rootless-tree:

My friend Emilee wrote this about a new Edward Sharpe single, and she started it off with one of my most favorite (recent) Bona’s memories from a fantastic Bona’s night. Read it! Now! Do it!

Danny Bush’s dresser drawers are filled. The bottom drawer is brimming with Xbox games. His top drawer houses “The Social Network” and some of his other favorite movies. From his middle drawer, he digs underneath some clothes and pulls out an external hard drive.

“This is a terabyte full of footage from around campus that I took on good days,” said the junior journalism and mass communication major.

He will already have his material when the university’s admissions department asks him to create a video, cutting down his production time.

Bush’s recent project, “Defining Our Legacy,” was displayed at Brown and White Night last Saturday. It features clips of the Reilly Center, old game footage, highlight reels from last season and senior basketball stars making their predecessors proud in front of a screaming crowd of Bonnies.

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“Those are Eddie’s fish.”

Eddie Young thrust his hands into the De La Roche Hall fountain, grasped a slippery orange fish and lifted it to his lips. The fish hardly flapped or squirmed, refusing to fight. It had been swimming slowly upside-down when Eddie found it in the morning.

Eddie put his mouth to the fish’s and blew gently.

“Every day for seven days, I’d pick it up and give it mouth-to-mouth,” said Eddie, who had seen an old man do it in Hong Kong. “And I’d mash up some green peas and put it in his mouth.           

“After a week, he was swimming really fast, and I felt happy,” Eddie said. “I saved its life.”

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   Many musicians are hasty to empty their pockets into recording and touring, but not Paul’s Grandfather. The all-female trio formed in Fredonia, N.Y., plans on “staying realistic.”
   “We’re seeing where it goes,” says guitarist Becca Ryskalcyzk. “This isn’t our first rodeo.”
   But this philosophy doesn’t stop them from continuing to make the music they’re made for –- simple, calm folk tunes focused on tight vocal harmonies.
   Katie Preston, Karrah Teague and Becca finished recording their first full-length album “Sorry Lovers and the Living Lake” last spring with a senior sound recording major at SUNY Fredonia, where Katie and Becca recently graduated. The album came out in December and is available at their concerts.

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“I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”

Bethany Cosentino clasped the microphone with both hands, guitar hanging freely from her neck.

“A few months ago, I became aware of what politicians were doing to Planned Parenthood, so we organized this concert to help,” she called out.

Cosentino, front woman of Best Coast, the surf-rock band from Los Angeles, shared the stage Thursday at Le Poisson Rouge in New York with Those Darlins to benefit Planned Parenthood, an organization for women’s reproductive health.

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The cupcake was dense. It was thick, rich and moist — a cupcake Main Street Sweets owner Jody Stephan said she wouldn’t even eat herself.

But if Stephan goes by the motto, “Never trust a skinny baker,” as she claims, why wouldn’t she eat the product of her own hard work?

“I’ve eaten so much of this stuff that I can’t eat anymore,” Stephan, 28, of Allegany, said. “My downfall is frosting.”

The frosting — whether it’s cream cheese, neon blue or speckled with pecans — forms a spiraled hat on the cupcakes behind a glass case. They form rows, patiently waiting to be chosen.

Eyeing the fresh pastries, I settled on the Snickerdoodle cupcake. The wrapper hugged the tan cake, and the frosting sat prestigiously on top, sprinkled with crystallized sugar. The storefront employee grabbed the cupcake and centered it on a small paper plate. She slid it over the counter toward me.

Taking my seat, I lifted my cupcake and licked off some frosting.

Stephan wasn’t kidding.

The cream cheese/sugar combo had me focused on only one thing: having another taste. It was fresh, homemade and had no hint of the lardy, artificial frosting you find at a grocery store.

I bit into the cinnamon cake and there it was – dense and thick, yet cakey.

“That is my biggest pet peeve – to go in and buy something and it’s stale. It drives me crazy,” Stephan said, standing in the teal dining room. “That is the one thing I strive for: making everything fresh every day.

“I try to make small batches. I know it’s a pain, but at least I know it’s fresh.”

Stephan said her grandmother taught her how to bake, and since then, she’s been to culinary school in Pittsburgh, had internships, and worked at restaurants and co-ops.

