing, Contra & Square, Tango, Ballroom, African, Balkan, Celtic, Scandinavian and Salsa”, along with Chinese, Folk, American, Irish, Cajun and Zydeco are only a few of the dances. Dancers like The Capital AppleJacks and Jills (Swing dance), Joan and Jim Savitt (Scandinavian and Israeli dance), the Fotia Hellenic Society (Greek dance), will be present. There are expected to be over 400 performers, including winner of the Canandian Folk Music Award, Genticorum, as well as Contra dance legend, Dudley Laufman.

The highlight of the festivals has always been the Contra. A folk-dance form inspired by French court dances and widespread in the United States until the mid-1800s, became popular again in the 1950s with Laufman and other folk dancers. The dance is organized as a set (couples paired in a long line), and couples will often interact with another couple throughout the dance. Participants can expect the caller (or leader) to introduce them to the steps of a certain dance prior to actual dancing, and all steps are relatively simple to learn.

If you’re unable to spend Valentine’s Day with your loved one, this may be a great opportunity – what is more appealing, some dinner (something you usually have every day) or having an excuse to hold your special someone close and learn new things in a fun setting? Or make it a family event – kids are bound to use up all of the day’s energy, and have a great time doing it.

As with all great ideas, the origins of the Flurry Festival started small. The idea was originally pitched to organizer Paul Rosenberg as a joke by Nancy Gretta in 1987. The idea was to have a replacement festival for the Old Songs Winter Dance Fest of 1985, which was unable to get past the organization stage for a second festival. The original February Dance Flurry came to be on February 13, 1988 in the Westmere Elementary School in Guilderland, NY. For some time the festival, extending to include three days, was held in the Farnsworth Middle School in Guilderland. This only changed in 1994 when busted water pipes were responsible for ruining the gym floor, and the festival was forced to find an alternative location. Since then, Saratoga Springs has hosted the Flurry and helped it to grow into the vast festival it is today.

Also, don’t forget Mayor Scott Johnson of Saratoga Springs has declared February 12th to the 19th as Celebrate Traditional Music and Dance week. The week kicks off with mini-festival and benefit “Music Mayhem – for the Love of Scott” in Gaffney’s Restaurant at 16 Caroline Street from 1pm to 8pm on the 12th. The benefit aims to raise $30,000 to benefit Gaffney’s owner Kim Smith, whose husband Scott is suffering from brain cancer. Expect to see plenty of local artists like Chris Carey, Matt McCabe, Acoustic Circus and Sirsy. Admission to this event is $10.

So show off your moves, learn a tune, and check out some of the world’s greatest dance and music talents at the 25th annual Saratoga Springs Flurry Festival! Tickets are available at the door, $95 ($3 for children) for the full festival, and $25-$60 ($1 for children), depending on dates and times. Event Headquarters are the Saratoga City Center and the Hilton Hotel, although events will take place all through downtown Saratoga Springs. Friday events will run from 7pm to 2am, picking up Saturday from 9am to 1am, and ending Sunday from 9am to 6pm. Click here for a schedule of Flurry Festival events.

For more information, visit www.flurryfestival.org, or contact Sue Mead at festival@danceflurry.org.

–Amanda Taylor is a Contributor to The Free George.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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Paul McCartney’s Kisses On The Bottom, CD Review

The Former Beatle Dives into the American Songbook

Paul McCartney’s Kisses On The Bottom is quite possibly one of the most relaxed albums you’ll hear this year, which is one of the main reasons why you’ll either like it or fall asleep halfway through. This album will probably not inspire ardent passion, but then, it’s not really meant to—this is the musical equivalent of a lazy summer day, something that some people will consider delightful and some will consider boring, but will arouse neither group to be moved to any intense emotional heights of either love or hatred.

This isn’t to say that Kisses On The Bottom is bad; it’s just that it’s hard to classify how I feel about it, because it’s so innocuous. Full of classic songs, some of which formed the backbone of McCartney’s early musical development, it begins with “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” made popular in 1935 by jazz singer Fats Waller. The tune is slightly jazzy, slightly bouncy, and very piano bar-sounding, as are most of the other songs on the album. McCartney clearly enjoys the material, and sounds like he is having a lot of fun on this and “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” a catchy song that would sound right at home on the soundtrack of a movie set in the 1930s.

Most of the tunes here are standards from the 1920s through the 1940s and run the gamut from Irving Berlin to Benny Goodman to a song written for the Broadway musical “Guys and Dolls” (“More I Cannot Wish You”); almost all are love songs. McCartney is backed by bass, strings, muted brass, and Diana Krall on the piano. The quiet background arrangements allow his voice to do most of the work and carry each song—although, being quite a bit older now, there is none of the vocal-chord-straining energy found on earlier Beatles songs like “Kansas City.” Instead there is a lazy lushness evocative of non-seedy lounge singers, and McCartney’s voice holds up well through everything. The only two original tracks, “My Valentine” and “Only Our Hearts,” sound more recognizably like McCartney, but still fit in nicely with the vintage feel of the rest of the album.

Overall, Kisses On The Bottom is pretty but not very energetic; it likely won’t stand out as one of Paul McCartney’s defining works, and will probably interest only fervent McCartney fans and fans of the old classics. However, there is enough feeling in Kisses On The Bottom to render it more than just a vanity project, and, although I’m not sure if I could sit through the entire thing again without passing out, it’s pleasant enough. In a world where one of the top 10 songs on iTunes is LMFAO’s “Sexy and I Know It,” an album of old-fashioned standards isn’t going to hurt anybody.

–Sarah Alender is a Contributor to The Free George.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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Saratoga Arts’ Tempered by Memory Sculpture

The 9/11 Memorial Stirs up Controversy, and Finds a Home

On August 16, 2011 as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 was fast approaching, the Saratoga Springs City Council met to decide the fate of Saratoga Arts’ 9/11 Memorial Project, “Tempered by Memory.” Initially the sculpture was to be unveiled in time for the 9/11 observation, but there has been such controversy surrounding the project that the sculpture, now completed, is currently sitting in a Gansevoort steelyard.

As 9/11 came, tensions were set aside and a private ceremony was held by Saratoga Arts to remember the lives lost ten years ago, as well as to recognize the efforts of those involved with the sculpture.

