We win! (Ashcroft loses)
An online exclusive: On April 3, Judge Nancy Edmunds ruled that it’s unconstitutional for Rabih Haddad’s deportation hearings to be held in secret.
Letters to the Editor
A sister’s thanks I am one of Cranford Nix’s sisters. I read your column in Metro Times ("Too late to die young," Metro Times, March 27-April 2) and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you honesty. We all loved our brother more than we can say, but his life of drug…
Soul search
Day jobs, Betty Carter & the resurrection of free-jazz drummer Gerald Cleaver, who’s constantly on the lookout for new musical dimensions.
Hot house
Here’s a lift beyond the same old changes: “Reel Jazz,” a Sunday film series (7 p.m.) at Ann Arbor’s Bird of Paradise, presents great and unusual flicks (often one and the same) foregrounding the music we can’t ever get enough of. Jazz onscreen hasn’t always fared well, particularly in Hollywood productions, but the folks at…
Hello, good-bye
The next two weekends offer two unique chances to catch Detroiter Russ Forster’s inspired documentary work in two very different environments.
Abandoned Shelter of the Week
This sorry excuse for low-income housing has been the bane of Hubbard Farms neighbors for decades. Allan Barnes, who lives nearby on Porter Street, said residents in the historical area boarded up the building at 1420 Vinewood in 1991 to prevent ongoing illicit activity. Some, including Barnes, wanted to buy and rehab the structure, but…
Got art?
Up-and-coming art curator Aaron Timlin looks long and hard at the DIA’s modern collection.
Growing pains
This newly opened hot spot features top-of-the-line steaks, tableside preparation, and an upscale retro-lounge atmosphere. Best bets include the restaurant’s namesake salad (with goat cheese, pine nuts and caramelized onions), melt-in-your-mouth crab cakes, cheesy roast chicken roulade, and a deliciously sizzling bananas Foster.
April 3-9, 2002
4 THU • MUSIC The Detroit Symphony “April in Paris” While Detroit’s bipolar spring has its ineffable charms, French conductor Emmanuel Villaume and his compatriot, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (pictured) are more in the mind-set of the classic Harburg and Duke strain: “April in Paris, this is a feeling that no one ever can reprise.” Under…
You paying?
Dryly written, filled with charts and graphs and copiously annotated, A Museum on the Verge: A Socioeconomic History of the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1882-2000, by Wayne State University associate professor Jeffrey Abt could be the cure for insomnia. It is also one of the most astute studies on culture in Detroit in years. Although…
Stage left, indeed
The Kids in the Hall are once again touring as a unit — so where have these Kids been if not in the hallowed Hall of Canadian comic genius?
Fever
Only when she’s dancing can she feel this free: Since her 1988 remake of “The Locomotion,” Kylie Minogue’s played pop’s harlot, starlet and girl-next-door, but it wasn’t until her self-reinvention as Eurodisco’s retro-futuristic dancing queen on 2000’s Light Years that the diva from Down Under truly came into her own. A Hi-NRG blast of invigoratingly…
Choreless
Indie guru Howe Gelb and the coin logistics of Giant Sand….
Steal Your Soul and Dare Your Spirit to Move
You just cannot have the Soledad Brothers’ music playing in the background as auditory wallpaper. The band won’t let you. I know what you’re thinking: Hey, it’s blues, the slide guitar’s nice and atmospheric, there’s a beat to be kept and they keep it — let’s just pop it in and forget about it. See,…
The myth of Carl Levin
He voted with Thurmond and Lott, not Kennedy and Clinton. Perhaps it’s time to expose the myth of Levin’s liberal-friendly record, and think about a more environmentally friendly candidate.
All Tomorrow’s Parties 1.1
Filled with song “exclusives” from 12 performing artists at the recent “All Tomorrow’s Parties” experimental music festival in Los Angeles, All Tomorrow’s Parties 1.1 is a snapshot of Sonic Youth’s curatorial choices. There’s noise rock (Dead C, Boredoms), singer-songwriter fare (Cat Power, Papa M), plain sonic nastiness (Satans Tornade) and hip hop (Cannibal Ox). This…
Vanity flair
The Greatest Living American Writer, Neil Pollack goes on tour to remind us how great he really is.
The eyes have it
John Sayles was an independent filmmaker before independent films were cool and he remains one even now, when they — at least as a concept — have gone stale. Driven to take control by a desire to maintain his personal vision, he’s become a cinematic artist despite his best intentions — at the Detroit Film…
A race fantasia
Californians may soon take a giant step into another fantasy world where talk of race and racism has been banished to the land of Nevermore.
Independent Visions: Guy Maddin
Canadian director Guy Maddin has taken the rudimentary personality traits of early movies and pumped them up with operatic drama, homoeroticism, fetishes, bondage, necrophilia, children’s-book imagery and a strange humor. He’s in a league of his own that clutches to its smoldering bosom a love of all things backward — at the Detroit Film Theatre.
Ding dong, the bitch is dead
Roughly rendered genitalia and real, live boobies at DIRTier, Detroit’s best (and nastiest) annual “art” show … & A look back at what it all means, in this last Loose Lips column to appear in Metro Times.
Pornstar: The Legend of Ron Jeremy
In spite of its subject — a ridiculously unlikely pornstar and his comic adventures in and out of the sex industry — this is the real thing: an actual documentary on an ironic, minor American hero, B-list celebrity and pop-culture icon.
No can flow
Canadian sewage-dumper finally sued by ill and angry residents….
Panic Room
David Fincher is arguably the most accomplished director of contemporary thrillers, and Panic Room, like his previous work, is a deep and ironic neo-film noir. Though "panic" may be too strong a word, at the very least it’ll fill your local cineplex with thrills — with Jodie Foster and Forest Whitaker.
Party poopers
Kwame, his new press secretary and all their party guests quieted by our pertinent and persistent questions….
Death to Smoochy
Comedy is a slippery beast that when held in inappropriate hands can turn into a monster capable of killing up to two hours of your time: a case in point, Danny DeVito’s directorial debacle — a long dreary ride with Edward Norton and Robin Williams.
What’s up down there?
Q: I am 29 years old. Although we have enjoyed a pleasurable sex life for the last six years, my wife has never been able to achieve an orgasm. Recently, after a viewing of The Vagina Monologues, I mentioned to my wife that she should become more familiar with looking at and touching her vagina…
Fighting for air
Join the coalition to close down Detroit’s trash incinerator…..
Free Will Astrology
ARIES (March 21-April 19): I’m thankful that 2002 is turning out to be the year of your homecoming. Many of you have the blueprints for your dream home or are well on your way to creating a rich new sense of community. Virtually all of you have deepened your understanding of what your mission is.…
Southwest hell row
This sorry excuse for low-income housing has been the bane of Hubbard Farms neighbors for decades. Allan Barnes, who lives nearby on Porter Street, said residents in the historical area boarded up the building at 1420 Vinewood in 1991 to prevent ongoing illicit activity. Some, including Barnes, wanted to buy and rehab the structure, but…
Four on the floor
The proper way to walk past a writhing orgy … How best to deal with a mate who doesn’t want to be touched … What to say to “friends” who criticize your sexual preferences … & A few more juicy reader fantasies.
Buyer’s remorse
A longtime and loyal employee, Kathy Paul helped Kmart fight corruption within the ranks. And her life has never been the same.
