All Over Albany

Behind the scenes with Chopped champ Ric Orlando

After New World chef Ric Orlando emerged victorious on last week's episode of the Food Network show Chopped, we thought it would be fun to get the backstory on how all it went down.

Among the bits that came up during the conversation: his zen approach to the challenges, being judged, editing, celebrity chef Alex Guarnaschelli's seemingly snippy comments -- and what he did with the prize money.

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RPI's Nao Bustamante on Bravo's "Work of Art"

America's next top artist? From "the Burgh?" You'll have to watch to find out.

Next week Bravo premiers its new reality TV series Work of Art. It's like Project Runway or Top Chef... but this time the search is for America's "next great artist." Fourteen of up-and-coming artists will compete for a solo show at the prestigious Brooklyn Museum and a cash prize of $100,000.

One of them will be Lansingburgh resident and RPI associate professor Nao Bustamante.

Bustamante is an internationally known performance artist who teaches New Media and Live Art at RPI.

She took a few minutes to talk with AOA about Troy, being an artist at an engineering school, and her reality TV experience.

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Sean Fallon, Charlotte Barrett & Virgin Alexander

Sean Fallon and Charlotte Barrett

When he was 13, Sean Fallon and his buddies were running around Saratoga making movies with a camcorder plugged into a VCR.

This summer, Sean Fallon and his wife and film making partner, Charlotte Barrett, will be running around Saratoga making movies again. Only this time they'll have high-def cameras, a professional crew and a cast that includes Bronson Pinchot (yep, Cousin Balki) , Paige Howard (Adventureland, daughter of actor/director Ron Howard) and Mika Boorem (Dawson's Creek, and a whole bunch of other stuff).

Sean and Charlotte wrote the script for Virgin Alexander -- their first feature film. They took time out from scouring garage sales and scouting locations to talk with AOA about the script, the cast, and shooting in Saratoga.

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Kevin Craig West

He plays Reverend Sykes in Mockingbird.

Kevin Craig West could easily win the title for hardest working guy in show business. The Arbor Hill native and Troy resident is an actor, producer, director, writer and editor who is constantly networking.

West recently named best actor at the Knickerbocker Film Festival for his work in Mike Feuerstein's film The Greatest Man Alive. And he's currently appearing in Capital Rep's production of To Kill A Mockingbird.

We got together with West last week to talk about the strange way he backed into his career, Arbor Hill, the growing film scene in the Capital Region and car chases with Angelina Jolie.

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"Driving" your bike with Tamara Flanders

Tamara Flanders and her daughter on their tandem bike

We'd like to bike more in the Capital Region. Really, we would. But frankly, we're a bit, well, chicken. OK, maybe not exactly chicken. It's just that riding a bike in an area with few bike lanes and often-inconsiderate drivers seems a bit hazardous.

Which is why Tamara Flanders new class on how to "drive" a bike looked interesting to us. Flanders is a holistic health teacher who added a class for novice adult cyclists to her repertoire this spring.

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The Lost Radeau: a shipwreck in Lake George

Joe Zarzynski measuring the Radeau

When we heard there was a shipwreck in the middle of Lake George we kind of went, "Waitaminute, what?"

But there is, in fact, a shipwreck in Lake George. Joe Zarzynski told us so. Zarzynski is a former high school social studies teacher turned underwater archeologist. In the 1980's he spent most of his free time chasing the Loch Ness Monster and Champ -Lake Champlain's version of the Nessie.

He stopped actively looking for underwater "monsters" in the early 90's and focused on shipwrecks instead. The shipwrecks were easier to find because-- you know-- they don't move.

Zarzynski says there are actually lots of shipwrecks in Lake George -- more than 200. And he's helped to find a lot of them. But the most impressive wreck he's found is The Lost Radeau a floating bastion from the French and Indian War -- that rests more than 100 feet below the surface of the lake. Now, thanks to his efforts, you can see it too - just be sure to bring your wet suit.

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Louise's grease car

Mmmm. Smells like french fries.

You can smell Louise Sikelianos coming.

As she tools down the streets of Albany in her 1990 VW Jetta, the air smells of french fries. Three years ago Louise converted her deisel to a grease car that runs on a combination of diesel fuel and vegetable oil.

It's one of a handful of grease cars that are running on the leftovers at Capital Region restaurants.

AOA went with Louise for a quick spin in the grease car...

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Lori Hansen's vintage letterpress

Lori Hansen and her 1882 letterpress

Monday through Friday she works with pixels and laser printers, designing computer
graphics for advertising and public relations at EMA in Albany. But on Saturdays Lori Hansen abandons keyboard, mouse and laser printer for ink, wood and steel.

