Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): For eons, the command post in your psyche has been harassed by a pretender to the throne, aka the teenage egomaniac from the prettiest part of hell. This poor thing, who in some ways is a naive savage and in other ways an overcivilized brat, lusts for power — but doesn’t…
Pixel chronicles
The Pixelvision was a toy video camera which democratized filmmaking and then went “poof!”
Scary interview
With their latest Scary Movie about to be released, Marlon and Shawn Wayans give up the word on geysers, extreme comedy and the rest of their funny family.
The big stink
More milk means more manure and other dairy farm waste — and a threat to a way of life for family farmers and their neighbors in rural Michigan.
Maple leaf rag
Three short-story writers explore the lonely heart of Canadian lit…
Maple leaf rag
American readers are a selfish group. In a kind of cultural colonialism, we claim the literary territory of others for our own. Anyone writing in English–whether European or North American–is swept into the U.S. canon once he or she hits the best-seller lists. This is especially true of Canadian writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael…
Maple leaf rag
American readers are a selfish group. In a kind of cultural colonialism, we claim the literary territory of others for our own. Anyone writing in English–whether European or North American–is swept into the U.S. canon once he or she hits the best-seller lists. This is especially true of Canadian writers such as Margaret Atwood, Michael…
It’s in his kiss
Q: My boyfriend likes to kiss with the tip of the tongue. I simply don’t know how to do it or how to enjoy it. Any hints for me? A: No hints, just ask him straight out, in the same way you need to ask him to show you exactly what he likes. After you…
Dutch lessons
Why Dutch dairy famers emigrate to the Midwest…
Meaty melodies
Burgers, barbecues and other fleshy subjects….
Letters to the Editor
Out of focus I have some comments for the judges of the 2001 photo contest ("Captured by light," MT, June 6-12). I’m a little disappointed in the black and white category. The top two placing photos are not very impressive at all. It seems that the judges are grasping for some deep artistic sentiment in…
Hog hell
How Michigan hog farms raise their own set of problems….
Breaking up is hard to do
Time magazine tells you how the world will end. Unfortunately, there’s still plenty of time to do some yard work, ruin your credit rating, grow old, wither and die.
Game joy
It looks like the best year ever for electronic gaming, as the exclusive Electronic Entertainment Expo serves up future gear of all chips, bits and other assorted sizes.
Please dare call it treason
Do your patriotic duty and spend this Fourth of July reading Vincent Bugliosi’s very important little paperback about the criminal outcome of last year’s election.
Metro Galleryscope: Summer 2001
In Windsor and Ann Arbor, downtown Detroit and the Cultural Center, four photography shows offer up existence in living black and white.
Grudge report
Democrats rally loud and hard for election reform….
Bosco for humanity
A much-needed cosmopolitan lounge is added to metro Detroit’s bar scene … Dennis Archer and other U.S. mayors stage a hard-hat photo op … & a day at Comerica Park proves fun for all (if you can avoid getting a ticket).
Adult. reaches maturity
Adult. comes of age, with a commanding, packed-house performance at the Magic Stick … & Sharif initiates regular weekly electro-events at the detroit contemporary.
Hoping for justice
Police shooting case settled, but the facts about Billy Gissendanner’s death remain unexamined….
Fair and cloudy
Court allows contested fairgrounds deal to go through despite pending lawsuit….
Minergy mind-blower
Protesters of all types shout out against solid waste incinerator….
Drill bit
Scientists dare Detroit automakers to come up with energy-saving vehicles….
