Essays | www.jaredmobarak.com

INTERVIEW: Nick Mendola, president/owner of FC Buffalo

2014/05/102020/03/25 Jared Mobarak

I’ve known FC Buffalo owners Nick Mendola and Scott Frauenhofer for a decade and a half, watching their love for the game of soccer evolve into running their own National Premier Soccer League team. It only took the Wolves (the current, approved nickname after a few years going by the Blitzers in honor of Ken West grad Wolf Blitzer) two games to earn their first win and clean sheet, defeating the New Jersey Blaze in front of the home crowd at Robert E. Rich All-High Stadium 2-0. The next year…

Babel’s Abraham Verghese teaches Buffalo the difference between curing and healing

2014/04/082020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

It is interesting to see how Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel series has evolved over the years. Beyond locale (now residing at Kleinhans Music Hall after its origins in Asbury Hall at Babeville), artistic director (Barbara Cole seamlessly transitioning on from Michael Kelleher), and audience (last night’s crowd had to be the largest since Salman Rushdie and the season’s total far and away the best in its seven years), we now are beginning to see how expansive the title of “writer” truly is. The announcement of next season’s final speaker…

You are the ambassador of your race: the human race … Babel’s Suzan-Lori Parks

2014/03/112020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

It wasn’t until Just Buffalo Literary Center‘s Artistic Director Barbara Cole took the stage that I noticed something out-of-place: a microphone stand. I’m not entirely sure when its last appearance was, but I distinctly remember the vehemence of the audience when whoever used it couldn’t be heard. Everyone else seemed cognizant of the problem too because Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks acknowledged she was warned that “dead spots” might occur if she chose not to use the wireless kit. Unfazed and ready to move, however, the accomplished yogi laughed it…

The 86th Oscars recap through tweets …

2014/03/032020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

Welcome to the 86th Annual Academy Awards everyone! If you didn’t watch the festivities that occurred Sunday night at the Dolby Theatre you are probably a lot better off than most of us because it was a very lackluster affair. We all hoped Ellen DeGeneres would bring a fun, smart, witty return to her success with the 79th installment, but the reality ended up being one of the most dull and safe presentations in quite some time. I guess it wasn’t all bad, though, considering the Academy actually got most…

Picking Winners at the 86th Annual Academy Awards

2014/02/272020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

The Oscars are generally quite boring, since we often know well in advance what is going to win Best Picture, Director, etc. But this year? Not so much. Sure, there are heavy favorites — see below. But it is entirely possible there will be some real surprises. Of course, I could be completely wrong. But if I am, hopefully Bill Altreuter and Jared Mobarak will be right. And away we go … —Chris Best ActorBruce Dern: NebraskaChiwetel Ejiofor: 12 Years a SlaveMatthew McConaughey: Dallas Buyers ClubLeonardo DiCaprio: The Wolf of Wall StreetChristian Bale: American Hustle…

Don’t let blank expletive blank affect your inner calm … Babel’s Amy Tan

2013/11/212020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

As Just Buffalo Literary Center‘s Laurie Dean Torrell went through her thank yous before Artistic Director Barbara Cole’s introduction of the night’s speaker, she gave us a statistic that posited how ticket sales for the event only fulfilled about a third of the costs incurred to produce it. While I’m sure it was an accurate breakdown, I couldn’t help look around at the packed lower level of Kleinhans Music Hall and remember how far Babel has grown since the less than one thousand people who packed into Babeville’s Asbury Hall…

Never give a Cuban a microphone … Babel’s Richard Blanco

2013/10/222020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

The 2013-2014 season of Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel series start a tad late as the largest contingent of audience members since Salman Rushdie (or perhaps ever) shuffled into Kleinhans to see Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco talk about his career and inspiration. Even after a nice poem written and read by one of the artists who use the Genesseo Migrant Center to hone her artistic skills and the usual introduction from Just Buffalo Artistic Director Barbara Cole (one that brought Blanco to the verge of tears) push the evening farther,…

David Simon speaks on the failure of the War on Drugs

2013/07/292020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

While the first time visiting the Chautauqua Institution—a non-for-profit, 750-acre educational center set up as an experimental, out-of-school educational spot for vacation learning—David Simon was very much aware of its existence and mission towards the “American spirit”. Bolstered by an anecdote to prove as much, the former Baltimore Sun beat reporter turned TV icon shared how his father once told him to promise never to use profanity if he was ever invited to speak at the venerated, historical site. It stemmed from him taking a red pen to his son’s…

Nothing human is alien to us … Babel’s Julia Alvarez

2013/04/032020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

The last installment of Just Buffalo Literary Center‘s sixth season of Babel made for an intriguing night. From the Talking Leaves Books counter being moved farther from the parking lot doors for the first time since being at Kleinhans to the playing of a Christmas song while waiting for Barbara Cole to take the stage to the electronic painting over of the Buffalo News logo on one slide of a completely overhauled PowerPoint presentation with the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library logo prominently placed throughout—things were slightly askew. But…

Writing the truth … Babel’s Alexandra Fuller

2013/03/072020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

With what might have been the largest audience Just Buffalo Literary Center’s Babel series has seen since Salman Rushdie, novelist Alexandra Fuller brought the house down with her unparalleled candor and humor. Without notes or books to read she treated her lecture as she would one of her works—a carefully composed soliloquy spanning a life that’s traveled from an English birth to an adolescent home in war-torn Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to her current roots laying residency as an American citizen in Wyoming. We learned of an Uzi-toting mother, an “illiterate”…

The 85th Oscars recap through tweets …

2013/02/262020/03/26 Jared Mobarak

@jaredmobarak • and the #Oscars begin … #Oscars13@jaredmobarak • SUCCESS!! Tommy Lee Jones smiles! #Oscars13@jaredmobarak • poor Don Cheadle #Oscars13 Welcome to the 85th annual Academy Awards from the newly renamed Dolby Theatre. Bankruptcy is a drag, ain’t it Kodak? Hopes were high after host Seth MacFarlane‘s surprisingly hilarious Ted made me wonder if the dude wasn’t the real deal after all. A poor man’s Ricky Gervais, the Academy was probably wise in going for the watered-down Americanized version of unbridled snark because one would think the “Family Guy” creator…