Food Stuff
Nice pairs — Morton’s in Troy will host a wine pairing class from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 10. Pairings needn’t be a mysterious science, but a fun way to explore wines, foods and individual palates. At 888 W. Big Beaver Rd., Troy; $49 per person (including tax and tip); for reservations call 248-404-9845. …
New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh)
Interestingly, JFK and B.I.G. — two American icons who died too young — both find places on Erykah Badu’s latest album, a sequel-of-sorts to her 2008 release, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War). In the music video for "Window Seat," the album’s smooth jazzed-out lead single, Badu is inspired by indie rockers (and notorious…
Prudes and squirters
Q: I’m a straight male college student in a relationship, which had been going great. The only incongruity was that, for a religious reason, I don’t want to have penetrative vaginal sex before marriage. I’m up for anything else — I would eat her out, piss on her, whatever else — but not vaginal sex.…
Please Give
Inevitably, there will be some people who view Nicole Holofcener’s Please Give as yet more neurotic upper-middle-class navel-gazing. Like Noah Baumbach, Wes Anderson and Woody Allen. But Holofcener’s films are gentler and, ultimately, more relatable, encouraging audiences to identify with rather than wince at her characters’ decisions. She trades misanthropy for humanism and snark for…
Michigan or Moroun?
Michigan’s economic future is at stake right now, in the state Senate. If you think times are bad, imagine what they’d be without the billions in trade that move across the Detroit River every year. The vast majority of it moves across the Ambassador Bridge, which was built in 1929, is wearing out, and is…
Pedaling influence
All it took for Jacinda Gant to join the ranks of cyclists was a test ride. A regular walker, she was on Detroit’s RiverWalk in early May and spotted the Wheelhouse at Rivard Park, just east of the Renaissance Center, where bikes are sold, rented and fixed. Gant, who works in the Salvation Army’s food…
Bike seat conversations
Who rides? Cyclists are all over the place. We’ve got commuters. We’ve got families. We’ve got fixed-gear riders, we’ve got racers and mountain bikes and trail riders and BMX. There are so many divisions of bicyclists. It doesn’t matter if you commute to work or you’re riding 100 miles on a bicycle tour. You should…
Metro Retro
28 years ago in Metro Times: Hugh Grady’s headline reads, "The fact that Dallas is the highest rated television program in the country probably suggests more about the state of the American psyche than any of us care to know. …" It had been two year’s since the infamous "Who Shot J.R." episode, and Grady…
Pot smoke and fears
Michigan’s medical marijuana community was abuzz with the news that a so-called "smokers club" in the Lansing suburb of Williamston Township had been raided by police last week. The Lansing State Journal reported that the club’s owner, the Rev. Frederick Wayne Dagit, had previously claimed the Green Leaf Smokers Club was a place where legal…
Digital divide
The Detroit Digital Justice Coalition will provide "interactive, multimedia workshops designed to demystify, engage and inform the community about issues of Internet use and ownership, providing the tools allowing communication to be more easily recognized as a fundamental human right." Sounds good to us. The free event will be held from 2 p.m. to 5…
Letters to the Editor
Green gratitude Kudos to Jack Lessenberry and Metro Times for again bringing us news and views not reported or buried by other newspapers — the League of Conservation report on Michigan legislators which reported that the Democrats in Lansing and Washington rated much higher than Republicans on environmental and public health issues ("Nature betrayed," May…
‘Definitely the devil!’