Harmonica Shah Blues Band
Harmonica Shah has been a fixture on the Detroit blues circuit for at least 20 years and has been featured on a number of recordings with other local blues artists such as Hastings Street Grease. Shaw currently works and tours with local guitarist Howard Glazer with whom he made the very successful CD recording Deep…
Heart smart
The opening riffs of Kabuki snarl like a freshly formed band fighting in a garage over whether they want to sound like Kitty or Sleater-Kinney. Somewhere midargument, all goes awry and something intriguing emerges, more along the lines of Frank Zappa’s band meets Veruca Salt. Sure, groups that set out with a clear vision might…
Shock value
Personal rule No. 3: Keep an open mind. This is not a review of how Devil’s Night will affect children. It’s a review of how this thing sounds. How well is it put together? Curse me for having a conscience. Personal rule No. 2: Suspend your allegiances and be honest. Any Detroit MC who remembers…
Ambient workouts
At a party almost three years ago, a fellow electrophile introduced himself to yours truly midmix as I struggled to beatmatch for maybe 15 people (it was a small party… stop laughing). Mike Dykehouse humbly slurred on about how he might be making a “bedroom listening” record for Mike Paradinas’ (aka mü-Ziq) label and how…
Rainy reflections
To say that the Cowboy Junkies’ new record, Open, washes over you is a bit of an understatement. It’s more of a riptide, really. If you let yourself get pulled in, you’re underwater till they’re good and ready to let you up. The Timmins family rides the unconscious psychological current, conjuring disturbed back-basin washes of…
Haunted humor
“Does anybody ever get what they want?” Eef Barzelay asks early on in The Ghost of Fashion. But even more importantly: “What do you mean you talk about love?” For the singer-songwriter of New York’s Clem Snide, the questions are essentially the same: If we don’t know what love means, then how can we ever…
Harmonic dialogue
When we think of the radical music of the early 20th century, particularly the new harmonic thinking proposed by Arnold Schoenberg in the first decade, it seems so foreign to anything written a century earlier: the keyboard works of Franz Schubert, for example. Classical concertgoers have a tendency to think this way too, running their…
Flying solo
Jennifer Belle writes postmodern Bildungsromans for the 20-something female. Her heroines (who have the kind of childhood where therapists figure at least as prominently as family members do) take on — and are empowered by — ventures no parent or shrink would advise. Her piercing first novel, Going Down, portrayed a young New Yorker making…
Poppy plumber
Everyone’s favorite bumbling plumber collides with sugar-soaked daydreams in “Paper Mario” — but can he save Princess Peach from her kidnapped peril? As in classic literature, it is the tale of knight vs. dragon, blotted with gumdrops and bonbons. Spin it wildly around, add two dashes of Nintendo and your recipe is complete. But “Paper…
It’s a hit
Tom Stanton, a New Baltimore journalist, gets a lot done in this slim volume, which is partly a diary of Tiger Stadium’s farewell year; Stanton attended all 81 games there in 1999. It’s also a memoir, tracing four generations of his family, separated by time, geography and emotion but tied together, however faintly, by the…
It’s a hit
Tom Stanton, a New Baltimore journalist, gets a lot done in this slim volume, which is partly a diary of Tiger Stadium’s farewell year; Stanton attended all 81 games there in 1999. It’s also a memoir, tracing four generations of his family, separated by time, geography and emotion but tied together, however faintly, by the…
A.I., come home
Despite its title there’s very little about artificial intelligence in Steven Spielberg’s new fairy tale in sci-fi drag, and quite a bit about artificial emotion. Spielberg smoothes out and polishes the cynicism and harsh edge of this story, so that the film fairly glows with the innocence of the Pinocchio figure at its heart (Haley…
Himalaya
The main point of interest of this fictional film, set in the same milieu as the recent documentary The Saltmen of Tibet and directed by National Geographic photographer Eric Valli, is its wide-screen travelogue beauty and its depiction of an isolated group of Tibetans who toil among the breathtaking mountainous vistas at the roof the…
Pootie Tang
Faster than the cracking whip of his daddy’s belt. Stronger than the funk of his nemesis Dirty Dee (Reg E. Cathey, Tank Girl). Able to leap beyond logic in a single word of gibberish unbounded. Look up on the screen: It’s a pimp. It’s a pop star. It’s … Pootie Tang ? Born in the…
