From WXXI news this is connections I'm Evan Dawson.

All right.

Our connection this hour is made with that phrase.

And I think it was Color Me Bad.

Who had that great song in the 90s.

Let's talk about sex was a Color Me Bad.

It might have been kind of bad.

I know the night is salt and pepper.

Oh, no, it wasn't calling me bad.

What was I thinking with Color Me Better?

Is salt and pepper.

Oh, man, what am I saying?

Pretty simple.

Oh, I'm thinking if I want to sex you up.

Thank you, producer Megan Mac, we are off the rails.

10s into 10s into this hour.

We are fully off the rails already.

Truly.

Julie Williams new the color Me bad song.

Thank you.

I want to sex you up.

Is killing me bad.

Let's talk about sex is salt and pepper.

Anyway, the theme of the new we're.

I'm talking about calling me bad for an hour.

We're talking to the team from City magazine and their February issues theme is sex and love and, you know, love and all different forms.

Self-love, friendship, romantic love.

And it's the theme there that, is going to bring us a lot of great conversation this hour, not just me waxing poetic on old songs.

So let me welcome.

I mean, come on.

Leah Stacy, editor in chief of City magazine, you know this.

You know the calling me bad song, didn't you?

I want to sex you up.

You know, that's.

I know you don't know that there's a severe gap in my.

I don't even know if I want to call that contemporary music knowledge.

But, you know, I was raised pretty evangelical and I wasn't allowed to listen to any of that.

So I had this, like, learning curve in college where I had to catch up on pop culture.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

I fear that I my music taste is usually judges.

It's a lot of like folk and EDM.

I don't know how to explain that.

Okay.

Interesting.

All right.

That was a to two roads diverged into a what?

Jake?

Berdella.

Did you guys know what I was talking about?

Not even close there.

So you young.

No shot, I will.

Well, hold on, I think I'm.

I think I'm a I'm out of the young territory now.

I think I'm 55.

Evan.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.

You're.

You're 30s, aren't you?

I am, I'm 32 years old and I was aware of the song.

It's not I, I love R&B, but that did not that wasn't that didn't come across my desk.

No, that wasn't like the peak of 90s culture.

I will say that.

Yeah.

So while we're talking about music, just briefly, and it's the sex and love issue here.

So I've been like, arguing with people about what chaperon wore to the Grammys.

Was that all right with you guys?

Did you see that?

I mean, yes, Stacy, did you see it?

I just fucked uncomfortable.

I don't that's one way to describe it.

There's no way I'm ever going to shame a woman for wearing what she feels confident in.

But she didn't look that confident.

And I was like, what if you step on the hem?

Oh, boy.

Because, oh, I can we can't even just.

I don't even think we can describe what.

And I don't want people do not if you're at work.

Go look up what Chapel Run was wearing at the Grammys.

Like I don't work computer.

I think it's just like in public at the Grammys.

Like I know.

Well, am I a prude?

Did you watch the video where her stylist was in, like, you know, putting it all together for photos and, like, moved her hair so that it was almost like a shirt or like, I guess suspenders.

Well, helpful because there was no shirt.

If you again, don't want to leave it, I don't know.

And now I'm feeling like I'm the old man yelling at clouds.

Guys, did you see that?

That's okay.

I watch the Grammys.

Yeah, I don't think that I wasn't paying too much attention to the wardrobe, but I think if you put chapel in front of a teleprompter, things are going to feel stiff because she's a very off the cuff speaker.

I think she's very eloquent on her own.

And I felt like the for sure she is, I think the prompter, I think she was almost winking at the fact that she was being prompted, like she had to read off of a script.

That was that's kind of how I was reading it.

I don't know, I mean, I go to different outfits.

You might be thinking of the latter.

Oh, she would do that early, too.

I mean, we're definitely talking about the same one.

Oh, Leah and I are talking about the same one.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

What a start to the sidewalk.

Good Grammys.

This year.

You guys want to talk about the program?

Yeah.

Really good.

I didn't watch the whole thing, but I watched a lot of outtakes.

And it was, It was an excellent show for once.

The Grammys.

Okay, so now let's get back.

And I always start with the editor.

The letters editor.

And Leah tell some stories here.

You really do have potentially a book of bad date stories.

I mean, I you know, some of these more in depth.

When I was in my 30s.

I mean, I have some bad date stories that are pretty, like, heroically bad.

But I think you've topped it just reading the little tidbits that you shared with your readers here.

And I don't even know if I'd call them bad.

Just some of them are just interesting.

So I had this phrase when I was going when I was in that era, I would just say like for the plot, like, I'm going to, I'm going to say yes, this date for the plot, I'm going to drive to the Cape, knowing it probably is not.

You drove to the Catskills, I sure did.

That is a that is a commute for a date, by the way.

It was a beautiful drive.

It was like October.

Yeah, well, because we were coming out of the pandemic, you couldn't really do anything.

Yeah.

You had to, like, get together and in your own spaces or, so many dates outside.

So many summery picnic days.

Yeah.

Tour dates.

Yeah.

There was a, there was a nice gentleman who had known you for two hours and tried to kiss you that fast.

Oh, God.

There.

It really was one of those, like, movie moments when you're like, you're, like, maneuvering to, like, dodge it.

And, it's just so awkward.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm sorry that didn't last.

That didn't work out.

No, there wasn't a second.

Did I still see him around?

Oh, but there wasn't this night.

There wasn't a second date?

No, no, I mean, that's confident.

Guys.

You bad date story.

Was it confident or was it.

