Essays | www.jaredmobarak.com

Babel’s Toni Morrison on “keeping the reader alive and worried”

2017/11/092020/04/22 Jared Mobarak

Leave it to the Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize in Literature, and Presidential Medal of Freedom-winning Toni Morrison to get me back into Kleinhans Music Hall for Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel series after two years away with special thanks going to Artistic Director Barbara Cole for letting Cultivate Cinema Circle piggyback onto the occasion with a screening of Jonathan Demme‘s cinematic adaptation of Beloved. Our presentation of the movie last month was but one of many events put on as part of the center’s Civil Writes Project that culminated in…

The 89th Oscars recap through tweets …

2017/02/272020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

pic.twitter.com/oGJkXytnQ2 — PwC LLP (@PwC_LLP) February 27, 2017 So that actually happened. Warren Beatty opened the Best Picture envelope, furrowed his brow, and looked for another card. He’s thinking, “This is wrong.” He stalls—his body language coming off as a joke in the moment, the audience and his co-presenter Faye Dunaway laughing at what appears to be an old man who forgot his glasses. And since no one came running onto the stage to say something actually was wrong, he silently turned to Faye with the card. And the…

Picking Winners at the 89th Annual Academy Awards

2017/02/172020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

The 89th Annual Academy Awards hits airwaves Sunday, February 26th, 2017 at 8:30pm on ABC. Buffalonians can watch it from the comfort of their home or take a trip down to these local destinations: • The Screening Room, The Boulevard MallFree (doors open at 7:00pm)• Buffalo State College, Campbell Student UnionFree with Student ID, $10 general public (doors open at 8:00pm)• Q, 44 Allen StreetFree (Red Carpet party begins at 6:00pm) For those handicapping at home, here are the guesses of Buffalo film fanatics Christopher Schobert, William Altreuter, and myself.…

The 88th Oscars recap through tweets …

2016/02/292020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

The Oscars are today! You know, the awards show where Leonardo DiCaprio is “overdue” but black people can “wait till next year.” — Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) February 28, 2016 Bette Midler‘s tweet hours before the 88th Annual Academy Awards started says it all above. #OscarsSoWhite would and to a point should be the focus of the show because all the chaos that ensued once the nominations revealed a second consecutive year without a non-white acting nod deemed it so. However, the uproar was directed towards the Academy hastily and…

Picking Winners at the 88th Annual Academy Awards

2016/02/142020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

For those handicapping at home, here are the guesses of Buffalo film fanatics Christopher Schobert, William Altreuter, and myself. Jared Mobarak: Here’s hoping Chris Rock does his best Ricky Gervais as far as not caring about political correctness or duty to kissing up to the celebrities all dressed-up nice because having him host the 2016 Oscars ceremony amidst the whole #OscarsSoWhite controversy is an opportunity not to be squandered. Two years in a row with no black actor/actress up for gold? That’s a major problem with The Academy and the…

INTERVIEW: Peter Johnson and Victor Marwin of Grain Cycles

2015/07/062020/03/25 Jared Mobarak

There’s something a-brewing in Studio #212 at the Niagara Arts and Cultural Center (1201 Pine Ave, Niagara Falls, NY 14301) that many Western New Yorkers will be excited to hear about. The brainchild of Against the Grain Woodworking‘s Victor Marwin and Peter Johnson, Grain Cycles have arrived to give the many cyclists and enthusiasts in the area a new aesthetically pure and extremely durable alternative to ride wherever the road takes them. With a low carbon footprint (they are built from FSC certified sustainable lumber), centuries-old European craftsmanship, and multiple…

Babel’s Patti Smith and her “monastic mess”

2015/04/172020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

After waxing on about the “Lovecraftian” look of downtown Buffalo—the morning’s fog still hadn’t lifted by 6:45pm during my drive along the 190 to Kleinhans—Patti Smith disarmed the largest crowd in Just Buffalo Literary Center‘s Babel history with the words: “If you get bored or tired just tell me. We can talk about anything.” It’s amazing how honest they felt, especially in context with a lecture season seeming more like a publicity tour than look into the minds of artists. Smith conversely arrived to give us a piece of her…

Overtaken by the story … Babel’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

2015/03/262020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

The change was gradual, but 2014-2015 really cements it for Just Buffalo Literary Center‘s Babel series. What began as a venue for renowned writers to read their works and engage the audience in a conversation about story genesis and process has become somewhat of a publicity tour. Is this a natural evolution? Perhaps this year’s lecturers’ star power and familiarity with Hollywood and PR is to blame? Whatever the case, the Buffalonians who come love it. There are more people than ever attending and the applause given while the guests…

The 87th Oscars recap through tweets …

2015/02/232020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

I’m not sure why I keep filling myself with false hope that the Oscars will one day be an entertaining show to watch. The optimism is almost completely unfounded by this point. Whether they go weird (Anne Hathaway and James Franco), safe (Billy Crystal), hip (Seth MacFarlane), or try and steal another show’s success (Neil Patrick Harris), the result is the same. NPH should have been the shot of adrenaline the 87th Annual Academy Awards needed—a song and dance guy who’s young, fun, and funny. Sadly—and I do blame the…

Picking Winners at the 87th Annual Academy Awards

2015/02/202020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

Things look pretty cut and dry where the Academy is concerned in 2015. The Oscars are always a somewhat watered-down look at what really mattered in the past year of cinema and this installment is no exception. In fact, it may be all water at this point. That doesn’t mean there can’t be some intriguing surprises in the second-tier categories like Best Animated Feature (I really hope How to Train Your Dragon 2 loses to one of the other much more aesthetically and conceptually unique nominees) or Short Film Animated…

Writing holds a mirror to your inner self … Babel’s David Henry Hwang

2015/02/102020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

Two plus months and a few snowstorms later, David Henry Hwang finally made it to Buffalo. The second speaker in Just Buffalo Literary Center’s 2014/2015 Babel Season, Hwang probably would have waited even longer if the elements necessitated. He’s that generous a human being. Artistic Director Barbara Cole illustrated such with an anecdote concerning a local teacher wishing on social media that she could take her class to Syracuse for a performance of the playwright’s Chinglish and his contacting her personally to offer answers to whatever questions her students might…