The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
Sorry about the lack of posts the last few days, but there’s been stuff going on (not horrible stuff, just stuff), including: a 4:30 am start at work yesterday, a mild cold that’s settled into my head nicely, and a horrible thing done by the state of Georgia. Haven’t been much in the mood.
But bad moods don’t stick around forever, thank God….
Just some stuff that’s in my head:
:: Everybody hates on Mondays, but for my money, Tuesdays are far more likely to offer up a Giant Bowl of Suck. Tuesdays are just irritating. Everybody gears up for Mondays, because they’re depressing by definition, but Tuesdays? They just sit there in the tall grass, waiting to ambush you. Tuesdays are the nadir of the week. You’re still close enough to the previous weekend to remember whatever good times you had to see end to go back to work, and you’re too far from the next weekend to take solace. Tuesdays are just nothing but grind.
:: I don’t know if I’m going to bother watching the finale of Hell’s Kitchen. The show is just awful, what with the continuing, and increasingly inexplicable, presence of Elise.
:: In the “Hey, that’s never happened before!” department, I got blocked by someone on Flickr! This was really odd. I’ve never been blocked before, ever. I only noticed because I added her as a contact just the other day, and today I noticed she wasn’t showing up on my Contacts page. Weird! I’ve been defriended on Facebook and I’m sure I’ve been unfollowed on Blogger, Twitter, and Tumblr, but I tend to not notice these things…I have no idea what my numbers are, in terms of followers, on any of the services that have followers in the first place. I’m kind of intrigued as to what it was about me that turned this person off; I can only assume she took a cursory look at my photostream and concluded that I’m some kind of creepy fetishist. Oh well!
:: I have zero idea of what I want for my birthday this year. And I feel like I should be taking advantage, because I’m hitting one of the Nice Round Numbers.
Specifically, now, some food thoughts:
:: I’ve been consuming fruit smoothies in a big way of late. My method is this: I throw in a cup or so of ice cubes, followed by a scoop of protein powder (if I’ve just returned from working out, otherwise I omit the protein powder), then roughly half a cup of milk and half-to-two-thirds a cup of vanilla yogurt. Then I add fruit: usually I throw in a banana, followed either by a peach or two or a blend of berries, mostly strawberry or blueberry. Then I let the blender work its magic, and drink.
My problem, of course, is that the stuff I’ve been making my smoothies with will very shortly be out of season, and thus either unavailable or too expensive to keep on hand. We’re heading into apple season…so, do apples make decent smoothies? I will report back once I’ve found out, but an apple cinnamon smoothie sounds awesome, doesn’t it?
:: I’m also giving more and more thought to vegetarianism. Not as an entire lifestyle, but I’m liking the idea of going meatless one or two times a week. I am already eating several vegetarian meals each week, so doing this won’t be a problem. I imagine that beans will have a major presence. I need to start reading some recipes!
:: But no, I won’t be giving up meat entirely. Never! And by way of evidence, here’s a recent meal I had: a pancetta, Romaine, and tomato sandwich on a sub roll:
Oh, this was heavenly.
:: I have officially come around on fresh tomatoes. I love ’em now. I hated them when I was a kid, but I gradually learned to accept them on sandwiches and burgers and tomato slices on pizza. I’m not sure I’ll ever sit and eat tomato slices all by themselves, but otherwise, I’m becoming tomato-obsessed. It’s too bad our balcony gets so little sunlight during the summer; we can’t grow any tomatoes!
:: Oh, and I discovered hummus last week. I had a hummus, tomato, and leaf lettuce sandwich for lunch one day that was amazing.
OK, that’s about it for random blathering….
A few weeks ago, The Family Unit and I made our annual trek to the Erie County Fair, where the usual good time was had by all. (Except for that one guy, who didn’t seem to be having a good time at all. Oh well!) Here’s some pictorial documentation of our day!
(Below the fold, of course.)