No.

Jake got no bad date stories?

Nope.

I don't know.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a silent side of the table.

Yeah, I've been wiped up.

You know, I've done so.

Yeah, yeah.

My, my first day was a Pizza Hut because we were teenagers.

Oh, my God, that's so horse.

That's awesome.

Awesome.

Did you have, like, those, like, plastic, like stained glass cups that they had fun.

You should say that.

That is the thing that happened.

My wife is more embarrassed about it than I am, but.

First date, big red plastic cup.

She knocked it over water everywhere.

And I hit her with the.

You nervous?

Oh my God.

Berto.

Yeah, yeah, but if you know hand in hand, handle it.

Yeah.

You're so, so.

Yeah.

And it was, in hindsight, what a weird thing to say.

Kind of.

I mean, we're friends, though, so we were friends first.

So there was there was rapport, but it was just like, I'm not.

You drove me here.

Yeah.

This is.

Yeah, it is what it is to say.

No bad, fantastic.

Burrito.

Leah, why is this, the theme now?

I mean, obviously it's Valentine's Day month.

People think about that kind of stuff, but, yeah, why sex and love now?

I think we were trying to get a little creative with the themes this year.

Have a little fun with them.

I kept saying, like, spicy enough that if, you know, one of your kids picked this up off the stands, you wouldn't be able to.

You wouldn't not be able to have a conversation about anything.

Right?

Because we keep in mind this is a free publication that's all around the city.

But also just yeah, I think for us and the contributors to have a little fun.

And I believe, Jake, you'll know this probably better, but there was, content like this before me.

But the themes kind of started when I started.

So I don't know that there's ever been a full issue like this, so we just thought it'd be fun.

Yeah, yeah.

This is the least Jake's ever talk.

This?

What do you mean, tastic talk?

Sex and love and Jake.

Just nothing to say.

What?

What?

I had to agree.

It's it's all true.

It was.

Yeah.

No, it's a it's a it's a range of stories.

Of course.

Shout out to our colleague Noel Evans, who, profiled Stephanie Woodward and talks about, hopefully our listeners know.

And you picked up the podcast move to include podcast.

But the idea of marriage equality is not equal in the disability community.

And so, really good stuff there.

I also really enjoyed the conversation with Alinea kind of media to someone who I've never had on connections, but someone who's been on the radar for someone who would be a really smart voice as we talk about some of these issues.

Yeah.

So I've never met any kind of media, but this is an official invitation right here for lunch.

I was going to say that if that Q&A didn't convince you, then, yeah, it's really good.

So someone who is a therapist and has built a practice of being able to talk about sex, making people feel comfortable, really working through challenges, in a lot of different ways that couples will have that individuals will have.

So really smart, really good stuff there.

Brenna, what were you up to in this issue?

I shot the peep show article on microscopes and also shot the photos for, the Noel Ovens, Stephanie Woodward.

Shoot.

So I got to kind of get a peek inside that life, and, how incredible.

Stephanie is.

And just also how cute her kids are, of course, amazing group of kids.

And by the way, on the peep show, we're going to be talking to Justin Murphy coming up at 130, and you see him there doing the peeping.

There's a baby you're watching on YouTube.

We're showing you some Alberto's work there.

And so we're going to kind of go back in time.

And Justin's got a lovely piece.

Such a good writer.

Really, really appreciated that.

Yeah.

We're going to talk to Matt Rogers at 140, who came up with the headline Staying Abreast of the law.

Okay, that was me.

That was yours.

And Matt fully endorsed it because.

Because the piece is about what, about some, some lawmakers, some some law changers.

I mean, I really want him to the legal right to be topless.

Yeah, the legal right to the top free movement is, I think, the official term top free.

Yeah.

But, you know, it always goes back to Rochester, right?

Like we've had a hand in so many major movements.

I love that we're such a political city, I really do.

We got Frederick Douglass, Susan B Anthony and top free movement that.

Yeah, but I mean, what else do you need?

I will see history right there.

I will say, you know, the piece.

Explore some questions about why we have either taboos or fascinations or why we get hung up on stuff.

And of course, there was me talking about chaperoned, like, you know, like like it was some sort of a scan that wasn't planned.

No.

And it was planned.

And, you know, I didn't get there.

I just don't think it's I don't think it's a scandal.

I'm just more looking at this going number one.

Yes.

Very uncomfortable.

Number two, like, wow, that's just no imagination required anymore.

You know, fashion is interesting.

I want to get paid for fashion.

Like I want to be.

I want to get to be a fashion designer for the stars.

And I want them to pay me a lot of money.

And I don't even have to compare them.

Just like you're going to be nude.

I haven't I did not realize you aspired to be fashion designer.

I just like a tiny bit of nuance.

I will I will argue for some nuance there.

No, there's no way.

There's no buts.

I mean, we're talking about it, so it works.

Yeah, I guess that's part of it here.

There are certain things that we will not have time to try.

I don't know if we're gonna have time to talk about the rom com stuff, but I love Joe Lester's piece on rom com.

Well, I think maybe you guys may do something on that, like, oh, we are gonna we're going to get Joe one day talking rom coms.

But just as a brief tease to that here, what I love is Joe is so smart, such a good reviewer of art and so, so if this is like, if you love this movie, then try this.

And it's a great way to do recommendations because not everybody loves every kind of ROM com.

Some, some you're like, yes, I'm no defending your life the best ever.

You know, which Joe didn't mention.

But we'll fight about that later okay.

Yeah.

But I don't know that one.

