Flexing the Quad

For the third game of the 2015 Syracuse football season, my dear wife Karen got to the campus early enough to catch the festivities on the quad flanking the Carrier Dome. Hover over any gallery photo for a description. Click on the bottom right photo in any gallery for an enlarged slide show. Of course…

In Black Mass, Johnny Depp has evil down cold

Quite the block in South Boston that was that gave the world the Bulger brothers and John Connolly. Black Mass tells the tale with a deep and horrible chill. Directed by Scott Cooper by a script from Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth, this crime drama documentary is 122 minutes full of high ambition and low…

A square with a water view

My dear wife Karen’s email asked if I’d like to meet her for lunch at Festa Italiana. I got there early enough to take out my iPhone 6 to share my view of the fountain at downtown Syracuse’s Hanover Square on a lovely 85º F mid-September afternoon. No mattter that Karen meant the next day…

Virgin Territory — the Beginning

Our special string of September Sundays of cuppas with Paul Curran continues as Willow of willowdot21 makes the most of her break from hosting his weekly guest post at her place on the other side of the big pond. Take it away, my loquacious Canadian friend. If We Were Having Coffee Coffee Break at the…

Nice to see ya, Coach Mac

They stopped last Saturday’s football game between the first and second quarter to wheel a guy around the Carrier Dome field in a Pope Mobile. Well, a fancy cart, anyway. But for what he did to bring the Syracuse University football program back in the 1980s, Dick MacPherson could have been welcomed like the Pontiff.…

Shades of Orange

They called it the Orange Out. Many fans cooperated, my dear wife Karen and I knew as we were walking up the hill Saturday in preparation to watch Syracuse tangle with Wake Forest in the Atlantic Coast Conference football opener for both squads. We planned a separate route from the opening Friday night, choosing the…

The big stage still revs Jimmy Cavallo at 88

I’ve had the chance to talk to Jimmy Cavallo for a quarter century now. Back when I worked for the big daily, he and his bud Stan Colella even allowed myself and a photographer colleague to tail them around a downtown Syracuse joint called Styleen’s Rhythm Palace as they posed for the cover of their…

We’re back on the lanes at Bowling Green

Let’s call it my awesome overlap. Golf season ended Wednesday night. Bowling season started Thursday night. The squad was rolling in Bowling Green. For some reason, my week one brain always tells me that 6:30 p.m. gives me plenty of time to get to North Syracuse to lace up my shoes for those precious minutes…