For most young and budding musicians, starting a band means getting away from the parents and indulging in sordid and unhealthy activities while exercising a personal artistic vision. Not so for Derek and Hillary Woodman. For that bro-and-sis team, being in a band means spending more time with their dad than most people their age…
Night and Day
FRIDAY JUNE 4 BravoBravo! OPERA CHIC Now in its 11th year, BravoBravo! delivers the stylish and swank to raise beaucoup bucks for the Michigan Opera Theatre. This year’s fête sports a fashion theme, showcasing Detroit’s most underappreciated artistic industry. Besides the see-and-be-scene cachet, the party also features entertainment from Will Sessions, Monica Blaire, Ben Sharkey,…
Salad tossers
Al-Ameer 12710 W. Warren Ave., Dearborn, 313-582-8185; 27346 Ford Rd., Dearborn Heights; 313-565-9600: This Lebanese fare isn’t Americanized factory food. Instead, Al-Ameer stays true to the Lebanese table, offering fresh bread, serving no pork or liquor, and preparing food that’s made to order, and not overwhelmed by spices and herbs. The menu can please vegetarians…
Swoons over my Hammy
Editor’s note: This is the first in an ongoing series of columns by various local "music nerd" celebs. There is a dialogue-free scene in the Woody Allen comedy Bananas, in which Allen’s nebbish browses a store’s adult magazine rack, trying desperately to be as nonchalant as possible but seeming all the more conspicuous and perverted…
Network goobs
You’ve read the major headlines about the upcoming fall TV season and, as is too often the case, you wonder if the networks are being run by a tribe of chimpanzees. NBC (Channel 4 in Detroit) cancels Law & Order one season shy of setting the all-time record for prime time longevity (the late, magnificent…
Backwash
The Royaltones Detroit Rock ‘N’ Roll Began Here! Ace (U.K. import) Distinguished by the twin tenor sax work of leader George Katsakis and Ken Anderson, the Royaltones specialized in tight, hard-driving instrumentals a la Johnny & the Hurricanes that were designed to wear the shine off teenage dance floors. Formed in 1957, the Royaltones came…
Lit up
The World Has Changed Conversations with Alice Walker Edited with an introduction by Rudolph P. Byrd The New Press, $25.95, 339 pp. Here we have an exceptionally unusual biography, if we can even call it that. A lineage of Alice Walker interviews conducted by a succession of writers from 1973 to 2006, The World Has…
Gag me on a silver spoon
The movie’s first section is devoted to an absurdly lavish wedding to show two gay supporting characters, and these merry nuptials fill the group’s ringleader Carrie (Parker) with dread about her own home life with dashing Wall Street ace “Mr. Big” (Chris Noth), who often prefers old movies and Nobu takeout on the couch over…
Reading in gear
Bicycle Diaries by David Byrne Viking Adult, $25.95, hardcover, 320 pp. He of Talking Heads fame, it turns out, packs his bicycle when he travels, and his book is part travelogue, part cycling advocacy, part David Byrne’s reflections on the world. Byrne includes Detroit in his "American Cities" chapter — Berlin, Istanbul and London are…
Prince of Persia
By the incredibly low standards of video game adaptations (Max Payne, Mortal Kombat), Prince of Persia is something of a triumph, but by the high-stakes standards of summer blockbusters, it’s a relative snooze. Way back in 1989, the original PC game — with a rotoscoped, turbaned hero vaulting over spiked pits and ducking swinging scimitars…
Greek out
When we last saw British rocker Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) in 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, he was a recovering addict dating TV actress Sarah Marshall and incessantly irritating her ex-boyfriend Peter Bretter (Jason Segel). It’s a few years later, and in the beginning of Get Him to the Greek, he’s fallen off the wagon and…
On the street
Zyggyz is a sit-down place, quite informal, where you order from a menu and a server brings your food. The best deal is the $5.95 combo plate: two items from a list of four vegetarian and three meat dishes, plus rice; add naan or paratha for $1.25. Most delicious, though, is samosa chaat: cut-up samosas…
Cheat Code
Samurai Showdown: Sen SNK Playmore Xbox 360 In the ’90s, when most households had either a Super Nintendo or a Sega Genesis, living rooms of renegade gamers had the Neo Geo game system. Sure, the thing cost a ridiculous $600, but you got the ability to play the best fighting game series this side of…
Hooray for Hollywood …
Authenticity when it comes to art is less about veracity than appearance. We appreciate John Fogerty’s take on the bayou even though he grew up in decidedly un-swamp-like Berkeley, Calif., and applaud Jonathan Richman’s naifish charm despite the calculation that undoubtedly went into it. As acting is also about making pretense seem natural, the only…
MONDAY EARLY
Moritz Von Oswald Trio + Carl Craig MVO3 Francesco Tristano
MONDAY: Strings of Life
Francesco Tristano