Really good.

Because you don't know defending your life.

No I, I've never seen anything.

One I think Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep.

Oh.

Oh, we love Meryl.

And Rip Torn.

The concept is Albert Brooks is driving a car and he has a new CD player because it's the 90s.

It's got a CD player in the car that's a big deal.

And he dropped some CDs and he goes, looks down to pick them up while he's driving, and he looks up and there's a semi coming.

And the next shot, you see is him being wheeled into the afterlife.

Well, and he's going to Judgment City, and he has to defend his life on the basis of living it with good judgment and no fear.

That was the team in the 90s, wasn't it?

Yeah.

We should bring that back.

What happens after you die?

Catholic panic consequences.

I think we've got plenty of Christian panic.

Yeah.

Currently Rip Torn, who's good in everything?

Rip torn, the late Rip Torn plays his attorney.

The universe installs attorneys to defend your life in a trial.

And there's a prosecutor and there's a defense attorney.

And Rip Torn is explaining this to Albert Brooks, who's like, in shock, of course.

And Rip Torn says to him, you know, I use 49% of my brain.

Do you know how much you use?

And Albert Brooks is 48%.

He goes, three, you know, and the whole purpose is advancing in the universe and using more of your brain.

But it becomes a romantic comedy.

He meets Meryl Streep, and Meryl Streep is great and everything.

And she's great in that movie.

And there you go.

I don't want to tell you too much.

Everybody should go see Defending Your Life, and everybody should read Joe Lester's piece, because everything Joanna Lester writes is great for city, and that's a fun piece.

And we're going to talk about that on a different day here.

So all she she's going to keep doing movie content and some TV content.

And we got she's working on another front piece for March.

So stay tuned.

And I think we're going to have Abby and Chris coming up here in just a second.

Megan?

Mac, is that right?

I think we're going to have Abby and Chris coming up here in just a second, but we're working on that, too.

So before we get Abby.

Abby Quatro here, who's a food and beverage writer?

Food and beverage in an issue on sex and love.

What do you think?

Lift.

This was completely Abby's idea.

We were actually at a birthday party, and, you know, it was like a not a work talk thing, and she was just like, wait, I keep forgetting to email you, but I've got this idea.

And so Berto graciously let her, live in the photo essay section for this one.

And yeah, we wanted to, you know, we don't always get to highlight chefs who don't work in, like, traditional restaurant settings.

And so that was a real goal here, was to highlight some folks who have maybe more nontraditional roles, but are still doing really cool stuff right now.

And Abby Quatro is with us, food and beverage, photography and marketing, professional and contributor to City Magazine.

Abby, welcome back to you.

Hello.

It's nice to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Nice to have you.

And and we've got Chris Cullen as well.

The chef and owner at work in progress pop up.

And the fourth, a forthcoming restaurant that I'm not going to try to pronounce.

I'm going to have Chris do it.

Hello, Chris Cullen, I haven't.

Dawson, it's, nice to meet you.

Virtually.

Nice to meet you.

His restaurant.

I'm.

Is it DeMoss?

That's what I'm doing.

Dennis.

Damn it.

You're going to you're going to be in the majority of people that mispronounce it.

We're very cruel.

What we're doing.

So we're going to talk to Chris Moore in just a moment here.

I want Abby to kind of set this up because Abby pitches this to Leah for the sex and love issue.

And you're you write some really interesting stuff about the the kind of the flip side, the dichotomy, the kind of the mirror image that the diners are out when you're going out to eat, to, you know, enjoy what might be a romantic setting to connect with people, to really feel good, to kind of get away.

If you're the chef, it's like the flip side, there's nothing really romantic about it.

It's a lot of hard work, and I want you to take me through why you pitched it in this way and what you want your readers and, to kind of come away with here.

Abby.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, just broadly speaking, I, I really like to kind of go against the grain a little bit in terms of what I'm capturing, even if it is kind of in the food and beverage universe.

So kind of looking at, you know, the trope of the chef being this, you know, bad, sexy, covered in tattoos, holding a large knife, big pieces of meat.

I kind of wanted to go against the grain a little bit of that, because while all of those are real things and they exist, and we all watched the bear and we all had the feelings that we had.

It's not the whole picture.

Because food, as much as it is, you know, this industry of grit is also something that's nurturing and wholesome and lovely and seductive in a softer way.

And, you know, it's so tied into the fabric of our being.

And I wanted to explore a little bit of the softer, a little bit of the more delicate, a little bit of the, you know, the yearning, the the why behind why we get into this industry and by a keeps us and that, you know, is a different story for every chef.

But I think it's also a bigger story than just the surface of.

Yeah, chefs, musicians, they're all badass, but I want them.

So just kind of peeling back those layers was something fun.

And we, graciously it was just to be run wild.

So I know you're going to crush it.

I mean, that's I mean, every editor needs people that you go, whatever they do is going to be great.

And that's so true.

And here's Abby and the page team.

The piece is titled yes, chef.

Why we Fixate on and Fetishize those Behind the line.

And, Chris Collins, what do you make of, Abby's framing of how we think about chefs?

Yeah, I think I think she's spot on.

The food world has become this very chef driven industry.

I think we suffer from the same sort of cult of personality that took over the art world when, you know, it was the Warhol days.

And, it's nice to hear a fresh take that's like a little bit, less about the flashy chef personalities and a little bit more about the real work that's going on.

And the truth of the matter is that dining out is, is all about the guest experience.

And, and, I think moving forward, you're going to see chefs try to figure out how to take themselves out of the equation a little bit more and faster.