The biggest debacle over Tempered by Memory has been about finding an appropriate place for it. The new City Center, the lawn of the Visitor’s Center, at the Lake Avenue Firehouse, and the New York State Military Museum have all been viable options; while others think the sculpture doesn’t belong in Saratoga at all. Finally, as of December 21, 2011, it was decided that the memorial would find its home in High Rock Park.

Tempered by Memory is a 25-foot tall contemporary sculpture created out of steel from the wreckage of the World Trade Center’s North and South towers. In the spring of 2010, officers stationed at the Saratoga Springs Naval Support Activity contacted and encouraged Saratoga Arts to request pieces of WTC steel from the Port Authority of NY and NJ’s WTC distribution program. Saratoga Arts pursued the pieces, as well as two local sculptors, Noah Savett and John Van Alstine, to create the memorial. According to Saratoga Arts, “the artists chose five pieces of steel that were both stable and flexible, giving them the opportunity to organically experiment with different design and construction concepts…while maintaining the integrity of the steel and their unique forms.”

Since the sculpture’s completion in September 2011, it has remained in Savett’s fabrication plant in Gansevoort. Aside from the debate over where the sculpture would go, harsh words have been cast over the aesthetics of the sculpture. Even art critics and artists disagree over abstract art, and because the sculpture is so contemporary, something of its caliber would be expected to be essentially contested.  At a City Council meeting, one resident called the sculpture “a twisted monstrosity” and another described pieces of it as “meat cleavers”, even bringing forth safety issues. Amejo Amyot, a local arts activist and one of the founders of the Beekman Street Arts District has also been vocal about the sculpture, calling it “a pile of steel; an embarrassment; and one of the least artistic sculptures that she has ever seen.”

Perhaps it is not the structure that is ugly–art is and always has been subjective, but the controversy surrounding the memorial has certainly gotten ugly. Residents complained about where the sculpture would go, the sculpture’s appearance, about the process of the memorial, and even going as far as to claim some have politicized the sculpture for partisan gain. Claiming it to be shrouded in secrecy, only once these issues were brought to the attention to the city of Saratoga, the mayor began appointing committees to start making some decisions.

While in fact there has been a level of secrecy from the beginning, (the Arts Council thundered ahead with project), in all fairness, as a project commissioned by the Arts Center, no tax dollars have gone into the $196,000 project cost (which was in the form of donated services, equipment, labor and time). When an undertaking like this has been brought to the attention of an entire city, there will always be disagreements between people.

It’s unfortunate that something that was meant to bring the city together has caused such controversy, but now that Tempered by Memory has a home, opposing sides can be at peace with the City’s decision. This whole debate must bring back memories for some long-time residents– in 1988 an almost identical situation was unwinding as Saratoga was once again divided over a carousel they purchased from Kaydeross Park. City council meetings turned ugly as residents were unable to decide as to where the carousel would be best suited. The mayor initially proposed High Rock Park, and ultimately it ended up in Congress Park, despite the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation’s unanimous vote against it, claiming it would disrupt the park’s quiet environment. Just think of what Congress Park would be like today without the carousel.

At the time the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was completed in 1982, it generated more controversy than any work of architecture in recent history. People were up in arms, claiming it was not a work of art or an appropriate memorial (some were even offended that the sculptor, Maya Lin, was of Asian descent), yet today it is the most visited memorial in Washington. Hopefully twenty years from now, Saratoga will be saying the same thing about the Tempered by Memory memorial. Whether you disagree with the placement, aesthetics or process of the memorial, remember what the memorial stands for.

–Aubree Cutkomp is an Assistant Editor for The Free George.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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A Preview of The 51st Annual Lake George Winter Carnival

An Abundance of Winter Events this February…if the Weather Cooperates

Well, it’s not been that much of a winter so far. Yes, it’s been downright cold at times, but we haven’t the several feet of snow that we experienced last year. However, that shouldn’t dampen the spirit of winter…there are places to go sledding and skiing even without an abundance of blizzards. One way to get in the spirit is at the Lake George Winter Carnival, now celebrating its 51st year.

This year’s carnival is set to run every weekend beginning Saturday, February 4th until Sunday, February 26th. Each weekend is filled with events for children and adults alike.

The carnival kicks off with a special anniversary gala on Saturday, January 28th at Dunham’s Bay Resort in Lake George at 6pm with a cocktail hour, followed by dinner at 7pm. Live music will be provided by Rich Ortiz. Tickets for the gala are $45 per person in advance and $55 at the door. Tickets are being sold at multiple locations in Lake George, including Duffy’s Tavern, Mario’s Restaurant, The Prospect Mt. Diner and Tina’s Hair Affair.

The first official weekend of the carnival is February 4th & 5th (Saturday-Sunday). The opening ceremonies begin at noon on Saturday at Shepard Park Beach followed by the legendary Outhouse Races at 12:30pm, a fun competition that’s been a tradition at the carnival since 1983. Each team consists of a homemade outhouse and five people: two pushing, two pulling and one in the seat of honor.

In addition to the Outhouse Races, a giant snow slide, fireworks, carriage rides and a Chili Cook Off with local Lake George restaurant owners will take place during the opening weekend. A parade will take place, starting at 4pm on Canada Street, followed by a bonfire with live music on the beach at 6:30pm.

Scheduled events for the following weekends will include cook-offs, fireworks, hot air balloon tether rides (the balloons will leave the ground, but only on the third weekend and with an advanced booking), dog sled rides, a polar golf tournament, face painting, snowmobile rides, petting zoo, children’s activities, more bonfires and of course, the polar plunge.

The highlight of the Carnival’s second weekend (February 11th & 12th), is the New York State Motorcycle and ATV Ice Race Championship. However, there’s some skepticism as to whether this event will take place, due to the lack of ice on the lake; in that case the races may be moved to the last weekend of the festival. For more information call Frank Carpinello at 518-330-3648 or visit www.electriccityriders.com

The third and fourth weekends continue the competitions with car races, ice diving demonstrations (both ice permitting), skydiving competitions, giant kite flying, a hot air balloon moon glow, chowder and chicken wing cook-offs and the Lake George Sanctioned Dog Sled Races, scheduled for the final weekend on February 25th & 26th.