Let’s talk fair food first, get it out of the way. Our first order of business at the Fair is always lunch, which means one thing: finding the corn dog place. The corn dog place we usually like has been moved from its usual spot, so we tried another.
This one was OK, but it didn’t really hit the Corn Dog Sweet Spot, as it were, so we found another place, where the corn dogs are made with Sahlen’s dogs, and they are hand-dipped and fried to order. This is corn dog freshness!
(By the way, God knows that I will make fun of Republicans for just about any reason, but I will not make fun of their corn dog consumption methods. So go ahead, Governor Perry and Congresslunatic Bachmann, deep-throat those corn dogs to your hearts’ contents!)
At dinner, The Daughter insists on pizza.
I think she does that so she can eat her pizza, and then nag The Wife and I for bites from our Chiavetta’s chicken dinners.
I wish the Chiavetta’s people would serve the butter at least a little softened; I think they keep it frozen up until the moment they plunk it on your plate. But oh well.
I didn’t do a whole lot of Fud Photography, since a lot of what we ate was the same as what we eat every year: roasted nuts, kettle corn, a big selection of jerky, fried dough, ice cream, milk shakes, et cetera. There was something new that we tried, an arepa, which was basically a grilled-cheese sandwich made on cornbread. The cornbread was really moist and had nice, big corn kernels in it. The thing looked fantastic:
Flavor-wise, though, I was a bit disappointed — it was awfully bland as served. They used mozzarella cheese, which was really mild; a spicier cheese, or some kind of spicy meat or vegetable, would have helped a lot. I had to put a liberal amount of hot sauce on the thing to really make it taste good. I love the idea, but it needs reworking before next year if I’m to have one again. (Oh, and those things hold heat like few foods I’ve ever known. The thing was too hot to bite without searing pain for almost five minutes!)
By way of walking around seeing stuff, we love the Creative Arts exhibits, as usual — and they are in a different spot now, which is actually quite nice. There were wonderful quilts…
…and needlepoint nudes…
…and creative diaramas.
And there were animals, as always! Llamas…
…and chickens…
…and horses on parade.
There was a guy rolling around on a wacky wheel, calling himself the Wacky Wheeler.
We stopped in the Antique Mall, a smaller version of one of our favorite local retail establishments, the Orchard Park Antique Mall. Ever since the Fair, I have been kicking myself for not buying this:
No, I don’t like the Alien movies, but that little guy is just so many kinds of awesome! I’ll keep an eye out for him at the main Mall now that the Fair has ended.
Then, to the Midway for rides and whatnot, as the moon rose.
There’s a ride that apparently has a “spaceship” theme, hence the presence of Darth Vader on its side!
And this amused me greatly. One of my favorite rides to watch is “Enterprise”, which is a Star Trek themed ride that can’t call itself a Star Trek ride — it just always has Star Trek artwork. Here’s the ride in years gone by:
Note Kirk’s enormous chin! And either they’ve omitted McCoy and put Scotty up there, or they’ve put McCoy in the wrong color shirt.
Well, now that Trek has been rebooted, it’s time to reboot the “Enterprise” ride, too! Here’s how it looks now:
You’ve got Chris Pine as Kirk, and I suppose that’s Zachary Quinto as spock, way over on the left. Spock is right next to…wait a minute! That’s Padme as she looked at the end of the Battle of Geonosis in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones! And…the Alien from Alien, hanging there! And what’s with the pair of cat’s eyes hovering over the Earth? Now there’s some gonzo stuff, right there. God, I love that ride. If only I wasn’t sure that the act of riding it would make me hurl.
Our day at The Fair wasn’t totally inclusive of everything we wanted to do. When we were walking the animal barns, the sheep and the cattle were closed, because their respective judging shows were going on right then, so we missed out, unfortunately. I continue to hope each year for a cold front to come through and make the day we go to the Fair cool enough to wear overalls — if ever an event screams out for overalls, it’s the Fair — but no, it was its usual “pleasantly hot”. And The Daughter had gone in, hoping to purchase a hermit crab from a dealer who had been there in years past. No dice this time, unfortunately. No hermit crab…that day. But that’s a post for another time.