And environment.

That's, that's just really guest focused.

Chris, I also think it's important that we know a little bit about your background, because this is your first introduction to our audience, and you've got this really remarkable resume having worked at Lento first, then New York City, the UK, Berlin, now you're in the Finger Lakes.

Can you give us a little flavor about where you've been?

Yes, and I'm glad you brought up Lento.

Shout out to Art Rogers.

I remember being a teenager, working in his kitchen and listening to connections for the first time.

Oh wow.

He'd been the best chefs in Rochester.

He's all the best chefs in Rochester.

Everyone should go visit Lento.

It's, It's a great restaurant.

And he's doing sexy food.

It's weird if we're talking about the sexy.

Yeah.

So.

So he was.

He was kind of, one of my first mentors, and, helped me start my career, which took me to New York.

As you said, I worked for four years under, chef repair.

And then Covid hit, and so kind of bounced around a little bit.

We did a few pop ups in Rochester, and then eventually I landed, in Berlin, cooking a small little, like, eight seat counter, Japanese, European hybrid cuisine.

Really, really nice, like, farmer focused tasting menu.

And so bringing it back to the Finger Lakes now, very exciting to be in this area where the farming is just as good as it was in Berlin, which is, you know, the home of Biodynamics.

So it's been amazing to see how good the agriculture is in this area.

I love the way your work is described here.

His menus are assembled like puzzles shaped by the exact conditions of a given week.

What keeps his ego in check is how fast the work disappears.

Yesterday doesn't buy him anything.

Every service resets the stakes.

I love that idea.

And I want to ask Abby a little bit about that here.

I remember, I mean, this is going to sound cliche, but it's absolutely true.

The first time I ever went to Europe, I was in Italy, in a town called Montalcino, and bumped into a chef, went to a restaurant the next day for the afternoon.

I didn't know that.

Everybody actually does just take a nap in small town Italy and I'm like, well, everyone's asleep except for me.

And then I bumped into a chef, the chef walking down the street, and we stopped in and had a glass of wine, and he talked about how, you've got about ten days with certain ingredients and you got to make the most of it, and then you get to not sort of peacock about how great it was, because it's gone and you're on to the next.

And I just thought that was so interesting to think about how fleeting it is.

You want to elaborate a little bit on that concept?

Debbie, I love that.

Yeah, I mean, I, I think that this is kind of what sets Chris apart specifically is that the, you know, farm to table is not a new concept.

It's, you know, focus on local ingredients is not a new concept.

That's something that, you know, you see splattered across every menu, but who actually lives and breathes it.

The only person that comes to mind is Chris, and he's done work in the Finger Lakes with farmers, building relationships, understanding the very, very teeny tiny rhythms of this microclimate that we live in and he has taken that to another level of exalting these ingredients and operating on an ingredient first mentality.

And yeah, that is something that is very Italian.

And you have this beautiful ingredient.

Your job as the chef is to not mess it up.

And while that sounds simple, there's so much that goes into that, you know, having flavors that present Queen true.

Perfect is oftentimes so much harder than, you know, most of us in there will throw that in there will, you know, layer layer and layer.

So what you get is this kind of distilled and beautiful expression of the area and also the ingredient.

And, you know, the chef leaving as little mark as possible is harder and also so much more beautiful.

So that that was really fun to kind of take a peek into the reverse engineering, I guess.

Well, before I let both of you go, there's something that's been on my mind, and I think you both can maybe speak to because I think the presence of Abby's piece in this issue on Sex and Love and City Magazine really does speak to how food can be sensual.

It can be a really sort of, you know, a chance for people to be together.

I mean, again, not to be cliche, but cooking together can be a really beautiful and romantic thing, and it can be a great way for couples to connect.

And maybe producer Mega man can bail me out here, because I've seen this piece shared in the last week so many times, but it's always a snippet in social media.

I hate when people share like a passage from a piece, but they don't link you to it.

So I don't know who wrote the piece, but there's a piece that's been shared everywhere, and people in their 20s and 30s who don't have kids and are despairing about the future, they're choosing not to have kids, and they're so despairing they've got a cabinet full of ingredients.

But one person is spending $700 a month on DoorDash talking about how like, he just wants to stay on the couch and have someone else do it, not move.

And he's in a relationship.

They don't cook together and everybody's like, whoa, this is dark.

Like, this is like how darker things in this country that even when you've got the ingredients, you're struggling to pay your rent because you're blowing up the budget on DoorDash, you don't want to cook on your own.

You don't want to cook with your partner.

You want to cook with your romantic partner, you don't want to go out to eat.

And it just feels so isolating.

And food is an opportunity to be together.

And I don't like, of all the things I've read in the last month, Chris, like about, you know, things are a little fraught right now.

That kind of depress me the most.

It's like, what are we doing here?

No offense to DoorDash, by the way.

I mean, like, no offense to any of that stuff, but to do it like every night when you could be cooking, when you could be learning new things, when you could be experiencing new things with a partner, or at least going out to eat and appreciating the work of someone else.

It feels like we are choosing to isolate in ways that I think are dark and concerning.

Am I overlooking that or am I overreacting?

Chris?

I'm.

No, I don't think so.

I think there's a lot of factors that are going into what you're talking about.

I myself go diet or go to shop at the local supermarket, and the produce sucks.

It's not good.

There's large economic forces that are driving bad food into our diets, and so it's not inspiring to go to the grocery store and come up with something to cook yourself for dinner.