Although the first and largest Polar Plunge of the carnival was held on January 1st, additional plunges will take place each weekend to anyone who is daring enough. This is a state-wide event that raises money for the New York State Special Olympics; the only requirement is to plunge into the ice cold waters of Lake George. Any takers out there?

The Winter Carnival is free and open to the public. To see a complete list of the schedule, to register for specific events and/or for more information visit the Carnival’s official website at www.lakegeorgewintercarnival.com or call 518-240-0809. And don’t be discouraged if the weather doesn’t hold up; there’s still plenty of things to do.

–Dave Bower is Co-Publisher of The Free George.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our new City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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Underworld: Awakening, Movie Review

The Latest Installment in the Vampire Franchise

A leather-clad and stony-faced Kate Beckinsale returned to theaters in the fourth installment of the Underworld series late this January as the vampire Selene. She wakes alone, labeled Subject 2, in a cryogenic cell within Antigen Labs, to find that twelve years have passed. A frenzied and bloody escape ensues. This private research facility was designed to find a cure for the vampire and werewolf (lycan) outbreaks while an extermination was launched by the humans. Selene’s escape was due to the efforts of Subject 1, a hybrid vampire-lycan she suspects is her lover Michael Corvin, and with whom she shares a telepathic connection. As it turns out, Subject 1 is instead Selene’s hybrid daughter, Eve, who has never been outside of Antigen.

Underworld: Awakening follows Selene as she tries to protect Eve while figuring out what happened in the twelve years she had been frozen. A young vampire named David discovers Selene and Eve and brings them to his father Thomas’ coven underneath the city. Thomas is furious that the coven is endangered and views Selene as a traitor to her species, but David wants to inspire the vampires to fight the lycans instead of running.

The film climaxes following a massacre in the coven by hormonally-enhanced lycans, who are enormous and resistant to silver. Selene, Eve, and the human Detective Sebastian (who got wrapped into the investigation of the Antigen breakout) must confront a pack of lycans—and the Antigen scientists, who have something to hide. The three manage to escape, but have drawn much more attention to themselves.

The clever Eve is portrayed by India Eisley of television’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” and although Selene worries about her safety, the young girl is very capable of fending for herself, as she gruesomely tears a lycan in half, straight down the middle. Yes, the film has plentiful gore, but the heart-racing action is balanced by an intense mother-daughter bond. Beckinsale’s Selene breaks her cold exterior brought on by the battles she has thus-far fought to bring a new emotional connection to her wide-eyed daughter.

In the 88-minute runtime, the film manages to pack in a lot of action and a blindsiding twist, but neglects to further the storyline. It’s lucky that the Underworld series has a popular following in its demographic, since this filler installment could damage its ratings. While Len Wiseman, director of the first two movies (Underworld and Underworld: Evolution), remains in production as a script writer, he bows out for Swedish directors Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein. Other stars include a serious Michael Ealy (from the TV series “FlashForward”) as Sebastian and Stephen Rea (V for Vendetta) as a delightfully ruthless Dr. Jacob Lane.

It seems like the film sets up a lot of awesome themes—like David’s motivation to gather his coven and fight against the lycans, and Selene’s connection to Eve—but doesn’t follow through. This seems irritatingly deliberate: the film ends with a cliffhanger, obviously leading us to another continuation. Yet the circumstances that Selene and Eve are left in seem impossible to escape; they have no allegiance with humans, lycans, and most vampires. It’s fun to watch immortals escape from barely escapable conditions, but it can only drive a story so far. Incredible CGI doesn’t cover up the lack of intrinsic dialogue. Underworld: Awakening was entertaining but seemed incomplete, like a great meal that’s too small. Still, a great small meal is better than a mediocre large meal (I’m talking to you, Twilight). It’s worth a watch, especially if you splurge on the 3D and digital surround sound: it’s an intense experience.

–Kate Smith is an Assistant Editor for The Free George.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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Get Crafty this February: Handmade Valentine’s Day Love Card

A Personalized Way to Express Your Love

The month of February is forever associated with Valentine’s Day; February 14th is the day that we express love and how you feel to that special someone in your life. What better way to show your love than by making a handmade card.

Most people love to get cards, especially handmade cards. In making a Valentine’s Day Card, you should think about what you want your card to convey. Do you want something to the point, or more sentimental? The instructions for making such a card is very simple, and direct. All of the items used for this card can be bought at your local craft store.

To start, buy an assorted pack of colored paper. To create your card you may want to use red, pink, white, or crème. Think about how you want to decorate your card. Do you want to use die cuts, embellishments, or stickers?  You may also want to mix different mediums or textures on your card.

For this particular card, red, white, and crème paper will be used. The crème colored paper will serve as the card itself. The crème colored piece of paper was scored and folded to be “ 4 ½ x 4 ½” inches in size. If you want a larger card, another standard size would be  “6 x 5” in this case all you’d have to do is fold the “8 ½ x 11” piece of paper in half and score.

Valentine’s Day cards typically show hearts which are synonymous with love. Therefore, we’ll place hearts on the front of the card as well as the inside. Paper hearts as well as heart embellishments will be used on the front, made out of a heart “punch” which can be purchased at your local craft store. If a heart “punch” isn’t available you can draw hearts and cut them out with scissors.

After creating paper hearts, and choosing a heart embellishment, take a moment to decide how you want to place the hearts on the card. You may want to use one heart on the front of the card or several. In this case two paper hearts, and one heart embellishment can be used on the front of the card, and two paper hearts in the inside. To have the heart embellishment “pop” on the front, a red square piece of paper has been glued down to bring out the colors of the heart embellishment. To complete the look, two small paper hearts have been created in red and white to give a cohesive appearance.

For the inside of the card, a paper white square was created to have the hearts appear to be framed in the inside of the card. For the inside two paper hearts were made. One heart in white and one in red were created using the heart “punch” to create the paper hearts. Since the hearts are framed and being used on the front, the hearts on the inside of the card are framed as well, giving the card a very simple and clean look.

