Beth Skwarecki

It's election day, and the races in Ithaca are: one democrat unopposed for mayor, one democrat unopposed for alderperson, and six candidates for state supreme court justices. The term for a justice is 14 years, and surely they'll be deciding some important cases. I resolved to research those six candidates and pick three good ones to vote for.

Disillusionment came quickly, since the only article about the race was headlined Supreme court race is low profile: judge candidates run on experience, muzzled on issues.

Justice candidates aren't allowed to talk about any issues. I am not making this up! I'm also not making up the fact that local elections might happen in March or October or other random times, and the democratic and republican primaries don't coincide. (Sometimes I get a little homesick - Pennsylvania has better-organized elections, and more holograms on the drivers' licenses!)

Anyhow, the democratic candidates are Donald Cerio, Molly Fitzgerald, and Richard Rich (not making that up either). Republicans are Phillip Rumsey (he's the only incumbent), Michael Coccoma, and Joseph Fazzary.

You can find out their ages and their kids' names, but all they'll say about the race is that they're experienced and will get the job done. Letters of support say that they're tough but fair, and upstanding members of their community.

In other words, the same kind of specificity you'd expect from a horoscope.

Yay for Ithaca Festival! Swing set had a performance at the "Swing & Salsa Dance Blast" along with some other awesome, talented dancers. (I LOVED the girl/guy salsa dance-off, btw.)

In the evening we went to the Silent Film Festival held at the State Theater. It's a beautiful, sorta run-down old theater, and we sat in the front row of the balcony.

The show was straight from 1916, with news clips, cartoons, and a Beatrice Fairfax double feature preceded by a singalong ("Oh Beatrice Fairfax, what shall I do? I want the bare facts, the truth from you...") The movies were filmed in Ithaca. In the silent film days, the Wharton brothers had a movie studio in the place that's now Stewart Park.

Best of all, there was live music - provided by a pianist whose specialty is playing for silent movies, and a singer/assistant who provided sound effects.

I'm convinced now that it's wrong to watch a silent movie in silence. The accompaniment transformed the film into a really engaging performance. The plot became crystal clear.

The show opened with some news clips. There would be a description of the newsworthy item, then some film of it. The pianist would change the mood of what he was playing usually as everyone was reading the caption. (Typically he would stop playing the melody but keep up the upbeat rhythm. When he decided what to play next, he'd work the new melody back in.) One caption mentioned the French army, so he worked a little Marseillese into the music, and the audience laughed. Another was about Harvard's crew team, and he played "row row row your boat". Sing! he told us. Now just this side! Now the other side! We got in a few verses in the round before the clip was over.

During the Krazy Kat cartoons, we got sound effects of the Kat's airplane and meowing for his serenade. For dialogue, an empty speech bubble would appear, and words would fill it in as the character said his piece.

The two Beatrice Fairfax stories barely involved Beatrice at all. They each started with three sets of characters: Beatrice and Jimmy, at the newspaper office; a young couple in love; and a handful of villains or suspicious characters. Jimmy would investigate the villains (he was a reporter) and soon enough an important clue would come when half of the lovelorn couple would write to Beatrice. Beatrice wasn't so much a character as she was a plot device.

I had thought that silent movies explained all the dialogue on little cards of text, but there was actually very little text used in the movie - just a little bit to introduce the characters or to deliver a very important line ("You'll find the murderer inside the vault!")

You don't really need much dialogue to show that a couple is in love. One card would identify the lovers, and then we'd see them chatting on the phone. The guy, smiling. The girl, giggling. What more do you need to know?

The piano didn't just set a mood - it really amplified the mood of the characters. When someone is worried, she doesn't say "I'm worried" or show it in her face; she shows it with her actions, and the pianist plays music that makes you a little nervous.

The sound effects were right there for the gunshots and phones ringing. There would be a "ding ding ding!" and a character would run across the room to answer the phone. Or somebody would open a door, and you'd hear the BANG as they were shot.

