Space for rent
Three glasses of bubbly, brown liquid sit on the table, quietly fizzing away. But before I can examine them more closely, the lights go out. The Lizard of Fun has sneaked up behind me with a blindfold. "Okay, take a sip from each, and say which one you like best," it says, handing me the…
The Matrix
Fasten your seat belts and open your minds: Kansas is going bye-bye and Wonderland is out of joint. Forget everything you know about comic books, action thrillers, film noir, Kung Fu, horror, man-eating machines and the Internet. In fact, forget everything you know about the movies. The Matrix is here to redefine all that and…
Pitch’d
WEIRD SCENES INSIDE THE GOLD MINE In the strangest convergence of underground and mainstream since Chuck Manson met the Beach Boys, Eminem made his first Detroit appearance since releasing his now-platinum-selling Slim Shady LP at BTM Productions’ "True Masters" rave Saturday night. The scene outside – as could be expected – was a madhouse, with…
10 Things I Hate About You
With movies, sometimes timing is everything, and since there has been no shortage of high school romantic comedies of late, 10 Things I Hate About You comes out of the gate as an also-ran. That’s too bad because, for once, the source material isn’t other teen flicks, but William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.…
Vietnam: the sequel
"What kind of odds could I have gotten?" he wondered mournfully, frayed pockets turned inside out in the cold rain. What if I had offered to bet someone in February we would be at war with Yugoslavia before April? Now, of course, it is clear this is what the people really wanted. Think way, way,…
A Walk on the Moon
The year is 1969 and the Apollo mission is on its way to the moon. On the one hand, we have the Vietnam War, the protests, life outside the establishment, and Woodstock – the happy habitat of hedonistic hippies. On the other hand, just a few miles away, there’s business as usual for the Jewish…
Food Stuff
Sassy and saucy tidbits and news about food, with attitude.
Carla’s Song
Director Ken Loach’s films used to be few and far between and rarely seen outside of Britain, but he’s become positively prolific during the past decade, beginning with his three-films-in-three-years set of Northern working-class strife – Riff-Raff (1992), Raining Stones (1993) and Ladybird, Ladybird (1994). These were naturalistic depictions of hand-to-mouth existence told with grit…
Finding the Force
I am not looking forward to this summer. Not one bit. We’ll see the release of the long awaited – but not by me – Star Wars prequel. The nerds will take over the multiplexes and those of us in search of air conditioning will have to contend with hordes of former camera club aficionados…
Wolfophile Blues
According to the liner notes, Tail Dragger got his name from Howlin’ Wolf, who would always comment on the man’s inability to get to a gig on time: "Here he come, draggin’ his tail," Wolf would say. The Wolf is long gone, but Tail Dragger is still running late on his gigs. That’s not the…
It’s a microbe’s life
Something’s changed in America, some definite shift in the air. I first noticed it recently when, barely off the plane from Paris at LAX, a friend took me aside and gave me a tiny bottle of Purell Instant Hand Sanitizer. "Best thing since sliced bread," she gushed. The packet promised to "kill 99.9 percent of…
Quircky Pop
From opening for Sonic Youth and Pavement in his days with his former band, Noise Addict, to Breathing Tornados, the follow-up to his critically acclaimed 1997 solo debut, Something to Remember Me By, it’s clear that Ben Lee is well along the road to strengthening his enviably complex, acoustically driven songwriting skills. In fact, he…
All fall down
When it comes to tearing down crack houses and fighting blight, many of her neighbors count on Loretta Hudson to lead the way. She has spent the last five years helping to clean up Brightmoor, one of Detroit’s most deteriorated neighborhoods. But when it comes to understanding how the collapse of a megamortgage corporation will…
What? No Sitars?