Your Valentine’s Day Card should express how you feel toward your loved one. Your card can be as simple as the one shown, or a little more complex using more die cuts, embellishments, and stickers. Have fun creating your card for your loved one. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Materials used:

One 8 x 11 Ivory Paper folded and scored
One 3 x 3 Red Square Paper
One 2 x 2 White Square Paper
One 1 ½ x 1 ½ inch Red Paper Heart
One 1inch White Paper Heart
One ¾ White Paper Heart
One ¾ Red Paper Heart
One Embellishment Pink Heart

–Heather Pilmar is the owner of Scrapping Your Way based in New York City. Contact Scrapping Your Way for custom-made scrapbooks, handmade cards, and die cut kits. Please visit www.scrappingyourway.com for more information.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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The Top 10 Things to Do in Albany (For the Week of February 6-12, 2012)

African Film, Wine, Pirates and Peter Frampton

February is in full swing and football is officially over. Fill your Sundays and the rest of your days with a new set of the Top 10 Best, Not to Be Missed Things to Do in The Capital Region (For the Week of February 6-12, 2012)…

1. 8th Annual Africana Film Series at Albany College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences

The Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is celebrating Black History Month with their annual Africana Film Festival. For the eighth consecutive year, four films will be shown over the course of three weeks. The festival is hosted and coordinated by ACPHS’s own professor Kevin Hickey, who will kick the film series off with his own film Four Years Across Africa by Bike. The film chronicles Hickey’s four-year bike trip through 24 African countries. He traveled 38,000 miles in total and was the first American and only the fifth person ever documented to cross the Sahara Desert by bicycle. Umgidi, Si-Gueriki and Long Night’s Journey into Day will also be shown. The festival begins Tuesday, February 7th at 7pm; visit the event’s website for full movie and event info. FREE.

2. Harlem Wizards Game to Benefit ALS at Siena College

Thursday night, February 9th, The Harlem Wizards will play around at Siena’s MAC to benefit ALS. The Wizards are best known for their “trick hoops and alley-hoops” and promise to wow their audience with their athleticism, tricks and ball-handling wizardry. Not to be confused with the Globetrotters, although they do have Harlem in common, as well as the two are the only remaining show basketball teams.  Another Wizards fun fact– they hold the longest known winning streak in all of professional sports- over 2,800 games. Discounted tickets are on sale at Price Chopper and [full-priced] tickets will be available at the door. For more info call 518-753-6198.

3. The Pirates of Penzance at Cohoes Music Hall

Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance is a classic comic opera that first debuted in 1879. Frederic has just turned 21 and completed his required 21-year apprenticeship with a band of tender-hearted pirates. He meets Mabel, the daughter of a very model of a Modern Major-General and falls madly in love with her. Frederic finds out that he was born on February 29th which means his birthday falls on a leap year. His apprenticeship required him to remain indentured to the pirates until his 21st birthday, and bound by a sense of duty he is determined to serve 63  more years. See Frederic’s predicament play out on the Cohoes Music Hall stage beginning Thursday, February 9th at 8pm through Sunday, February 19 at 3pm. For tickets and full schedule call 518-237-5858.

4. Capital Region Wine Festival at Proctors

There will be more than 100 wines from over 50 wineries at this year’s Romancing the Grape weekend. The grand opening of the annual Wine Festival begins with a wine tasting…as it should. From there, the fun moves to the Apkarian stage with “A Taste of Italy” featuring Andy LoRusso, The Singing Chef. Ticket prices include lots of wine and a delicious four-course meal. Sponsored by Southern Wine & Spirits of Upstate NY Inc; ticket prices vary from $75-$100. Friday, February 10th at 6:30pm. Visit www.proctors.org for more info.

5. Brides Night Out at Browns Brewing Company

Brown’s Brewing Company in Troy is hosting a Bachelorette Party on Friday, February 10th for prospective brides. Revolution Hall will be decked out in full reception decor, with a cocktail reception starting the night off at 6pm. A buffet dinner from executive chef Luca Brunelle will be served at 7pm and Bridesmaids will be played on the big screen. Tickets are $35 and are on sale now. For more info visit www.brownsbrewing.com

6. Peter Frampton at The Palace

Peter Frampton, who brought us such lyrical masterpieces as “Baby, I Love Your Way” and “Show Me the Way”, will be at The Palace Theater Friday night, February 10th. Over the course of Frampton’s three hour show, he will do a complete performance of Frampton Comes Alive! along with highlights from the rest of his catalog, including pieces from his ’06 Grammy Award-winning instrumental album, Fingerprints. Whether you like his old stuff (remember Humble Pie?), new stuff or both, the night will be fun-filled for any Frampton fan. Starts at 7:30pm; tickets vary from $39.50-$69.50. Visit www.palacealbany.com for more details

7. Great Northeast Home Show at The Empire State Plaza

The largest home show in the Capital Region returns to the Plaza this weekend, February 10-12. The Great Northeast Home Show invites you to browse two buildings full of products and services. Exhibits vary from architectural design, contracting, pool installation, landscaping, home appliances and interior decorating. Come to comparison shop, talk with experts and see the latest in trends and designs, especially if you’re a fan of DIY projects. “Extreme Makeover Home Edition’s” designer Michael Moloney will be the show’s special guest and will be holding seminars all day Saturday. Admission is $8, under 14 is FREE. http://greatnortheasthomeshow.com for more info.

8. Physicist John D. Barrow at EMPAC

Famed physicist John D. Barrow will be at EMPAC this Wednesday evening. The cosmologist has spent his life’s work studying the early history of the universe, the mathematical structure of cosmological models, and ways in which astronomy and cosmology can be used to test aspects of fundamental physics. His talk will examine the past influence of pictures in science and the growing influence of visual expression, from Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” to the atomic bomb’s mushroom cloud. February 8th at 6pm in the theater; talks are always FREE. www.empac.rpi.edu

9. Teju Cole at UAlbany

Teju Cole is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Open City. His debut novel, Open City tells the story of a young Nigerian-German psychiatrist who wanders the streets of Manhattan exploring the city and its people, as well as his own feelings of isolation. Besides being a talented and up and coming author, Cole is also a street photographer. Cole was born in the US but raised in Nigeria, and returned to the US when he was 17. He’s been pursuing his dreams back in the US of A ever since. At UAlbany’s Uptown Campus in the Recital Hall Cole will be holding a Q&A and seminar on Friday, February 10th, starting at 4:15pm. Visit www.albany.edu/writers-inst or call 442-5620 for more info. FREE.