In one scene, the actors managed to convey "let's draw lots to see who has to kill these people we've captured" without saying a word. In another, one villain snuck up on two of the heroes listening at the door while his fellow villains discussed their plans inside. Why face them alone when five of his friends are on the other side of the door? He went downstairs and tapped on a drainpipe ("tink tink tink!") Inside the upstairs room, the villains all gathered around the pipe with hands cupped to their ears, listening, curious. So they opened the door to go downstairs, and the heroes tumbled in.

Now that is good storytelling - without a single word.

Could you eat all your food from within a 100-mile radius of your home? these guys did, for a year, and their website has tips for how to eat local (and a contest for the best 100-mile thanksgiving menu).

If the average food ingredient travels 1500 miles from the farm to your plate, local food saves 1400+ miles of fuel and pollution. Local farms are more likely to be smaller family farms, many of them organic. in most cases, it's easy to meet the farmer or visit the farm.

They have a tool to show you a 100-mile radius around your home. I have it easy here in Ithaca; my radius includes most of the farmland in upstate NY. I can even get beer and wine without leaving the city (though I admit I don't know whether the beer's ingredients are local).

Ithaca's farmer's market, which just closed for the winter, has an impressive variety of food grown within 30 miles. This past summer I signed up for a CSA with Early Morning organic farm - I paid my share in advance, and for the whole season I could walk up to their stand at the market and pick the veggies I wanted.

This is unusual for a CSA, though. Typically after paying your share, you pick up a biweekly or a monthly box of produce (or meat, or whatever they offer), packed for you at the farm. I've just signed up for a winter CSA of this style from Blue Heron Farm. During the winter months they'll bring me potatoes, carrots, and other veggies that are either harvested during the winter, or that were put into storage after harvest.

Eating locally is easy in summer and fall (remember all those local, antique apples I was raving about?) but winter and spring are harder. I'm not planning on going on a strict 100-mile diet (if I were, I'd have gotten into canning) but Ithacans can shop at Greenstar, which is proud of the large variety of local food they carry.


UPDATE: Here are the winners of the 100-mile Thanksgiving contest. The winner was from Syracuse, not far from here.

For all its snow-encrusted frozen hellhole reputation, Ithaca sure doesn't get enough snow.

It's November 20th. This is the first time snow stuck to the ground. Whoopee!

Here's an article on what to do if you have trouble voting - who to call and how to file complaints.

Meanwhile, New York state is still resisting the electronic voting machines - but we may have to use them next year. For now, NY politicians will have to stick to old-fashioned methods of cheating.

If you live in NY, this tool will tell you who your elected officials are.

Today the hamlet I live in was having a yard sale. I spent $11, and look what I got:

The dresser was $10. I was calling Chris to ask him about it, when I noticed another woman at the yard sale also calling someone about a dresser. I didn't want to take it from under her nose while she was thinking about it. I hemmed. I hawed. Finally I asked her what she was looking at; she had her eye on a different, smaller dresser! Perfect.

It was full of spiderwebs (and spiders) and was falling apart a bit in the back, but we cleaned it out and fixed it up. It's going to hold my sweaters and perhaps some sewing supplies.

See what's on top of the dresser?


That's from another sale - fifteen brand-new patterns, a few Vintage Vogue but mostly Butterick Retro (I didn't know there was a Butterick Retro!) ... 15 of them for a dollar, and all in my size. I picked them from a big bucket of patterns, and the lady was so happy to sell them to somebody else who enjoyed sewing that she offered me fabric for free! I exercised great self-restraint in saying no. Really, I'm better off without a fabric stash.

The Tompkins County SPCA is planning a "puppy pre-school" class for puppies and their owners. This is the first time the class is being offered, so the people at the shelter would really like to spread the word and fill up the class.

In a class like this, puppies learn to interact politely with other people and dogs, and to pay attention to their owner. You'll learn how to communicate with your puppy and teach her the things she needs to know to become a well-behaved adult dog.

There will also be a beginner class for adult dogs in June.

Interested? Call the shelter at 607-257-1822, ext 241. The shelter is in Ithaca, NY, USA. If you don't live near us, ask your local animal shelter, veterinarian, or dog obedience club about puppy classes.