And we've become so disconnected from where food comes from.

I'm not surprised.

You see the rise in DoorDash and the ease and the convenience of, you know, modern delivery services.

We have to get back to really great products.

And that starts with, highlighting our farmers.

If we can do that, I think you'll find more inspiration and more desire to cook and consume in ways that will feel good about.

Abby.

What do you think?

I love that so much.

I mean, I there's a myriad of factors to why the instinct is to order DoorDash, where you feel too fatigued to cook with your partner, cook for yourself, and, you know, everyone works two weight differently.

The weight of the world.

But I think that there's so much joy to be had in cooking, even if you don't want to be the one cooking for yourself, cooking for someone else who is in need, you know, building those relationships, like Chris was saying with your farmers, is.

What could be better for the community?

So it is kind of funny that all of this softness is tied into the sexiness of cooking.

But I think it's it's important getting back to the roots in it, the whys of it, until you find the joy.

And Chris, before we let you go, tell people what you are up to now and what might be or what is coming next for you.

Yeah, we're we're really excited to start, work in Progress 3.0 this summer.

We finally have a permanent location on the east side of Seneca Lake that we're renovating into the restaurant, which will be open in spring of 27.

And, this summer we're going to invite people out to the property and do a little, sort of garden series on the weekends.

In the process of building, an outdoor grill and some, like, picnic tables and lanterns and stuff.

And we're just going to do a really simple countryside farmhouse supper, on the weekends.

So if, people want to follow along, our Instagram and our mailing lists are going to be the places to get updates on that.

Chris Collin, thanks for joining us.

Let's talk again for at length.

In the future, we can sit down together.

I'd love that.

Cheers up and I appreciate it.

Great stuff.

And Abby Quatro, there is a reason that Leah just let you go wild.

Mean I get I get it.

Thank you Abby, thank you so much.

And by the way, I we've got listeners who are in food and Bev because I got hit with a couple of, texts and emails.

Right away.

People are.

No, no, the piece I was talking about, you guys come from the New York Times, New York Times cooking.

Kevin Caldwell and his husband spend $700 a week ordering in a week, and he says, I'm so burned out.

Kevin says that he and his husband are so burned out and tired, we'd rather just throw credit cards at the problem.

And the picture from the New York Times.

There's these beautiful copper pots hanging behind them, totally unused in the wall, and you're like, oh no, they could be cooking every night like guys.

But hey, I'm not going to like, police their marriage.

I'm just saying that's a concerning sign here.

We're talking sex and love.

That's the that's City magazine's issue for February.

It's out now.

And talking about some of the themes here, we got to get our only break in.

We're going to come back and we're bringing in journalist Justin Murphy, who's written piece for For city and talking with the team there, Jake Berto, Leah all here.

We'll come right back on connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Friday I'm the next connections.

Assembly member Andrea Bailey joins us in the first hour talking about the state budget and her priorities for Albany this year.

In our second hour, my colleague Brian Sharp is talking about University of Rochester and RIT seeing an accelerating drop in international student enrollment.

Juneau finally talking about police overtime and the Super Bowl Sunday.

We are talking about what we should be thinking about when it comes to the commercials.

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This is connections, I'm Evan Dawson, but how long would it take you to spend $700 a weekend or $700 on DoorDash?

You could not do it in a week.

There's no way, man, you chose the wrong person.

AD.

Absolutely.

I could I could call you by this.

You could do it by like you have like, interesting sensibilities.

Absolutely.

And I also love junk food.

So, like, I could blow through 700 bucks.

Where's that?

Also, where's that 700 bucks coming from?

Because if it's not true.

Yeah.

Challenge accepted.

That's the problem.

It's not your money.

I'm not doing that.

No, no.

No way.

No, actually.

Right.

No way.

I can do it.

That's exactly right.

Okay.

All right.

I'm.

I'm off that subject.

We'll talk about more of that another day.

There's too many other things to talk about, and I am.

I'm going to read Leah Stacey, will you intro just in Murphy's piece.

And then I'm going to read a little bit from it, because I was talking to producer Megan Mack for the I was like, oh, this is yeah, I got to talk about this.

So good.

The secret part of this assignment that didn't really pan out, that Berta and I have been trying to get in an issue for a while, because we heard a rumor that the Eastman Museum and maybe, you know, this oven, they will neither confirm nor deny.

Vaguely.

Oh, I know, tell our friend Danielle, but we've heard there's a large porn archive there.

A porn archive.

It's like, I'll see, like porn.

Like vintage porn and whatever tasteful I, I think what we're about to talk about is probably the tasteful porn.

Okay.

In quotation marks.

But we initially reached out to Eastman because of that.

And Justin is another one of my go to freelancers.

Like, I know, even if he doesn't pitch something and I have an idea that's kind of on the table, needs a good writer, I can send it to him, which is the case with this piece.

And I can say, and I know he's like, excels with history, right?

Like just so good at digging into this stuff.

And so I sent him this idea because this is what Eastman came back to us with.

So it's a little spicy than what we were hoping for, but it's still such a great story, and I had no idea these existed there.

I mean, are you disappointed in what they came back to with Berto?

Yeah, I'm not disappointed.

I'm just saying it wasn't exactly.

It was.

It was we're hoping for because we were like, oh, that'd be such a good story.

This is still a good story.

So.

Great.

Yeah.

And also, I, I didn't know these existed either.

So it was pretty wild.

Plus, you put me in the technology vault.

They had to pry me out of there.

I was there like, hey, we're here for the Milos scopes.