See you next year, County Fair!
(My complete Fair photo set is here.)
For the first time in four or five years…I have a new pair of overalls!
They’re a white painter’s pair by Carhartt. I haven’t owned any painter’s overalls prior to these, and I haven’t owned any Carhartt’s, either. So, I managed to strike two birds with one stone, huzzah!
I was actually kind of surprised by these, when they finally came in the mail and I opened the box. The fabric is thinner than I expected, so these will wear quite a bit lighter than my usual blue denim overalls. But I’m happy to have a pair in a color other than blue or black or hickory stripe; these will contrast nicely with dark-colored shirts and sweaters this fall and winter. So, color me excited!
So, here I am, writing on the last day of my vacation. Although, that raises an interesting question — is this actually the official last day of my vacation, since I’d be off on Sunday anyway? Did “vacation” actually end around 4:00 pm on Friday afternoon, which is roughly when my work week usually ends? Hmmmmm. (I once worked with a guy who actually tried arguing with management that since vacation weeks included days he normally didn’t work — that particular company required vacation time to be used one entire week at a time — that he was somehow getting screwed out of paid time. I found his argument unconvincing, as did management.)
Anyhow, some random notes are below the fold.
There really is something to be said for staying in a place where you walk out on the deck and see this view:
There’s also something to be said for watching your kid step into the ocean for the first time in her life:
I tried waving to Portugal, but I don’t think they saw me. Too far away and stuff.
A trip to any seaside vacation destination isn’t complete without things like minigolf at places that look like this:
Nor is it complete without eating food like this….
…at places that look like this:
Seriously, I refuse to take seriously any seafood restaurant that doesn’t decorate with things like big metal lobsters:
(Well, I give the Legal Seafoods people in Boston a pass because they’re classy and their food is of such high quality that I mostly forgive the lack of nautical bric-a-brac. Everybody else though? I don’t care how good your food is. Make me feel like I’m walking onto a set from Jaws or Moby Dick or Pirates of the Caribbean.)
Lighthouses are awesome. Lighthouses in the mist are particularly awesome.
Schlepping around pedestrian malls filled with stores selling stuff at tourist-trap prices is still kind of fun.
Didn’t buy much — saltwater taffy, a dress for The Wife, a stuffed doll for The Daughter, and that’s about it. It’s fun to drop into little shops in a town that has long-since figured out how to get nice, walkable retail onto its waterfront.
Other things that are fun include kites on the beach…
…watching kite-surfers…
…and standing in the sand as the waters rush in around them.
Let’s see, what else? I tried scrapple. This is a food item, served mostly as a side at breakfast, that is basically pork sausage mixed into cornmeal mush, formed into a loaf, sliced, and pan-fried. I liked it. The Wife did not. The Daughter did, until I told her what it was. It’s always fun to travel to different areas and sample their local dishes, the ones that for one reason or another are almost never seen on menus outside a fifty-mile radius.
I don’t know if it’s just a Jersey Shore thing, or all of New Jersey in general, but Ye Gods, the road signs in Jersey suck. They are terrible at marking things — especially so in a tourist area, where you have to assume a large percentage of the people on the roads don’t even live there. Come on, Jersey, make it easier to figure out where you’re going.
Although I did like this one:
Dirty jokes write themselves!
The drives down and back were largely uneventful, although the drive back was on one of the hottest days that I can remember. We didn’t stop anywhere, outside of a few bathroom and/or food stops.
And now, real life resumes. Yay rah.
(The photos in this post are taken from this Flickr photoset. You can see more of ’em there!)
Hey all,
We’re having a great time here on the Jersey Shore. It’s funny — I’m aware of the existence of a teevee show called The Jersey Shore, and that’s that, but when I was telling people that my family and I were going to the Jersey Shore, lots of folks grinned and said, “What happens at The Shore stays at The Shore”. And that sounds great and all, but it doesn’t make for good blogging. So, a couple of notes thus far:
:: It turns out that the tastiness of rum varies in direct proportion to one’s proximity to salt water. Rum’s great in Buffalo. But drinking rum when you’re so close to the ocean that even through closed doors you can hear waves breaking? Awesome.