10. Valentine’s Day Party at The Arts Center

Saturday night, February 11th, the Arts Center of the Capital Region is hosting a Valentine’s Day-themed speakeasy party. Dance the night away to live music by Doc Scanlon’s Deja VooDoo Boys, and learn something new by Instructor Jason Fenton, and. There will be a break-time performance by the Capital Apple Jacks & Jills, cash bar, desserts and coffee from Albany Sunspot Cafe and costume and dance contests (with prizes!) The party starts at 7pm; tickets are $12 for members, $15 for non. Visit www.artscenteronline.org for tickets and more info.

See you next week!!!!

**This Just In–

*The GE wind turbine made an appearance on a Super Bowl commercial. Did YOU catch it?

*Poor spruce grouse! The Adirondack bird’s population is in steep decline as its habitat fills in with old growth. The bird is more common in Canada, and after decades of decline, there are now just 100 or fewer birds in three Adirondack counties. The Department of Environmental Conservation says something needs to be done soon…. Save the spruce grouse!

*Happy 300th Birthday to St. Peter’s Church in Albany! Sunday, the beautiful St. Peter’s Episcopal Church celebrated its 300th anniversary celebration with a processional themed “New Faces for an Old Church.” The church’s history dates back to before the American Revolution.

–Aubree Cutkomp is an Assistant Editor for The Free George.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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Romancing the Grape: The Capital Region Wine Festival at Proctors

Wine Tastings Galore, Just in Time for Valentine’s Day

The time of year is approaching when we celebrate love any way we can: with candles, romantic dinners, boxes of candy, teddy bears, and for some of us—wine! This Valentine’s weekend, you can embrace your love for wine alone or with a loved one at Proctors in Schenectady at the Capital Region Wine Festival: Romancing the Grape.

The grand opening features Dinner in the Vineyard, presented by Andy LoRusso, The Singing Chef. The $75 ticket price includes wine and a four-course dinner meal on Friday, February 10th at 6:30pm. LoRusso will be providing the food and entertainment, with his onstage cooking and Italian singing. It’s certain to be a night filled with cheer and authentic Italian cuisine.

On Saturday, February 11th, the festival continues with wine tastings and free seminars. At 12:30pm, Mark Chisolm of Palm Bay International wine imports will be leading an interactive treasure hunt-esque seminar, WineFest 101 – Find the Hidden Gems. Then celebrate Women of the Vine with Deborah Brenner, author and winemaker, whose 2:30pm seminar tells her story and the story of female vineyard owners and entrepreneurs.

A wine festival can’t be complete without tastings! From 1 to 4pm, Proctors will be filled with diverse wines and cuisine from around the world for the Grand Tasting. Ticket price is $55, which includes a commemorative wine glass. New this year is The One Hundred Club, an exclusive ticket into Key Hall for tastings of reserve wines and hors d’oeuvres. The $100 ticket is only available to one hundred invitees, and includes admission to the Grand Tasting. Since safety is a concern when indulging in wine, designated drivers are invited for non-alcoholic beverages and food samples for a reduced price of $25—and they will also receive a complimentary wine glass upon departure as a thank you!

The festivities will culminate in a Live Auction at 4pm, where you can bid on bottles of specialty wines and tickets to exclusive area events. Access to the auction is included in your Romancing the Grape tickets. Get ready for some Valentine’s wine passion and excitement with fellow enthusiasts, as the Capital Region Wine Festival is only this weekend, and seats are limited!

For more information, follow the links on the festival page at www.proctors.org/events/special-events, or contact Judy Decker at 518-382-3884 x134 or jdecker@proctors.org.

–Kate Smith is an Assistant Editor for The Free George.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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The Namib: A Journey Through the World’s Oldest Desert

Experiencing the Flora, Fauna and Getting Lost in the Namib Desert

My time in the Namib left me with an enduring fear of dehydration. Friends complain that I bring too much water on outings, that it’s not necessary to bring a bottle to walk a couple of miles. I cannot seem to shake the memory of a dry throat, the way the tongue swallows involuntarily at the thought of water, hoping to capture some moisture back from saliva, and how later, adrenaline pushes any feeling of thirst from the mind. One may think pragmatically about finding water or how to get water, but the mind recoils from any imagining of what it would actually feel like to have a drink. Otherwise, the lack of it would be too overwhelming. I was lucky to never experience the final stages, when the thirst is so great that a man can think of nothing else and begins to see water where there is only sand and rock and dust, and the lips crack and the tongue swells, and vision blurs, muscles spasm, and unconsciousness is followed shortly by death.

The Namib is the world’s oldest desert. The more famous Sahara goes through cycles of dryness and wetness every several thousand years or so, but the Namib has been dry for fifty-five million years. It is one of the most sparsely populated places in the world. Most of Namibia‘s two million citizens live in a narrow band of relative wetness in the north, where the Kunene River forms the border with Angola. Excepting Antarctica, only Mongolia has a lower population density.

I travelled through Namibia with a dozen other students and five professors in rented 4X4 trucks. Usually, we stayed in campsites run and owned by local people, but one night, we were forced to camp out on our own. We had driven all day without seeing any other people, or even any signs of people aside from a car frame full of bullet holes. I don’t mean to imply that Namibia is a violent or chaotic place. It is one of the safer and more accessible countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Its infrastructure and roads are comparable to South Africa’s but its population density is too low to produce the same degree of crime as in Johannesburg, for example. It’s more likely that the car was an old target for hunters than the remnant of violence.

A few hours after we passed the wreck, we stopped for the night on the side of the dirt road. Another student and I climbed a hill and got a good look around as the sun was setting. This was, at least, not the driest place we had been. A few days earlier we had visited a vast, rocky moonscape that receives no rain at all during some years. Only a few tiny plants, like Southwest Edelweiss (Helichrysum roseo-niveum), whose vividly pink and yellow flowers seem so out of place against the black rock, manage to survive by collecting mist from the sea on a soft coat of tiny white hairs. Our camp by the side of the dirt road was comparably verdant, with yellowed grasses and the occasional bush or stunted tree. Low, round hills dominated the landscape, and some ancient upheaval had twisted the sediment layers around so that they were vertical instead of horizontal. As a result, bands of hard black granite only a few feet thick ran in straight, uninterrupted lines from hill to hill.