And I was like, I'm.

I want all these cameras.

He said.

He said, Muda scope.

The piece is called Peep Show and I'm going to read from Justin's work here.

The year is 1900.

You're a Rochester boy, old enough to ride the streetcars, and you've got a few nickels in your pocket.

Where to go?

There's the ball park on Culver Road, where the races at driving park.

You could ride up to the beach if the weather is good.

We're down to the South Avenue bathhouses.

If it isn't, or if your taste runs toward the risque, you could slink downtown to the Clinton Avenue Moving Picture parlor.

You'll know you've arrived as soon as you turn the corner and hear the mechanical banjo strumming maniacally over clanging carnival games.

Don't get distracted, though.

Press on to the real prize a long line of gleaming mudah scope machines, each one offering a few flickering seconds of delight.

They could be showing reenacted boxing matches or sensationalized scenes from the headlines.

Be honest, though, you're not here for the news.

You scan the cardboard placards for the promise of something special the corset model, a dressing room scene, two girls in a hammock.

The way French bathing girls bathe.

There's something to dream on.

You drop your penny into the slot, mash your eye against the lens and turn the crank until the the real world chop into motion a shapely bare ankle, white skin gleaming rackets into focus.

Before you know it, 60 seconds have passed and the machine shudders to a stop.

You dig another coin from your pocket and plunk it in.

Ain't life grand?

I mean, if that's what he turned in, I'm going to ask you a second.

You don't.

You don't even need an editor.

He turned that in, like without it.

No.

Justin's work is lightly edited out.

It's like I'm like, finding AP style stuff.

But no, he's he's got a he's got a whole vibe.

We love it.

Justin, you should write about history.

That's like a thing other than you are.

You read it in a little bit more of a lecherous tone of voice.

Oh, I'm sorry it wasn't your.

It wasn't wholesome enough for you up and.

So, take me just through a little bit of how much you knew about this before the assignment, Justin.

And and if the answer is nothing or next to nothing, where do you go to learn this stuff?

Oh, I didn't know.

You mean about the school.

Yeah.

You know anything?

All.

I didn't know anything about the media scope.

Like Trudeau said, it was awesome going down there.

They have all the like a the old camera or whatever that you could think of.

But they had they call it an iron horse, this big microscope machine.

It's basically just a mechanized flipbook.

And, you know, you put your, your nickel in and what's in between you and the eyepiece is nobody else's business.

And it was it was awesome.

They're great.

When did the media scopes go away?

Do we know that Justin.

Yeah.

Well, so they I mean, they had an initial extremely short life as, like, the actual cutting edge of motion picture technology.

It may be like the 1890s.

And obviously they were, like, immediately eclipsed.

But because they were, I think, fairly easy to produce the reels because it's not like a children reel.

It's just a series of still images that flip through.

And because of like the nature of the machine, which is individualized and the like, looking at it through a lens, it it lends itself perfectly to this kind of, I mean, like a peep show, like a carnival sideshow thing where you could have an arcade or you could have a boardwalk or like whatever, kind of like tawdry, fun situation.

And it's a perfect fit for that.

And so I think through the, 30s and maybe even into the 40s, they were like, fairly common in those settings.

Yeah.

This kind of, for me, is such an interesting way to think about how life has changed, you know?

So, Berto, I'm.

I'm looking at some of the images and thinking about this, and, and then I'm reading the, again the piece in city with therapist Lenny, a kind of meta who talks about how a lot of people struggle with sex these days because porn is so ubiquitous, it's so easy to find, and people get sort of these stilted views on like what sex and relationships are supposed to be.

But boy, 1900, that was not.

That is a totally different world.

Kids are grown up today.

They have no idea how different things were.

What did you see there?

I mean, like you do you enjoy this is Simon.

Like, was it still fun?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Mainly because, I mean, you're you're entering like, and through history.

I mean, there's just so, I mean, yeah, you're photographing history, but you're also walking by so much as well.

So you just are like, reminded, like how much of a, a gem the gem is.

And like, honestly this like experience seeing, you know, a snapshot in time literally of like, you know, hey this we were shown some examples, which are too fragile to be shown.

And they kind of progressively got too fragile, too fragile, too risque.

No.

More like physically like physically fresh, physically fresh.

So like, they have, like the one that Justin's looking at here is, it's meant for, like, demonstration, but, like the real that's in there.

But the other ones, they're being preserved.

And in the process of being, essentially archived, like digitally, so more people can eventually experience them.

But to see the progression of it's the riskiness, right?

Like, it's, you know, it starts pretty.

I mean, they're all PGA tour PGA.

It's all team.

Yeah.

But like it's funny to see like what what they consider like as it starts to evolve by decade or year whatever.

It's like you know this one.

It's just women in a changing room and they're all pretty much I mean they're all clothed, but like they're just in the change room.

So it's like, oh, at that time, this was kind of, you know, no one's in there.

So this is so wild.

But then it's like the next one.

It's practically the same thing, but it's like maybe a little bit more ankle.

Right.

Like things get a little, little spicier and it's like it's just funny to see what was considered, kind of out of pocket at the time.

Yeah.

Justin was it was it considered like, bad public etiquette to be one of the people who went to these peep shows or were they pretty common?

I don't think they were.

They weren't common.

Like there's one on every street corner there was.

I could only find, an example of one motion picture parlor in Rochester that advertised having these things.

But, I mean, they were common enough that this company, the American Municipal Company, or whatever it was called, put out like hundreds and hundreds of reels.

