The Salt Guide to Summer

Let's dispel two Central New York summer myths right away. First, not all life stops when students leave for break. Second, not every event that occurs during the summer centers on food — even if every major upstate city boasts its own "Taste of." Plenty of culture exists when the weather finally warms in our neighborhood. Mark these seven art and music festivals on your calendar and you'll soon see what we mean.

Rod Serling Video Festival
June 3, Binghamton (Directions)
Free

The most famous SciFi television host of all time happens to hail from Central New York, and today the Twilight Zone's unearthly legacy lives

on in his namesake festival. The Rod Serling Video Festival screens short films in Binghampton High School's newly renovated theater. The films, produced by high school students from across New York State, are often eerie and astoundingly mature. 2010's winners included a creepy Claymation short of cookies making themselves and a desaturated dream sequence set to sinister piano. Cue fade out — Serling would be proud.

6x6x2011
June 4 - July 10, Rochester (Directions)
$5 admission

Once a year, the Rochester Contemporary Art Center abandons its normal, carefully curated programming and covers its inside walls with

five thousand six-by-six-inch canvases. The canvases, arranged in rows of ten, fly into Rochester from all over the world, painted by a motley crew of celebrities, students, and professional artists from 46 states and 22 countries. Each painting is exhibited anonymously and sells for $20, with proceeds to benefit the small, independent gallery. The best part: notables like video artist Bill Viola and photographer Carl Chiarenza contributed work in the past, so with a good eye, you could easily bag a masterpiece for less than the cost of admission at a larger art museum.

Rochester Jazz Festival
June 10 - 18, Rochester (Directions)
Tickets range from $35 to $125

While Syracuse's jazz festival tends

to grab headlining acts a tad past their prime, Rochester consistently books major jazz headliners with current appeal. Case in point: Twelve-time Grammy award winner Béla Fleck and new-wave legend Elvis Costello lead the 2011 bill.

Tickets for the shows run a little steep — the cheapest Costello ticket costs $71 — but they take place in the Eastman School of Music's 89-year-old arabesque theater. Smaller acts play in hotels, churches, and ballrooms around Gibbs Street, which shuts closes to traffic during the week-long festival. "It's a European style of being able to walk from one venue to another," says Jean Dalmath, one of the festival's press officials. "That creates an added ambiance."

Camp Bisco
July 7 - 9, Mariaville (Directions)
$160 for a three-day pass

Camp Bisco takes over where Woodstock and All Tomorrow's Parties left off, descending on the sleepy upstate town of Mariaville for three days of muddy and decidedly addled chaos. This summer marks the festival's tenth year, and its fifth at the Indian Country Lookout Club, a 200-acre campsite otherwise reserved "exclusively for bikers."Organizers will celebrate with a killer dance and electronic line-up: Billboard-charters Cut Copy and Wiz Khalifa, weird-pop mainstay Yeasayer, and the newly reunited Death From Above 1979 all make appearances. Admittedly, The Disco Biscuits curate the event and give

themselves prime billing — but if you go for them, you missed the point. The most basic three-day pass costs $160; camping in the ICLC parking lot is free.

Corn Hill Arts Festival
July 9 - 10, Rochester (Directions)
Free

The Corn Hill Arts Festival celebrates its forty-third year this July, making it one of the oldest art festivals in the region. Held in Rochester's historic Corn Hill neighborhood, the event draws more than 300 artists and 200,000 visitors to roam the manicured lawns and wide, shady streets.

You'll find everything from textile work to graphics, jewelry to sculpture. But the festival's biggest attraction remains its sense of community.

"My family has lived in this neighborhood since 1895," says Elizabeth Holley of the Corn Hill Neighbors Association. "The festival helped to bring people together as neighbors and friends." That dedication might explain why Sunshine Artist, an arts and crafts trade magazine, named Corn Hill one of the country's top 200 art festivals in 2009.

Finger Lakes Grass Roots Festival
July 21 - 24, Trumansburg (Directions)
$95 until July 13

You may not recognize Trumansburg (it's near Ithaca), but you will recognize some of the names playing this hippy-friendly four-day event. Funk legends Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings rocked the main stage

in 2009; The Avett Brothers, The Black Seeds and other favorites of the NPR World Café crowd also trekked out to the Finger Lakes over the past few years. Organizers manage to squeeze an impossible range of subgenres on the festival's four stages: gospel, zydeco, Native American, zippy bluegrass played by tattooed guys with washboards and fiddles. With all that genre variation, it's possible all the acts won't appeal to you. Keep in mind that plenty of nearby wineries can tide you over until the evening headliners.

Syracuse Arts Week
July 29 - 31, Syracuse (Directions)
Free

By the time July 29 rolls around, many upstate cities have already hosted

their summer art festivals — forcing Syracuse to differentiate itself with a slate of zany programming. In years past, the city's annual arts week included a flash mob in Columbus Circle, where 50 bemused participants danced a congo line behind a man in a cow costume. For the squares among you, Arts Week also offers more conventional fare: 150 artists from 30 states converge downtown to sell work from sketches to stoneware, while others crowd Montgomery Street for the festival's 20-year-old sidewalk chalk contest. Local organizations like Th3 and 40 Below host downtown events during arts week, as well.