:: I’m planning to sample some tequila later. I’ll just have it on the rocks, maybe with a lime twist. None of that licking-salt stuff; that’s just gross.
:: Yeah, it’s really hot. But late in the afternoon when the wind is coming off the shore, it’s very pleasant and can get downright chilly.
:: Kite surfing looks like more fun than anyone should be allowed to have during one activity.
:: I dislike tourist-trap pricing.
Reactions to world events:
:: The Pirates aren’t just toying with having a season over .500, but they’ve been flirting with first place. In fact, as of this writing, they hold a one-half game lead in the NL Central. This amazes me.
:: The NFL lockout sure has been “on the verge of ending” for quite a while now.
:: Thinking it over, it becomes clear to me that the Republicans have been getting a little crazier each year for something like thirty years. Every time election season starts to roll around, they’re just a little bit more insane. It terrifies me to think that as batshit crazy as Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry are, in 2015 (assuming an Obama reelection next year) there will a whole bunch of Republicans coming to the fore who are crazier than that.
:: Rupert Murdoch apparently got a pie thrown at him today. This disappoints me. I can think of few people less deserving of a pie in the face than Rupert Murdoch. But then, I’m odd.
:: And finally, it continues to amaze me that you don’t have to venture far from Western New York to see how much nicer folks have it just about anyplace else. Cities and towns with waterfronts, that let folks build things as long as they comply with certain zoning requirements, cities and towns that…oh well.
More upon my return to society. Having great time, wishing you were!
-Me
This place. And I can NOT wait to be there. It’s been fourteen-plus years since I walked in salt water.
I’ve been remiss (!) in noting that MD Jackson of Skylarking has awarded me one of those blogging award things, this one called the “Versatility Award”. This is because I’m a versatile blogger. (I know, it’s just like the title of the award!)
So, as is usual with this type of thing, I’m supposed to provide seven facts about myself and then give the award to several other bloggers. I usually skip these steps, but what the hey…only problem is, after nine-plus years of blogging, I’m almost at a loss as to what facts I still can ‘reveal’ about myself that aren’t common knowledge to those who read this blog on any kind of basis, regular or not.
By way of a bit of navel-gazing, I’ve noticed a substantial drop in traffic round these parts lately. What I think has happened is that Google may have shuffled its image hit results, because those seem to be the hits that I’m not getting as much of anymore. I don’t expect traffic to ever jump here again, really — it may fluctuate upward a bit, but I suspect that my average number of viewers is pretty much calcified in place. That kind of bums me out, but as I’ve noted, it’s also a bit liberating in a way. I’ve wondered occasionally over the years if it’s my blogging versatility that’s kept this blog from ever becoming highly trafficked, but now…well, who cares.
Anyway, seven facts!
1. My first-ever job, as I’ve noted before, was as a technical-services assistant at the library at St Bonaventure University. I was one of several people who did things like put new card pockets in the backs of books, weeded cards from the card catalog, and stuff like that. I don’t imagine very many of those tasks are the same now…but that was my first real job. I went from never having worked to suddenly working eight-hour shifts during summer after my senior year. That was quite a shock to the system. I probably should have had a part-time job at some point before that, but in high school I was a social stick-in-the-mud and thus didn’t really need a whole lot of money over and above my allowance from my parents.
2. My current job at The Store, as I’ve noted before, involves the use of a lot of power tools, and I’ve grown quite proficient and knowledgeable about tools and their uses in seven years. I can do a lot of stuff, and it’s been a thrill learning it all and continuing to learn. I’m enormously lucky to have scored a job that provides literally years of learning opportunities and skills which will serve me well in other areas of life. And boy howdy, did I have a lot to learn. When I first got hired, in my first few days a manager asked me to put some paper towel dispensers up on several walls. He handed me a drill with a driver bit and some drywall screws and sent me off…but I had to go back to him for help, because the screws were Philips head and the bit in the drill was for slotted screws, and I didn’t know how to change a bit in a drill.