And, you know, like they didn't last very long, just like what I said, they're kind of physically fragile.

So they had to, like they produc Was it a little seedy to be the one, going up to the French bathing girls near the scope?

I mean, yeah, it's got to be.

It would be, you know.

Right.

Yeah.

I she but probably the smart move would have undertake the like news clip card and put it on the French bathing girl's card and like, cover your tracks and then just stay there all day.

You just assume anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

By the way, there was there was nothing that people were seeing in these mirror scopes that looked like chaperoned at the Grammys.

I'm just going to make it up to the chat, to the whole back.

That's a whole bag.

A lot more than that all together.

Yeah.

What?

I saw their ankles there.

A lot of your ankles.

Right.

And like, you know, woman behind, some something.

I don't know what it was, but like, a changing screen, sort of.

Yeah.

It's like you're seeing an arm and and maybe a little bit of leg and things were in it got spicy.

Well, just.

And this is the last thing I ever thought we'd be talking about in connection with you.

But this was a lot of fun, man.

Thank you.

Foreign.

Thank you very much.

Yep.

All right, so you guys Justin Murphy I mean that that is a great piece of writing.

Oh absolutely a great piece.

Yeah.

No I I'm so happy with this issue.

I think people really everyone took their assignment and just like had fun slash like took it seriously.

You know, it's like a lighter topic.

It was like, yeah, let's dig in.

Let's and you know what?

We could use that right now.

Yeah, 100%.

Hey, let me grab a before we get to our next guest, Barbara.

And Brian wants to jump in on this on the phone.

Hi, Barbara.

Go ahead.

Hi, there.

I just thought you'd get a kick out of knowing that my grandparents were, vaudevillian folks, and they toured all over the country and all over Europe.

Many things.

Their most famous, dance was called The Vampire.

And it's in, it's in, it's featured in a half hour silent film at the Eastman collection.

And, she was, arrested for wearing, diaphanous costumes in 1913.

So that was quite a long way after.

And they were still having fits.

So I just thought you'd get a kick out of that.

Hold on.

Barbara, who at the table can can, can place the word diaphanous.

All right.

You're not.

Me neither.

All right, Barbara, you're going to have to just explain.

Diaphanous.

Well, I just means, practically seen through, you know?

Okay.

Yeah.

And, you know, she she's the the, vampire that comes out of the woods in this dance, and he's marching around, and he ends up upside down and backwards on the on the rock when she's biting his neck.

And, I mean, it goes on, but, it's it's just a wonderful example of, you know, the Comstock laws, if you can believe it, which, were used to to arrest her.

And, the judge said, don't be ridiculous and release them immediately.

But that's what's going to good judge Barbara.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Barbara, I listeners don't know.

That's like one of our great historians locally.

And that's such a good story.

I mean, 1913, I wasn't even born yet.

I mean, that's wild.

Yeah.

I don't think any of us were in space right now.

I wasn't sure.

And thank you.

You guys aware of what year it is?

Thank you.

Berto.

Yeah.

It's like 1958.

Right?

It feels that way.

Okay.

All right, let's just pretend like this going really well.

We're going to go to the next guest.

No.

I mentioned earlier that, that I love this headline and list.

Stacy, this was yours here.

So it's staying abreast of the law.

Matt Rogers is going to be joining us here.

Tell me a little bit about, this assignment before we talked to Matt.

This was Matt's pitch.

You know, he with the Law Borough, which is his excellent blog.

And he does fringe shows about local history.

He digs into these topics quite frequently, and I always love when I see a pitch from in my in my call.

So, by the way, Matt's illustration for the piece would also be way too risque for the media scope, but here we are.

Way to Matt Rogers.

Welcome.

How's it going?

Yeah, thank you very much for having me.

So you pitch this story, what do you want readers to understand about how we can keep abreast of the law here?

It was, a unique, call for pitches.

When I saw the theme for this month's edition, I thought, okay, I might be able to tie this into a local history.

And that's what I always look to do.

And I thought, well, this is kind of a unique opportunity to, you know, talking about love and sex.

And, you know, we're not San Francisco.

Summer of love didn't happen here.

We're not Indiana, we're the Kinsey Institute and, Alfred Kinsey.

But we do have a part to play in this kind of conversation and a unique event that happened here in Rochester that allows for New York State to legally protect those who choose to go topless, regardless of what gender you are.

Okay.

So, you take through a little bit of the history here and there's different organ, there's different sort of advocacy groups here.

But is there any sort of central idea, is it that we are two prude about the human body?

Is it that we overly sexualize women when, you know, as you write in the piece, press service, obviously an important function for raising children for nutrition.

I mean, like, is there a central theme that typically comes along with this kind of advocacy?

It was just, you know, kind of establishing the role of breasts.

I know this is, you know, there's ironies upon ironies here from a cisgender guy that started a business printing a t shirt.

Pretty idea that people shouldn't wear them, but, it's it's one of those things where you talk about love and sex and inevitably, breasts become part of that conversation.

And there's just been an almost kind of century long debate as to what role they play.

And legally speaking, a lot of times they get, you know, pun intended, lumped into, genitalia, where biologically they certainly don't serve a purpose in reproduction.

They don't serve a purpose in creating a human.

Yet there's still a kind of public sensibilities, perceptions and historical context that kind of muddy the waters on what role they play.

I mean, there's been cultures in societies where it's been grievously taboo to show your chest versus it being completely practical and commonplace.

So it's just kind of this, you know, wanted to establish a premise on what, we can you know, what I'm arguing and defending and what breasts are and what role they serve.