The moon rose shortly after sunset, huge and gibbous. We made dinner and, lacking firewood, sat in a wide circle around a gas lantern. We had come to experience the Namib, to see the land and the species which are shaped by it: the small gnarled trees and fleshy green succulents, the skinks and snakes and geckos, the elephants, giraffes, antelope, and predatory cats, the spiders and termites, and the ever-present Tenebrionid beetle, whose dappled carapace collects the morning dew and channels it along tiny grooves to the beetle’s mouth. We had also come to meet its people and to judge for ourselves the merits of ecotourism, to investigate whether it might preserve the land and the dignity of its people or whether it is just a different sort of conquest, a way to incorporate more free peoples into our economy as servants and laborers.

Aside from tourism, Namibia’s economy is based on diamond and uranium mining, fishing, and agriculture. Nearly half of the Namibian people take no part in the so called “formal economy,” but live lives of moneyless subsistence. Most are herders keeping goats, cattle and maybe a small garden, and a few are fishers. There are very few true nomads left in Namibia. Boreholes and wells have depleted the groundwater to the point that it is hard to find water without using them, so the people must be sedentary. The Topnaar, for example, traditionally depended heavily on the fruit of the spiky Nara plant. Nara grows in the dunes, reaching higher and higher as the sand accumulates and buries the lower parts of the plant, and the roots grow so long that they play a part in holding the dune together. Falling water tables threaten the Nara plant, and young Topnaars are increasingly moving to the city to work in factories, as commercial fishermen or miners, or to live off tourists as waiters, bartenders, guides, maids, janitors, or sellers of trinkets.

Around the gas lamp, a discussion about the Save The Rhino Trust wildlife preserve we would visit the next day led to an argument between two herpetology professors about whether conservationists should appeal to public emotion at the expense of scientific objectivity, such as by devoting a disproportionate amount of resources to protect popular “umbrella species” such as rhinos, even though these species might be less vital to the overall health and biodiversity of a particular ecosystem than a species of grass, for example. Unable to get a word in, I grew bored and decided to slip away to take a look at the stars. No one noticed my departure.

I didn’t go far at first. A few hundred meters, perhaps. I climbed a low hill to get a better view of the stars. The moon dominated the sky but the luminous spray of the Milky Way was still visible.

I could see the tiny bright point of our lantern only a short way off. I waited as long as I figured it might take to dig a hole and relieve myself, which would be my excuse if anyone complained of my absence. Yet somehow, on the way back, it seemed that I had walked much further than on the way out. I did not know then that the lantern had been turned off. Fearing only a scolding for being out too long, I did not yell for someone to come find me. Instead I hurried back the way I’d come and a little to the right, expecting to come across the camp or the dirt road next to it at any moment. I walked fast, hoping to return before anyone noticed I had left.

When no camp appeared around each bend, no light and no voices, my concern about getting in trouble evaporated, leaving a huge, empty terror and the realization that everything looked the same and that I was lost in the trackless desert. I experienced about five or ten minutes of complete, undiluted panic. I ran, just in case camp might be around the next bend.

I forced myself to calm down, taking deep breaths and trying to remember where the moon had been when I left. It couldn’t have moved to a different part of the sky since then. I would just need to point myself in the opposite direction, and walk back. I did so, until I realized that I could have passed camp on the other side, and that the moon was no help except to illuminate the rocks around me and the faint outlines of distant hills. Where had that big mountain been when I watched the sunset earlier? Had there been any other landmarks? Finally I remembered the Southern Cross, which is easier to find than its northern hemisphere counterpart, Polaris. I felt a little better knowing my cardinal directions until I realized I still wasn’t sure which side of camp I was on.

My mind ran in tighter and tighter circles, building maps of the camp and the landscape and myself, mentally rotating, rearranging, then dashing them to pieces and starting over again with a new landmark, a new theory of how I had first gotten lost. I tried to reason some kind of solution for myself, climbing hills, straining my eyes at the silhouettes of distant mountains, trying to remember something that would point the way home. I wasn’t ready to stay in one place and wait for rescue, as one is supposed to upon getting irrevocably lost. I wasn’t even sure if anyone would notice my absence until morning, and how long would I last once the sun came up? I thought of The Sheltering Desert, the autobiographical account of two German geologists who fled Germany before the start of World War II to conduct research in the Namib and then had to disappear into the desert to avoid internment camps in Allied South Africa. They brought a radio and a jeep full of food, water and ammunition and managed to survive for two years before returning to civilization. I had hiking boots and a headlamp. No food. No water.

Despite its iconography of bleached skulls and ribcages, the desert is not terrifying because it is full of death. There is more death – more predation, more decay – during one day in a tropical rainforest than during a year in the desert. No, the desert is mostly neither dead nor alive, but inanimate, which is why it is so beautiful and frightening. Life blankets nearly every bit of the Earth’s surface, but it is tissue-paper thin in the Namib. There are places where the only greenery is a layer of photosynthetic scum living in microclimates on the underside of rocks which contain enough translucent quartz for sunlight to penetrate all the way through. By definition, soils are complex ecosystems full of microorganisms. In the desert, the biologically active part of the soil is called a cryptobiotic crust, and it is so thin and fragile that even stepping on it can cause damage which won’t repair itself for 250 years. One cannot help but feel gigantic in comparison, towering a hundred miles above the microscopic canopies below, colossal in size, colossal in complexity, colossal in perspective – and at the same time, small and scared, a speck in the vast insensate landscape. The lifeless rocks call to mind silent, staggering eternities. A billion sunrises and sunsets pass with no eyes to see the difference between night and day. No one hears the tree fall in the forest, because there is no tree, there is no forest, there is no mind. Mind is a fluke, a flash of lightning with dark on either side. It is enough to make a man wish for the Congo, for the Amazon, for the rainforests of Costa Rica, the great steaming Yunque of Puerto Rico. In the jungle, it is hard to find anything that is not alive. In terms of biomass, deserts produce an average of three grams of organic carbon per square meter per year. The same area of rainforest produces around two-thousand grams of carbon per year. The soils are thin there too, but only because the life above them is so thick and so hungry that organic matter has no time to accumulate before it is consumed, reincorporated into some living thing. Death is frequent but brief in the jungle. Here in the desert, it seemed to stretch on forever.