3. I have an odd fascination, as I’ve noted before, with pies in faces. I think a pie in the face is all kinds of awesome…but I hate seeing newly-married brides and grooms smearing wedding cake all over one another. This irritates me to no end. It strikes me as godawfully inappropriate and never makes me laugh. The Wife and I did not do this. Neither of us wanted to do it.
4. I’m not a fan, as I’ve noted before, of mashed potatoes. I don’t like the flavor or the texture, and gravy doesn’t save them, either. But mashed potatoes do fall into that odd category of “Foods I don’t like but yet always look really good to me when I see them”. Mashed potatoes on someone else’s plate look so yummy! So does pineapple on pizza, and so does sauerkraut. But I’m not a fan of any of these. (I do think that cooking meat in sauerkraut does wonderful things to the meat. The ‘kraut itself, I can take or leave. Like it on Reuben sandwiches, though. And just today I tried some on a hot dog, and that was OK.) And no, broccoli does not fall into one of those categories. Broccoli looks, to me, like it tastes: the Food of the Devil.
5. I realized a while back that in my current work-in-progress, the space opera novel, I’m envisioning one of my characters as Nichelle Nichols in the Star Trek III-IV-V era. I thought that the older Uhura really had this sexy, “Don’t make light of my opening and closing hailing frequencies because I can kick your ass without so much as reaching for my phaser” thing going on.
6. Vegetarianism isn’t for me, but I do like to explore vegetarian options now and again and am planning to do more of it. Veganism strikes me as an approach that makes some fairly odd assumptions regarding the suffering and ‘exploitation’ of animals. The ‘raw food’ movement? That’s the one that makes me want to eat a bacon cheeseburger out of spite. Judgmental? Sure. Hey, I’ve got limitations, same as everybody else.
7. To this very day I have never attended a single rock concert. The closest I’ve come was “Classical Mystery Tour”, a Beatles tribute band that performed with the BPO a year ago. (Which was, truly, a wonderful concert.) In all honesty, I don’t really think I’ve missed anything — except for Van Halen.
OK, there are seven facts about me. All of them are certified true, or your money back. Now to give the Versatile Blogger award to others! As always, this comes with absolutely no obligation to play along.
Jason Bennion of Simple Tricks and Nonsense blogs about his difficult relationship with his father, his sadness over the space shuttle program ending, his thoughts on movies, and occasionally his experiences as a fairly liberal guy with a beard living in deeply conservative, facial-hair-free Salt Lake City. I just wish he could post more, but judging by how often I see him post things on Facebook like “Yeah, it’s 7:00 and I’m still at the office”, I can totally understand why he is limited.
Lynn Sislo of Violins and Starships has been a daily read of mine for years, and I see no sign of that ending. She’ll put up a post about a sewing project and then blog about the science fiction book she’s just read, and other topics in between. Endlessly fascinating blogging from the wilds of Oklahoma!
SK Waller of Incurable Insomniac is also a fantastic blogger from the wilds of Oklahoma. She’s had a tough go of it through life, but she writes openly and honestly about it all. Hers is a musical soul, and she’s got a lot of songs to sing. I constantly wish for her to have a big success story.
Roger Owen Green of Rambling with Roger is the very picture of intellectual curiosity. He’s one of those folks who engages with the world in such a way as to always have something new and interesting to say. And he blogs every day. That’s amazing in itself, these days in Blogistan!
In truth, I could pass out two dozen of these and still have room for more; most of my favorite bloggers now are the “versatile” types. Single-subject blogs have to be very fascinating or well-written to keep my interest, and I’ve almost completely given up on political blogs entirely (I still have four favorites that I check in on, once or twice a week). I get the sense that blogging is settling into a niche hobby, like all others. But it’s still my hobby! Thanks for all the versatility out there, Blogistan!