A couple of years ago Hansen found a vintage 1880's letter press on Ebay. Fifteen hundred dollars, five guys, a hydraulic lift, an elaborate system of pulleys and a big truck later it was hers.

She gave us a tour of her vintage print shop, tucked away in a corner of the Historic Albany Architectural Parts Warehouse, where she prints fun, quirky, handmade cards on beautiful paper.

A closer look at Lori and the press, including photos and video of how it works -- after the jump.

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Kosciuszk-who?

The "Twin Bridges" are actually the Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge

We can't tell you how many times we've crossed The Thaddeus Kosciusko Bridge on the Northway and wondered, "Who was this Kosciuszko guy? And why did they name the twin bridges after him?"

Also, we could never quite figure out how to pronounce his name, which is why we -- and almost everyone else -- refer to them as "The Twin Bridges."

Well, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and one-time Albany resident Alex Storozynski has just answered all of our questions about Kosciuszko in his new book The Peasant Prince.

He took a few minutes out of his weekend to give us the inside scoop on Kosciuszko who, it turns out, was a pretty impressive guy: an engineer, an abolitionist and, oh yeah, the guy responsible for the plan that helped change the course of the Revolutionary War.

A few details and an early map of his battle plans after the jump.

And we also find out how to pronounce "Kosciuszko."

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Project Larkway winner Joleen Button

Joleen Button (in the white dress) designed the winning collection for Project Larkway.

You get the feeling Joleen Button doesn't watch much TV.

A few weeks ago at Art on Lark, Button's collection of retro inspired summer dresses (plus one vintage style red bikini) won her the Project Larkway competition. But she's still playing with the collection, trying to make the dresses look a little better.

When she's not altering clothes to create new outfits, she's painting, doing graphic design, even making music. Constantly creating.

Button sat still just long enough to talk to AOA about the arts scene in the Capital Region, her passion for all things vintage and her great love affair with art (small "a") .

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Jennifer Maher's toy portraits

DJ Jennifer Haley and her toy portraits

So it's no secret by now that AOA spends a fair amount of time at Uncommon Grounds.

And lately we can't help but smile at the art on the walls. The current show includes a group of portraits of quirky, well loved, interesting toys -- bunnies, lambs, squeezy bath toys and Japanese cartoon favs.

They're the work of Jennifer Maher -- known in local rave circles as D.J Jen Haley.

Jen's on hiatus from the rave scene (or what's left of it) until her new daughter gets a little older. These days she's writing a little and painting a lot --specifically custom portraits of favorite toys.

She talked with AOA recently about her art, the allure of toys, and the common ground between cuddly animal paintings and rave culture.

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Tea with the Tulip Queen

Pinkie extended, of course.

Sure, it's easy to get a little snarky about the Tulip Queen. But it gets harder when you meet the actual Tulip Queen -- and she's a really lovely person with good intentions and a sense of humor about her royal self.

Juliana Hernandez, this year's Tulip Queen, is all of those things.

She's bright, positive, energetic. She's somebody you'd probably like to hang out with. Just don't try to friend her on Facebook if you don't know her.

Queen Juliana granted AOA an audience earlier this week for a chat about the paparazzi, the Tulip King, her new job and the weight of the tulip crown.

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Talking with Kaitlin Cassidy about Paris and Saratoga

After last week's post about Saratoga Springs native Kaitlin Cassidy and her appearance on the MTV reality show Paris Hilton's My New BFF, people had a lot to say. And many of the comments were, uh, kind of snippy.

We figured it was only fair for Kaitlin to have a chance to respond, so we got in touch with her for an interview. And we gotta say: you'll probably think about her differently after hearing her answers.

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Your Veggie Mobile questions answered

Veging at St. Sophia.

A few weeks ago, AOA told you that the Veggie Mobile was a finalist in an international competition. And based on the comment thread that ensued, it seemed like a lot of you were pretty curious about the whole thing.

So I caught up with Veggie Mobile Coordinator EJ Krans to get the whole scoop...

(And by the way, when he's not selling veggies, you can catch EJ playing around town with Sgt. Dunbar and the Hobo Banned and We are Jeneric.)

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Justin Maine: "So Right, So Smart"

Justin Maine, one of the directors of "So Right, So Smart."

Local filmmaker Justin Maine just got back from New Zealand where he collected the Best Feature Film prize at the Reel Earth Festival for his new documentary, "So Right So Smart."

Maine is one of the owners of MagicWig Productions in Schenectady. Usually they produce corporate video, but for the last three years his team (Guy Noerr, Leanne Robinson Maine and Michael Swantek) has been flying around the country documenting the efforts of businesses to "go green."

The resulting film, narrated by Daryl Hannah, covers a wide range of businesses -- from a farm to a brewery to a clothing company to Barenaked Ladies (yep, the band) to Wal-Mart.