To be fair, the place was not entirely lifeless. There must have been insects (though I never saw any) because I found a large spider perched between rocks, its four pairs of eyes like jewels under the moon. This was also supposedly lion country, I learned later, but I suspect that they only stay there during the rainy season when there is game to be found. As far as I could tell, the only other vertebrates were the barking geckos, which I heard but never saw. They are named for the way the males dig small burrows and sit inside, proclaiming their territory with a distinctive “ngeh, ngeh, ngeh” sound that carries for miles. Once I realized how lost I was, I started climbing to the tops of hills and screaming as loud as I could. Breathless, I would listen for an answer. “ngeh, ngeh, ngeh,” came the only response, as if the hills were laughing.

I was wearing a bracelet woven from string in the Pan-African colors of green, yellow, and red, like the flags of Cameroon, The Republic of Congo, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Mali. A month earlier, I had been in Paris, climbing a certain hill with a famous church on top. As I walked up the stairs, an African man grabbed my hand and started walking alongside me. Before I could even respond, he began weaving the bracelet onto my wrist. “A gift,” he said. “You make wish now, make wish again when it breaks.” My refusals weren’t forceful enough, and he dragged me up the hill while he wove the bracelet.

Another African man ran alongside us, shouting in the same accent, “You take it, you pay! You take it, you pay!”

“Don’t listen to him,” said the man holding my wrist, laughing, “he’s drunk!” They were clearly working together – now I couldn’t claim that I thought the bracelet was free. As the most popular tourist destination in the world, Paris is full of people with similar acts. I waited for the man to finish the bracelet, handed him a few coins, and climbed the rest of the hill.

I do not believe in the supernatural, mostly because the natural seems to be spectacular enough on its own. Listening to the laughter of the geckos, however, being rational and non-superstitious suddenly seemed like empty vanity. I ripped the bracelet off and wished for survival. I didn’t have any other ideas.

It was winter time, and the nights were long and the days short, but I knew how quickly the sun would desiccate me in the morning. After hours of searching, I finally realized that I could not hope to find camp. Cigarettes in Namibia were so cheap that I had taken up smoking again while I was there. I didn’t have any, and I even if I had, I wouldn’t have smoked any for fear of how they would dry my mouth, but I had taken to carrying a lighter with me at all times. I resolved to find the highest hill around and prepare a fire for the morning.

I reasoned that the light of a fire might be visible at night – but only if there weren’t too many hills between myself and the camp, and only if people were already looking for me. The vegetation was scarce and grew mostly between hills, not on top of them. I couldn’t risk exhausting myself climbing up and down to collect fuel, only to burn it all while everyone was asleep back at camp. I would have to wait till morning.

I found my hill at the edge of a dry river. There were even two small trees there. I could perhaps dig for water later, and their shade might save my life the next day. Beside one of them I found an old tin can, nearly rusted away to nothing. Even though it could have been years since someone left it there, or it could have been washed from hundreds of miles away during the rainy season, it was somehow incredibly heartening to see some evidence of other humans.

Having come to Namibia to learn how man might be kept from spoiling nature, it felt strange to be so cheered by a piece of litter. There is a lot of talk these days about our dependence on the machine, or the system, or whatever we decide to call it. A few people are making spirited attempts to extricate themselves entirely, and many more express a desire to at least achieve some self-sufficiency by keeping a garden or “getting off the grid.” Their goal is to mimic the elegance and independence of the edelweiss plant: condensing sustenance out of the air with solar panels, wind turbines, and greenhouses.

The most dedicated and clever might find themselves capable of living for years without any industrial inputs of electricity, fuel or food, but the tools which make this possible are of course industrial in origin. The only people who live entirely apart from the machine are those few, hidden deep in primeval forests, who have never had contact with modern civilization. A few others, such as the Topnaar of the Sossuvlei Dunes or the Himba of northern Namibia, live traditional lifestyles, but the old ways fade faster with each new generation. For those of us raised without any tradition of living off the land, truly getting off the grid is humbling. Separated from not only the electrical grid but the roads as well, and from any of the implements which normally allow us to venture into the wild, such as tents, water containers, solar cells or hunting gear, we can no more survive than a foot could keep on walking after being severed from the leg. Seeing the rusted can made me hungry for the all the safety nets I had left behind. I looked across the landscape and imagined it paved over. I wanted someone to come and cover these dry hills with shopping malls and grocery stores and public drinking fountains.

The reverie quickly passed, and I set to work collecting fuel for the fire. I would work all night and make two huge piles, one to light shortly after sunrise, and another to light around breakfast time in case it took that long for someone to realize I was missing. It was hard to find any living plants – the dry yellow grasses would burn fine, but I needed smoke. I managed to find several bushes, which I pulled out of the ground whole.

With so little water, natural selection in the desert forces plants onto a violent evolutionary path, and they grow angry thorns. By the time I had built two piles nearly as tall as myself, my hands were scratched and bloody. I stopped to catch my breath and survey my work before climbing back down for another load. Then, from the top of my hill, I saw a tiny beacon in the distance. It was a few kilometers away at least, but it had to be from my camp. I learned later that my tent-mates noticed I was gone when they turned in for the night, and someone put the lantern on the same hill from which I had watched the sunset. I waved my headlamp in the air, wondering if it was bright enough to be seen that far off. I considered lighting the fire and waiting for someone to come to me, but what if it wasn’t my camp? If it was somehow another group of people, they might see a fire and not think to investigate.

Knowing that the beacon wouldn’t be visible once I climbed down from my hill, I took careful note of the stars and started walking. At times, the landscape was too rugged to keep in a straight line, but I did the best I could to compensate. Finally, I came to the dirt road on which we had driven.

I was nearing camp when I came across one of the professors who were out searching for me. He was very angry. He made sure I was unhurt and then fumed that he should send me home but instead he was placing me on academic probation. We were about a mile from camp. Walking back, I was too flooded with relief to listen to him. For the first time in hours, I felt the adrenaline drain from my tissues. I was suddenly aware of how fast my heart was beating, how thirsty I was. There was a liter and a half of cool, clear water waiting in my tent. I drank it all down.