And that here in Rochester, there was a very similar debate.

And, a few activists, they were known as the top three seven, Mary Lou Schloss and Ramona Santarelli were kind of the leaders of that group.

But there was, you know, the advocacy group you mentioned there was Klaw, which was challenging, challenging laws against women, which eventually, turned into the top three coalition that involved other groups.

And in 1986, they held a kind of a civil disobedience act in Capsule Park.

And then, they were arrested, which they intended for.

And it led to a trial.

And, you know, I go on, talk about, you know, how they were acquitted, but not for the reason they wanted to, because they were trying to, go for a different constitutional amendment instead of the first one.

And then a couple of years of other, acts where, you know, they held a larger picnic in Genesee Valley Park.

They did a couple, walks, one in Seneca Falls.

And then in 1982, there was that kind of landmark court, case decision.

So just wanted to share a little bit of kind of unique history of, in a unique, way in a unique issue, what we need to, Leah Stacey is just more guys talking about this issue.

Yeah.

I was actually thinking of.

Yeah.

Is there anything you want to add into the interview portion?

So, to help us out a little bit here?

No, I mean, I think that again, everybody who was part of this issue, who worked on it, regardless of their gender or pronouns, just I, I'm so happy with all the work that they did on this issue because it has been I mean, the I have to tell you, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive on this issue.

And this was when I was like, okay, like some people might have mixed feelings about this, but, even right before I came into the studio, got a really nice note from someone I've never met, a reader who was raving about Abby story.

And, I just, I think it's I, it's an issue that I'm very happy with.

I also really like the nuance of the cover.

Shout out to Jake for that.

Yeah.

Jake.

Hello?

It's my turn.

You guys just pass the ball to you.

I don't have much to say.

No.

Just kidding.

Thank you.

Should we talk about the cover art a little bit?

Well, let me say goodbye to Matt, and I'll just say, oh, my God, Matt.

Oh, well, I'll say this if you're still there.

Matt.

So yeah, again, sorry.

We're all just telling stories that we never thought you'd tell on the air, but when I, when I was a 17 year old camp counselor at a YMCA camp summer camp, it was staff week.

We're putting the dock in the lake and everyone's working.

It's just working and the day ends.

It's been a lot of hard work, and I'm just up, like in the staff quarters.

And one of the Swedish exchange counselors, who's also 17, walks right past me and takes off her top when she's changing.

And I immediately was like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

I'll get out of here.

And she turns.

She goes, you are such an American, aren't you?

And I was like, whoa.

Like, yeah, that was not what I was expecting in the moment.

But she was making fun of my squeamishness or my attempt to try to be modest or.

And she said it was kind of funny.

So it was a reminder to me early on, like, culture is different in different places, man.

You know?

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

And that's what it like.

I wanted to kind of address that as well.

And one of the opinions that like that last court case where they wrote, they really talks about that perception and public sensibility is not a basis for all law.

But to reinforce Leah's point, you know, as a straight cisgender guy, it's not my I, you know, I took a very narrow path on this to provide history and a little biology, a great job, my own background.

Yeah.

Yeah, you did a great job.

And it was educational.

It's interesting.

Good work is really appreciate you popping out on the program today.

Matt.

Thanks for making time.

No, thank you for having me.

Appreciate it.

All right.

So, Jake, the cover art here, you know, you always do great covers.

Oh thank you.

But take us home here like, this is, you know, sex and love issue.

You know, it's a little tricky.

What what did you decide to do here?

First things first, I would like to shout out Matt for providing his art and working with me on that.

I had him, we went through a couple of different rounds on that, but his idea was really solid and I'm very grateful that he was able to contribute art along with the writing.

I think that's really cool when that can happen.

As far as the cover art, you know, like Leah said earlier, this is a magazine that you can kind of happened upon no matter what age you are or if you are there with kids.

So it's you don't want to put something, terribly graphic on the cover.

There's 40,000 of these, you know, around the region.

So it's it's it was a design challenge, I guess is one way to put it to communicate.

A sense of sensuality.

And I guess titillation is a word that kept coming up a lot.

And to that end, I found, you know, I used images of things that could communicate that sort of thing initially, and it was a little bit, unsettling.

And we went through a couple of rounds of this, but, it was just a big picture of skin with goosebumps and that was kind of the idea that we were moving forward with sort of the physical sensation.

That goes along with the themes covered in this issue.

And then, you know, we went through a couple of different rounds of it and, you know, you can see it all over the place.

And if you look a little closely at the the background artwork there, some of the ornaments, I tricked myself because when I picked it up, I was like, oh, my God, I forgot to put February 2026 and Sex and Love on it.

And then I remembered, oh, no, no, I hid them a little bit in there.

So there's like a touch of an Easter egg.

It's kind of obvious, you know?

But, yeah, you know, I like this one.

And I really enjoy, I tried to invoke a sense of, like, psychedelia in the in the background pattern.

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely some of that a little bit.

So a lot of great feedback.

As Leah said for this issue of City Magazine, February issues sex and Love.

It's out now.

Wherever you find your city and find it now.

Great stuff.

We didn't get through all of it, by the way.

We never do know.

So so here we are.

But they can pick it up and it'll all be online at some point.

So online where by the way Leah rock city, Macomb, rock city Macomb.

Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Jake.

Thanks, Berto.

Thanks, Evan and Stacy for for you and the whole team.

Great work here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And from all of us at connections.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for watching.

Wherever you are.

We'll find you tomorrow on member supported public media.

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