This weekend sees the annual Taste of Buffalo food festival, which takes place downtown. We go every year, and I’ve blogged about it before, but here are thoughts from this year’s edition! (If you don’t care, I’ll put it below the fold and you can ignore it. Unless you read me on Google Reader, in which case, well, you’re screwed.)
First of all, the weather on the day was absolutely, gob-smackingly, you-wanna-make-sweet-sweet-love-to-it, perfect. Sunny, only an occasional cloud, a nice breeze the entire time, just one degree less than when you start sweating, and a sky so blue that, as Mr. Kinsella wrote, “it hurts your eyes just to look at it.”
But before I get too excited here, let me get my usual gripes about people-behavior at The Taste out of the way right here.
Seriously, those are the two things people do at The Taste that drive me crazy. As I always point out: there is plenty of room to get the hell out of the way and eat once your food is in your hand. Standing in the middle of the street, or worse, at the counter, is as good a way to announce your douchery to the world as holding up a giant sign reading “Hey world! I’m a douche!”
OK. That’s out of the way. What did we eat? Here’s a rundown, with thoughts on each dish, roughly in the order that we ate them. (If I remember rightly, that is.)
Just Pizza: two slices here. The Kid had a cheese-and-pepperoni slice all to herself; The Wife and I split a steak-and-sweet peppers slice. We eat here every year. We’ve always been big fans of Just Pizza; we just don’t go there often because there are about a dozen pizza places that we also like that are a lot closer to Casa Jaquandor. (And no, I’m not exaggerating with the “about a dozen” thing.)
58 Main Street Barbecue. Pulled pork nachos. This was junk-food goodness. It was really basic, and not any kind of gourmet item at all — standard nacho chips with nacho cheese sauce, but with barbecue pulled pork added to the mix. This shouldn’t win any “foodie” awards, but it hit a comfort-food sweet spot!
Alex’s Place. Here we had fried calamari. I’m a big fan of fried calamari, but a lot of times, the calamari is overdone so that with the fried breading, you might as well be eating an onion ring. Their calamari was still tender and tasted distinctly (although not strongly) of calamari. They also served it with banana peppers, which always makes me happy — I’m a banana pepper freak.
The daughter even reluctantly tried one, even though she was a tad skeptical. Her verdict? Well, we ended up going back for a second helping later on so she could have more. Awesome!
Danny’s. Chicken wing soup. Because it’s Danny’s Chicken Wing Soup. We eat at Danny’s all the time, and I make my own reasonably kick-ass chicken wing soup, but still — we got some soup at The Taste anyway. Wish they had croutons for it, though.
Saigon Cafe. Summer roll. This thing — a kind of cold spring roll — was wonderful. I really loved this dish, with its bright, clean, and cold flavor. It was served with two dipping sauces, a hoisin-style sauce (not unlike what you put on the pancakes in mu-shu pork) and a chili sauce that packed quite a punch. Here’s a photo.
Seriously, I could have a meal of four or five of these.
Dinosaur Barbecue. Pulled pork sliders. We’re big fans of pulled pork, so this was typically good. I didn’t realize until afterwards that they had a table set up with additional sauce for you to doctor it, though. Oh well.
Carribean Experience. We’ve had their Jerk Chicken every single year we’ve gone to The Taste, even back when it was held on Main St. We still love it.
Prima Pizza. Because The Daughter can’t have pizza from just one place, we always stop here, too. She had her cheese-and-pepperoni slice, and The Wife and I split half a sausage calzone. It was served with marinara sauce in a dipping cup, but it wasn’t fresh-made sauce — it had a paper lid you had to peel off, like the syrup that McDonald’s serves with pancakes. This sauce was very sweet. I enjoy a sweet marinara or pizza sauce now and then, but The Wife wasn’t thrilled. The calzone was OK. Not great, but not awful, either.
Nick Charlap’s. By this point we were getting a bit warm, so it was time for Ice Cream stop number one. Small cones of soft-serve for all — choc-and-vanilla for The Kid and I, and a raspberry-something else twist for The Wife.
