Who is this masked man, aka Lazerus?

Posted by [email protected] | Apr 3, 2016 | Cultural Life, Human Interest | 0 |

Lazerus outside a mural off Monroe Avenue, late March, 2016 [Photo: David Kramer]

The other day near the Monroe Branch Library and the YMCA, I spotted a masked man. Why was he wearing the costume? At what event had he been? Just his life, said Lazerus.

He explained that he and others in a shadowy group sometimes appear in various spots around the city dressed in masks and sporting large handkerchiefs. His own street theatre nickname is Lazarus.

An R.I.T. grad and now a tattoo artist and writer, Lazerus briefly showed me his nearby garret. There he showed me a few pictures AND promised he would send us a “manifesto” explaining his group’s aims and activities.

Alas, we have yet to receive his statement nor know how to contact the masked stranger (not recalling the exact address of his garret). If you know Lazerus, please let him know we — and Rochester — are waiting.

ALSO ON UPPER MONROE

Chess across the ages at the National Strong Museum of Play

Porches: from Upper Monroe with Love

On Dante’s bust on Monroe Avenue

Quiet eyes awakened and delighted on upper Monroe

About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.