Back in the days before the funding of arts research had to pass a Jesse Helms test, Alan Lomax was touring the globe documenting and archiving the folk art music of vanishing traditions. In 1962, Lomax’s travels brought him to the Caribbean where he went island hopping in the Lesser Antilles with his tape recorders,…
Kosovo: No easy answers
Near midnight March 24, after 20 straight hours absorbing television, radio and Internet news about Kosovo and the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, I collapsed on the rug with CNN flickering above my skull, waiting for the New York Times to arrive. The same five television reports had been looping since long before I opened my…
Endless Possibilities
Beth Orton is a talented young woman from England who has been making music at a breakneck pace for the last five years. Hot on the heels of her critically acclaimed American debut, Trailer Park, Orton presents us with a bittersweet collection of contemporary British folk-pop highlighting her evocative voice and a most pensive introspection.…
Union shrink-wrap?
Wayne State University grad students have accused the administration of stepping up its "attack on the rights of all university graduate employees to union representation" with a proposal they say will shrink union ranks. Graduate employees say the university’s recent proposal could leave them with fewer than 100 union members out of approximately 900 graduate…
Pickin’ Graceful Battles
It was almost 20 years ago when Hank Williams Jr. first sang, "All my rowdy friends have settled down," but he could have been referring to Steve Earle these days. Making a graceful transition from hard-rocking country to old-fashioned bluegrass, Steve Earle has hooked up with the Del McCoury Band for a traditionalist outing that…
Legal services shake-up
When Wayne County Neighborhood Legal Services lost $3.3 million in funding this year, many thought the legal needs of many of the county’s poorest residents would go unmet. Not so, says Deierdre Weir, executive director of Legal Aid and Defender Association (LADA). According to Weir, whose agency obtained the grant that had been awarded to…
Ivory Dances
Those who heard the Blue Note New Directions show at Motor last month will recognize – no doubt with a rush of blood to pleasure centers of the brain – the lineup of pianist Jason Moran’s debut disc as a leader. There’s alto sax colossus Greg (the wizard of) Osby, new jazz thinker for the…
Blazing autos
A new task force has been formed to help Detroit fire officials deal with an epidemic of automobile arsons that continues to plague the city. "Auto fires are out of control," says Detroit Arson Fire Chief Jon Bozich about the more than 5,200 automobile fires that occur in the city every year. "That’s an average…
Talking environmental justice
The issue of environmental justice will be the featured topic at a pair of upcoming events. To mark Earth Day, the Detroit Audubon Society is hosting a panel discussion on Saturday, April 10, at the U-M Dearborn School of Management. The discussion, which begins at 10 a.m., includes academics, government bureaucrats and community activists. Among…
NOT-SO-ACID RAPA
Detroit rap icon Esham — once Esham "The Unholy" — now returns to the rap game with a 22-track album for a new label, Overture, following a decade-long career on his own label, Reel-Life. Fans of Esham’s earlier works may be left scratching their heads after a listen to his new, more user-friendly sound. But,…
Life-line reading
Director Robert Altman tells his own fortune as one of America’s movie originals….
Wax emphatic
You gotta hand it to those Sponge cats, they’ve got a boatload of tenacity and a handful of hooks left in their bag to keep playing the pop-music game — even if their profile dropped a bit when their major-label train left town. For New Pop Sunday, though, Vinnie and the boys leave the John…
Cold-blooded
Sister Souljah’s debut novel takes a hard look at the hood….
Dry Cleaning
Nicole and Jean-Marie Kunstler are bourgeois in a way that only the contemporary French seem to have mastered. Their lives, their clothes, even their faces are tastefully tidy. Their young son is borderline cherubic and seemingly well-adjusted. Nicole’s live-in mother is charmingly senile and grouchy in a nonthreatening way. The couple run a dry cleaning…
Conn-man of the apocalypse
Bobby Conn entertains us with his minimalist rock opera while we wait for the end of the world….
Southern comfort
Holly Springs, Miss., is a town full of secrets, both great and small. But in Cookie’s Fortune, this isn’t seen as a good or bad thing, just a way of life. Written by Anne Rapp and directed with a laid-back grace by Robert Altman, Cookie’s Fortune falls somewhere between screwball comedy and Southern gothic. Although…