Here we took a break to go into the New Era hat store for the first time. I was hoping for a water fountain where I could refill our water bottles, but no dice. I suppose it’s necessary, but I was amused by the intimidating-looking security guards all over, keeping careful watch on…a store full of hats.
Interestingly, I saw a number of folks in Pittsburgh Pirates hats. Fair weather fans, now that the team is actually playing well for the first time since 1992? Or long-time, in-the-closet fans? Hmmmmm!
Fat Bob’s. Macaroni and cheese. I would have gone for serving number three of pulled pork, but by this point, The Wife wasn’t wanting any more pulled pork, so we got a dish of their signature mac-and-cheese. Here it is:
It’s perfectly good macaroni and cheese, it really is. I don’t think it’s spectacular in any way, though. I’ve heard a lot about it, and I’d order it if I ate at Fat Bob’s, but I wouldn’t go out of my way on the basis of this mac-and-cheese. Not when I can make my own.
Chester’s Cajun Grill. Blackened shrimp over cajun rice. This was a huge disappointment, the only one on the day. We’d never had this before, so it really sounded good — we love shrimp — but it did not end well. I’m no expert, and I certainly don’t have the most refined palate in the world, but surely Cajun cooking should not leave an overwhelming sense of being comprised of nothing more than salt and heat. This dish was extremely salty, and the spiciness was that disappointing, flavorless spiciness where the heat doesn’t taste like anything. There was no flavor of shrimp, no flavor of whatever peppers provided the heat — just salt and heat.
Anderson’s Custard. We wrapped up with ice cream cones — mint chocolate chip for me, cotton candy for The Kid, and something with oreos for The Wife. After this, we bid farewell to Taste of Buffalo 2011. Three hours of walking, $55 in tickets, three water bottles and three cans of Squirt later. Can’t wait ’til next year!
And if I might editorialize about downtown Buffalo a bit here…I’ve always generally been a fan of Buffalo’s older architecture, but over the last five or six years I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with the fact that the glut of old buildings around here, combined with folks who really love them some old-ass buildings, and a political culture that makes getting a single building erected more difficult than, say, mounting a major invasion by sea of Normandy, France, means that downtown Buffalo is now…well, there’s no other way to say it. I think it’s starting to look a bit ugly down there. Not old. Not run-down but with pockets-of-progress. Just plain ugly.
Looking around at the buildings of downtown, one word kept popping into my head over and over and over again: crumbling. So much of downtown Buffalo is doing just that: falling apart. Witness what has befallen the old Hotel Statler, which sits a literal stone’s-throw from City Hall:
You may have to embiggen that last one to really see it, but entire sections of terra cotta bordering have tumbled off that building. Now, the Statler is a special case: it has gone through prospective changes in ownership a number of times over the last decade, and only in the last year has it finally been taken over by someone with money, so repair work is beginning. This is a genuinely saveable building. But all over downtown are very old brick monstrosities that are crumbling, whose majorities of windows are shattered, and whose sides still sport large painted advertisements for products or businesses that haven’t existed since before the giant majority of people even living in the city were born. Sometimes these buildings are right across the street from the new buildings that have gone up in the last ten years or so.
I’m not sure what to make of this, but downtown Buffalo seemed to me today to be a modern urban Acropolis, and I don’t mean that in the “site of enormous importance to the human heritage” sense but in the “decaying ruin of a civilization long-since gone” sense. Everywhere I looked was a building that made me think, “Ye Gods, why doesn’t someone just tear that damned thing down.” And the answer will almost always be, “Because no one wants to build anything here, and even if they did, someone will claim that that horrible decaying brickpile is historical and needs to be preserved.”
Lots of folks talk about what signs we need to see before we can say that Buffalo may actually be rebounding. For me, I know what I’ll need to see before I’m ready to say that maybe this city is moving in the right direction.
Wrecking balls. And lots of ’em.