Stephan and her five-person staff keep organic coffee, danishes, cheesecakes, miniature pies, breads and cupcakes on the racks, but she admits she doesn’t have a solid menu.

“We just kind of go with the flow. Whatever we’re feeling at the moment,” she said. “If somebody comes in and asks for something, we’ll make it.”

And at that moment, a stout, white-haired woman walked through the interior door (make sure you pull, not push).

“I need a cake,” she said. “I want to pick it up Thursday.”

Without hesitation, Stephan asked, “How many people? What color frosting? Have you thought of cupcakes?”

“Hmmm… cupcakes,” the customer pondered, glancing at the display rack. “Sure!”

“The woman bought a dozen of the basic Main Street cupcakes in chocolate. Stephan said she likes to say those are her specialty, along with scones. Scones are $1.49, and cupcakes are $1.09. Specialty cupcakes cost $1.39.

“I try to keep my prices reasonable so people could come in multiple times as opposed to them being so expensive that once or twice a month they can come,” Stephan said.    

And the customers have been rolling in. Since the bakery opened June 18, Stephan said business has been steady.

“I have a box of about 10,000 cupcake wrappers,” Stephan said. “There’s only about 1,500 left.”

Stephan also makes wedding and birthday cakes, which her business delivers, along with her other products. She said she hopes to expand to wholesale within the next six months, distributing desserts to local restaurants.

Although businesses in Allegany have come and gone, Stephan is confident hers will stick.

“We’re not a pizza place. We’re not a bar. We’re a bakery. We’ve got a specialty item that’ll help draw crowds from all over the place,” she said.

I kept that in mind as I picked the last few crumbs of my Snickerdoodle cupcake from the wrapper.

I’ll be coming back.

ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y.  (Sept. 8, 2011) — River levels in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey are reaching records not seen since Hurricane Agnes in 1972, according to the Weather Channel.

Because of the flooding, an aftermath from Tropical Storm Lee, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is urging motorists not to travel in the eastern third of the commonwealth.

At least three deaths have been reported, according the Associated Press.

The National Weather Service reports that rain has tapered off. Still, roads remain hazardous.

Junior Meaghan O’Rourke tried to visit her grandmother earlier today in Philadelphia.

“About three hours into the trip we were detoured off the highway and told the only way to we could travel was westward,” she said. “ We even mapped out a bunch of different routes on our New York and Pennsylvania state maps. Everything was flooded out though. I checked out flying to Philadelphia but most flights are about $500-$650. I’m hoping to get down next weekend now.”

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   Nora Shewairy Chambers has only missed eight home basketball games since she started watching the St. Bonaventure Bonnies. That’s only eight games missed since 1938.
   After 73 years, 91-year-old Mrs. Chambers knows a few things about basketball. She’s been sitting in Section 11 Row E at the Reilly Center since it opened in 1966.
   “There’s kind of a joke that goes around our section,” said nephew Paul Abdo, who has been attending games with his aunt for 30 years. “Whenever she puts her coat on, they know the game is over.”
   But Mrs. Chambers conducted her “putting on the coat” ritual too early when the Bonnies played Ohio Dec. 18. The game went into four overtimes.

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WSBU-FM 88.3 The Buzz has planned to bring a Spring Weekend concert headliner with swagger and energy - Free Energy, that is. The radio station announced Wednesday in its 5 p.m. news broadcast that Free Energy, a five-piece band from Philadelphia, will headline a free concert April 30 on the Richter Center courts.

“Free Energy will definitely appeal to the college crowd,” Buzz station manager Kyle Zappia said. “Even if you listen to their songs a few times, you can find it really easy to sing along with.”

Free Energy released its debut album, “Stuck on Nothing,” a year ago and has toured with Weezer. 

Rolling Stone Magazine declared Free Energy one of the best new bands of 2010.

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Photo by Breanna Farner/The Times Herald

The cafeteria smelled of their spaghetti dinner as members of the Portville community and school district waited anxiously for the time capsule’s contents to be revealed.

The time capsule dates back to 1958 and was recently found by workers renovating the elementary building.

“It was found by happenstance,” said Superintendent Thomas Simon. “The contractor saw wood lodged in a hole in the wall by the (1957) cornerstone. He pulled it back and found this.”

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