I have never felt that kind of relief before or since, but it didn’t fully erase a newfound awareness of death. The Toltec believed that death walks behind a man — just behind and to the left — through his whole life. The thirst has not left me, nor has the palpability of that heartbeat-thin barrier. I am reminded of a ferrofluid, a sort of black and viscous magnetic mixture, under the influence of an electromagnet. Before the magnetic field is turned on, it looks like a pool of crude oil. Then little hills rise from the surface to match the shape of the magnetic field, which can be modulated to create a symphony of changing geometric forms. Once the field is turned off, gravity destroys those shapes and the liquid becomes calm and formlessly entropic once again. Life is pulled up out of the Earth in much the same way. Diverse forms and shapes are coaxed into being, sculpted and sustained, by the insistent pull of solar radiation, like trees reaching for the sun. Decay pulls in the other direction. I felt it out there in the Namib, trying to pull me apart and scatter me over the rocks. Sometimes, even back within the safety net, all I can feel is its terrible gravity.

Stepping off the map had been more than simply terrifying. I felt like I had experienced nature for the first time. Alone out there, there were no illusions of being separate or free from the forces of nature. It was engulfing and absolute.

The next day, we packed up and continued the trip, back on the tourist route. We visited the Save The Rhino Trust and later Etosha National Park, which is home to an incredible richness of large mammals but is also heavily developed. I saw a staggering array of wildlife at the park, but it felt like a zoo. Wealthy South Africans and Europeans rent luxury bungalows overlooking a man-made watering hole equipped with amphitheatre style seats and a protective wall. Local hospitality workers cheerfully serve the needs of tourists with cameras and gear that are worth more than what the average Namibian can expect to make in a year. Inequalities aside, ecotourism has been gentler than the mining industry, both to the land and the people, but it is changing the way people relate to the land. Even the formerly nomadic Himba are relying less on their herds. Instead they depend on tourists who want to purchase an “authentic” trinket or have their picture taken with a topless girl whose skin and hair are coated with the reddish otjize paste which is distinctive to Himba culture.

Traveling north to the Kunene River, we reentered civilization. We drove on paved roads lined with small one-room homes and businesses. Hitchhiking is common in this part of the country, and people are friendly. Even those who aren’t looking for a ride tend to wave and smile at passing cars. Sometimes gasoline was hard to find and had to be siphoned by hand, but we never ran out. We stopped at a famous German-style bakery in Otjiwarongo and checked our email in their internet cafe. We shopped at supermarkets once a week and slept in guarded campsites with fully stocked bars. Wilderness receded to the periphery of our experience. The veil was back in place.

–Eric Moll is a Contributor to The Free George. Photos by Eric Moll

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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A Preview of The 8th Annual Africana Film Series

Four Films Cover a Wide Range of African Culture and History

In celebration of Black History Month, the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (ACPH) marks the return of their annual Africana Film Series, with screenings of four films that focus on different elements of African culture.

Africa’s rich history and locations initially attracted many European and American filmmakers during the colonial era, yet, French colonial law (known as the “Laval Decree”) denied Africans the right to make their own films. Many African filmmakers therefore emigrated to France, where they honed their craft, eventually spearheading a continent-wide cinematic renaissance starting in the 1960s, with films that tackled such subjects as colonialism, racism and post-colonial identity by many critically acclaimed directors including Cheick Oumar Sissoko, Med Hondo, Youssef Chahine, Safi Faye, and the ‘father’ of African Cinema, Ousmane Sembène.

Coordinated by ACPHS’s Associate Professor Dr. Kevin Hickey, the Africana Film Series begins on February 7th at 7pm with a screening of Dr. Hickey’s film Four Years across Africa by Bike. The film chronicles Dr. Hickey’s four-year bike trip through 24 countries of Africa – from North Africa, across the Sahara to West Africa, to Central Africa, East Africa and finally down to the southernmost tip of the continent. He traveled an astounding 38,000 miles in total and was the first American and only the fifth person ever documented to cross the Sahara Desert by bicycle. Beyond his record breaking, Hickey’s film will share the life changing experiences he witnessed from “civil wars, disease, hospitality, kings, voodoo, leprosy colonies, ‘the Mountains of the Moon’ and more.” Dr. Hickey will hold a short question and answer session after the film.

Immediately following the Q&A is Umgidi (Shadow Dancing), a 2004 film about the traditional Xhosa coming-of-age celebration. When a Xhosa boy reaches adulthood at age 18, he is circumcised; once he’s adequately healed, his umgidi celebration is held. The documentary focuses on two brothers, an older brother, Sipho Singiswa, who embraces the old ways and ceremony, and his younger brother who is desperately trying to escape his roots. The film follows the conflict between their family as well as the country of Africa, the majority of which is torn trying to honor tradition and embrace modernity. Interestingly enough, Umgidi was filmed by Sipho’s wife, Gillian Schutte.

The second week will feature Si-Gueriki (The Queen Mother) (2003) on Tuesday, February 14 at 7pm. After living in Germany and France for 10 years, filmmaker Idrissou Mora Kpai returned to his West African homeland with the intent to make a film about his father, who was a member of the Borgu royal family. Over time his documentary evolves into telling the story of his mother and female relatives instead, as he begins to discover the world of Borgu women. Mora Kpai’s ignorance of women’s lives resulted from his own strict Borgu childhood – in northern Benin, boys are removed from their mothers at a very young age and spend their formative years with only the men in their tribe. Si-Gueriki’s end result is a sensitive testimony to Mora Kpai’s own discovery of a world he was raised in and thought he knew. Try to come early before the film for a live drumming performance by Senegalese Drummer Babacar Biaye.

Concluding the festival on Tuesday the 28th (also at 7pm) will be Long Night’s Journey into Day: South Africa’s Search for Truth and Reconciliation. Directed by Deborah Hoffmann, and Frances Reid, Long Night’s Journey is a documentary that tackles harsh realities and universal themes. Violence, grief and forgiveness are all explored as the film follows four stories of Apartheid in South Africa, through the eyes of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which examined crimes relating to human rights violations that occurred between 1960 and 1994. The film was a Grand Prize Winner for Best Documentary at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival, a 2000 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature and ALA Booklist’s Editor’s Choice Award for Best Video of 2000, among many other awards.

All films will be screened  in Room 202 of the ACPHS campus Student Center. For more info on the 8th Annual Africana Film Series, visit the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Science’s website or contact Dr. Hickey at 518-694-7359.

–Aubree Cutkomp is an Assistant Editor for The Free George.

The Free George is the online magazine and visitors’ guide of Upstate NY, covering things from Albany to Lake Placid, including Saratoga, the Lake George region and the Adirondacks. Check out our City Blogs section for our extended coverage areas as well.

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