All Over Albany

Interesting in 2010: Sebastien Barre

Sebastien over Albany

One of the best things about working on AOA is that we get the chance to meet a lot of interesting people. We'll be highlighting a handful of them between now and the start of 2011.

Sebastien Barre has been a part of the AOA crowd since... well, practically since the beginning of AOA. His associations with gnomes, his photos from around the Capital Region, the urban decay tour with Bennett Campbell -- even his lunch -- have been featured on the site. (And he knows when to trot out the Benny Hill theme.)

Sebastien came to the Capital Region from France in 2001. Two years ago, he picked up photography as a hobby. Since then he's taken great pictures of everything from the Santa Speedo Sprint to Larkfest to fireworks, to Central Warehouse. (His photos of the warehouse became a part of the story when the massive building caught fire this past fall.) This year he held his first photography show and started a blog to showcase his photos.

Sebastien took some time away from his holiday in France to tell us a little more about the guy behind the camera.

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Interesting in 2010: The EMPAC Curators

In addition to all the experimental performances, it also apparently holds great potential as a super villain lair.

One of the best things about working on AOA is that we get the chance to meet a lot of interesting people. We'll be highlighting a handful of them between now and the start of 2011.

Over the last year EMPAC has hosted film, art, music, theater and a wide variety of performance pieces. And very often we've thought, "That looks interesting." (We've also often thought, "Huh. Weird. In good way. Probably.")

The job of lining up thought-provoking, cutting-edge performances is the job of EMPAC's curators. And in the last year, it appears they've been working especially hard at that job.

We talked with three of the four curators about what EMPAC is all about, what it has to offer the Capital Region and why you shouldn't be afraid to pay them a visit.

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Interesting in 2010: Jimmy Vielkind

Jimmy is the guy on the right -- you know, the one who didn't get indicted.

One of the best things about working on AOA is that we get the chance to meet a lot of interesting people. We'll be highlighting a handful of them between now and the start of 2011.

Jimmy Vielkind spends lots of time at the New York State Capitol these days -- but the Times Union political reporter is popping up all over the Capital Region. In addition to his articles in the TU, he's the principle contributor to the paper's Capitol Confidential blog and a regular contributor to the public television program New York Now. Yesterday he even made an appearance on the nationally-syndicated public radio show The Takeaway.

But this week he took some time away from "being Jimmy Vielkind" to tell AOA about life in the LCA, aspiring to be Jed Bartlett/Josh Lyman/ Toby Ziegler, and some of the "Wait a minute, what?" moments he's encountered at the Capitol this year.

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Interesting in 2010: DelSo's Silvia Lilly

One of the best things about working on AOA is that we get the chance to meet a lot of interesting people. We'll be highlighting a handful of them between now and the start of 2011.

Silvia Lilly says her therapist recently described her as "difficult," which Silvia says should be translated as "independent, outspoken and bossy" with "strong opinions."

The author of DelSo, a blog about Albany's Delaware South neighborhood, also describes herself as "sincere, loyal and good with words." On that last count, we totally agree.

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Interesting in 2010: the Veggie Mobile's Eric Krans

The mayor of the Veggie Mobile, Eric "EJ" Krans.

One of the best things about working on AOA is that we get the chance to meet a lot of interesting people. We'll be highlighting a handful of them between now and the start of 2011.

We've been fans of Eric Krans since we first heard We Are Jeneric -- his musical collaboration with his wife, Jennifer. He and Jen also play in another one of our favorite local bands, Sgt. Dunbar and the Hobo Banned.

But Eric also heads up the Veggie Mobile (where's he's known as EJ), a rolling greenmarket that brings fresh fruits and vegetables to neighborhoods in the Capital Region where people don't have easy to access to those foods. He gave a talk about the program at TEDxAlbany and it really impressed us -- he was so thoughtful and passionate. His ideas about the philosophy behind the project got us (and others, we're sure) thinking about how to apply some of the lessons of the Veggie Mobile experience to other projects in the Capital Region.

So, this is all to say that we're stuck by Eric's conscious, thoughtful approach to his work, his art and his life. So we asked him to take a little time to share some of that with the AOA crowd.

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Interesting in 2010: Betties Cakes' Lorraine Murphy

Lorraine on Dee Dee, the cupcake bus.

One of the best things about working on AOA is that we get the chance to meet a lot of interesting people. We'll be highlighting a handful of them between now and the start of 2011.

We first met Lorraine Murphy in 2009 when she was shooting cheesecake photos of Capital Region women dressed as classic pin-up models. In November of that year, she and her husband opened Bettie's Cakes. And one double-decker cake stand later, they've got the beginnings of a sweet little empire.

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