So Right, So Smart makes its local debut on Saturday at Albany's Palace Theater.

Before he left for New Zealand, Justin hung out with us over bagels and told us how the worlds largest manufacturer of commercial carpeting taught him about the importance of going green, why Al Gore isn't in his movie and what he and his team have in common with folks like Kevin Smith and Peter Jackson.

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Brenny Rabine's life in the theater

This is her first appearance at Capital Rep.

Pretty much anytime we go to a theater in the Capital Region these days, the name Brenny Rabine comes up.

Brenny has been working as an actor, playwright, producer, teacher and actor in the Capital Region for years. Not in addition to her day job -- the arts are her day job.

And her night job.

These days Brenny can be seen in Capital Rep's production of Boston Marriage. She took a little time before getting into make-up to talk to AOA about life upon the wicked stage and how she manages to make a living as an actor in the Capital Region.

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The Hollywood Drive-In

So in these days of downloads, Netflix, Hulu and big screens in your living room, justifying going out to a movie might be tough. Never mind justifying going to see a movie while sitting in your car.

But that's what Frank Fisher thinks you should do.

Fisher's Family has been running The Hollywood Drive-In on Route 66 (yep, a drive-in on Route 66) since 1952. He took a few minutes to talk with us about why he still runs the place, what people get out of going to a drive-in... and the woman who tied her boyfriend up in the trunk.

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The Piper's Dojo

That's Andrew on the left.

Piper and dojo are two words that, we have to admit, we never thought we'd see in the same sentence. And yet, here they are-- together. The Piper's Dojo is an intensive school for bagpipers in the Capital Region.

Master piping sensei Andrew Douglas (just call him Andrew) drew a deep breath to talk with us about the dojo, the art of piping and the local pipe band culture (think the Jets and the Sharks in kilts).

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Peering into Ken Ragsdale's memory

A picture of Ken's memory

Last week we told you about artist Ken Ragsdale's Edible Albany exhibit at Crisan. The object of Ragsdale's art is to take pictures of his own mind.

And the result is pretty cool: recognizable images, created out of paper, that are only simple on the surface. The longer you look at them, the more you start thinking -- thinking about thinking and memory and reality.

Plus they're just fun to look at. There are more of them, plus more about Ken, after the jump.

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Liz Funk loves Albany

Liz Funk wrote the book on overachievers. No -- really -- she did. The 20 year old Pace University Senior and Voorheesville native just released her first book, "Supergirls Speak Out." A few weeks ago she was on the Today show and she's got interviews and lectures scheduled all over the country.

But while many young people are leaving upstate NY after college to start new lives and begin their careers, overachiever Liz Funk has come home to the Capital Region.

She talked with Jessica Pasko about why she's back, and shared her thoughts on stopping the upstate brain drain.

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Ian Egas knows his wine

Ian trained at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa.

So we've been known to drink a little wine here at AOA. We admit it. We also, sadly, admit that we have a bit of trouble differentiating our sauvignon blancs from our gewurztraminers. OK, actually, we have trouble once we get past "red or white."

Fortunately, that's not a problem for Ian Egas. He's the sommelier at Albany's swanky 677 Prime. Ian took time out from aerating and decanting to share some secrets about buying wine in the Capital Region, what your neighbors are drinking -- and Prime's $3000+ bottle.

Yep, one bottle. Yeah.

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Your new neighbors, the fishers

Bernard's new around here.

That furry guy in the picture above is a fisher. His name is Bernard. He was caught by some scientists in the Albany Pine Bush recently as part of research into why he and his fisher friends have decided to take up residence in suburban parts of this area (they've been spotted around Albany and Saratoga counties).

What, you've never heard of fishers? Very few people have. The animals were extraordinarily rare in this area as recently as the 1990s.

Intrigued by our new neighbors, we called up Roland Kays this week. He's the curator of mammals at the New York State Museum and he's leading the research project that captured Bernard.

We talked with Roland about fisher mysteries, coked up wolverines, cat murders, squirrel horror movies and "the landscape of fear."

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Jordy Baker: eco-friendly florist

Jordy Baker -- eco-florist. Yes, she comes from a land down under.

So the other day, while checking out Downtown Susie Brown, we ran across a post about Jordane Baker. She's the owner of Heaven Scent, an eco-friendly florist in Saratoga Springs.

If you're anything like us, you just said, "Huh? Eco-friendly florist?" Yeah, we had to ask.

So we called the native Australian to find out exactly what an eco-friendly florist is, and why after living in Australia, London, Tokyo, Manhattan and all over Europe, she's decided Saratoga Springs is the place to be one.

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Kreisler's Long Sleep

Amy Biancolli has our dream job. She lives here in Albany, but she's a movie critic for the Houston Chronicle. She's also an author.

