Niagara Noir

Posted by [email protected] | Oct 5, 2016 | Cultural Life | 0 |

George from Nazareth College’s first “Mini Chautauqua” opens a new conversation on an old theme: nurturing planet Earth

George Payne‘s montages spark memory and imagination.

Who can forget your first trip to Castle Dracula as a kid? And taking out of town visitors on the ritualistic pilgrimage to Niagara Falls. (see at end)

Deborah Goldberg and David Kramer, 1999 see Why I am rooting for the Patriots

Daphne and David Kramer, August 1989 see If the Patriots win the Super Bowl, credit Talker

Noir — A genre characterized by cynicism, fatalism, and moral ambiguity.

Photography by George Payne

The American Side

The Castellani Art Museum serves as a cultural resource for Niagara University and its surrounding community and an attraction for regional and international tourists. Exhibitions of nationally known and emerging contemporary artists and traditional folk arts are presented each year. Artist talks, workshops and educational programming accompany each exhibition. Niagara County’s only collecting art museum, the Castellani has a permanent collection of over 5700 works of art, including well known artists such as Picasso, Miro, Dali, Calder, Nevelson, Warhol and many others. Castellaniartmuseum.org

The Canadian Side

Wampum Gift

see The birth of American democracy and the enduring political wisdom of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy.

Let there be mist

see Charlotte High’s unparalleled and almost lost murals

George Bernard Shaw bust at Niagara University

see Learning for the Long Haul: The Campus Sustainability Movement Grows
see Design & Democracy: A Photographic Gallery of Regional Works by Frederick Law Olmsted

A Wonder of the World

This addendum is not so much noir but a meditation on the many paths not taken in life.

Niagara Parks’ Botanical Gardens

David, Carol and Eugene Kramer, 1999

David and Debbie, 1999

with Canadian bear in gift shop

(l-r) David, Daphne, Leslie and Eugene, August, 1989 [Photo: Carol]

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.