And now she's a playwright. Capital Rep is staging her first play, "Kreisler's Long Sleep," as part of its "Biggest Little International Play Festival."

The play is based on her book about world renowned violinist Fritz Kriesler. Now, admittedly, we're not exactly up on our violinists, but this guy sounds pretty interesting. Amy took a few minutes off from the glamorous life of a film critic/playwright to tell AOA a little more about him-- and about herself.

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Out in the cold with Capital News 9's Kaitlyn Ross

Kaitlyn wanted us to tell you that she's much prettier without the hat. We think she's pretty cute this way, too.

So, this morning we turned on Capital News 9 only to find poor Kaitlyn Ross shivering on an Albany street corner just so viewers could see exactly how cold it really is outside.

And a few months back, when trees were bent over with ice, Kaitlyn was standing in Washington Park to let the Capital Region know that it was much too dangerous to -- you know -- stand in Washington Park.

In fact, if it's morning -- and the weather sucks -- turn on channel 9 and you're almost certain to see poor Kaitlyn out in the thick of it. Which prompts the question, what the hell did she do to piss off the Capital News 9 producers?

And of course, being us -- we had to ask.

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The book on Phil Pascuzzo

Cover art by Phil Pascuzzo

Everybody's heard that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. But is that really true?

Phil Pascuzzo should know. He's the drummer for local band Scientific Maps. He's also a book cover designer -- he's created more than 300 of them. (Phil's also designed artwork for local musicians such as Brent Gordon, Brian Patneaude, and Sgt Dunbar.)

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Bryan Thomas knows where the funk is

Portrait of a soul rocker.

Bryan Thomas has been making the Capital Region a cooler place to live going on ten years now, through his work with the Hidden City collective and a string of soul rock albums. And this week he's releasing a new album, 1369 Lights.

We recently bounced a few questions Bryan's way (that would be toward Delmar). He emailed answers back about finding the funk at pre-school soccer games, why he name-checks local places in his songs so often, and what he thinks is the best-kept secret about the Capital Region.

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The guy on the big pink bike

We first saw The Big Pink Bike (our name for it) after Jess spotted it back in August. And since then, it seems like we've either been seeing it, or hearing about it, everywhere.

So who is this guy who rides The Big Pink Bike?

His name is Andrew Franciosa. He's a junior at UAlbany. And he was nice enough to answer a few questions we had -- most of all, why?

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At Your Service in the Capital Region

We recently stumbled across the web site for At Your Service, a "concierge and consulting service" here in the Capital Region.

We'd heard about these kinds of personal concierges in bigger cities, but we were kind of surprised to hear there was one right here. You know, this isn't Manhattan -- who doesn't around here doesn't do their own grocery shopping?

So, curious about the personal concierge business, we emailed a few questions to Pam Howard, who owns At Your Service with her husband Michael (that's them on the right). She emailed back answers about grocery shopping, four-day wedding planning and sniffing for cat pee.

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The Vespa guy

A trio of Vespas lined up outside the dealership in Schenectady.

What was your first job out of college? It probably wasn't as cool as what Peter Caschera's got going on.

After graduating this past May from Georgetown he came back to the Capital Region and opened a Vespa dealership. (His brother Giuseppe, who's still in college, helps out during school breaks.)

We stopped by the dealership in Schenectady this week to ask Peter a few questions... and, um, ogle the merchandise.

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Making it up with the Mop & Bucket Company

The Mop & Bucket Company

Last week when we talked with Katie Haverly, she mentioned she was doing improv with a company called Mop and Bucket here in the Capital Region.

We've heard a lot about these guys lately. They've been holding performances and
workshops at Proctor's Theater and they're teaching a class that starts tomorrow night at The Arts Center of the Capital Region.

They're adding improv to the list of stuff to do in the Capital Region.

What is improv? It's theater without a script. It's audience participation. It's making it up as you go along.

And Kat Koppett says it's not just for theatrical types. Koppett is a twenty year improv veteran. She's performed with troupes in NYC and San Diego. Today she teaches improv in classes and in business settings. She also performs with the Mop and Bucket Company (Mopco.). She says there's a lot that real people can learn from improvisation.

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Seven questions for Katie Haverly

Katie Haverly

Sometimes you have to lean in close to hear what Katie Haverly has to say. But back up when she starts to sing. Girlfriend's got some lung power.

The soft spoken singer/songwriter has lived in Phoenix, Flagstaff, Chicago, Boulder, Chapel Hill and England but she considers the Capital Region her home. She's living in Troy these days and when she's not making music she's a public health researcher for NY State. Haverly sat down over a cup of tea and answered a few questions for AOA.

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A modern building hidden in plain site

Looks can be deceiving... in a good way.